Characters and the Soapbox

I think the most important thing that you may be misunderstand from the quote is that it refers to the work as a whole. His 'books' have morality lessons in them.

Now, with that in mind, I think it is precisely the fact that you do try and have your characters be seperate entities from yourself. If that is what you wish. For instance, Xerxes is similar to me in many of the things he believes, but he is much more arrogant and self-assured than I am. I write him that way, because I suppose after living 2400 years, you would have kinda taken that naturally. He has survived every natural disaster, every war, famine, etc etc etc. Makes the mundane in life seem pretty inconsequential.

However, I think you are trying to fight a losing battle if, for instance, you try to NOT preach morality at all. for instance, if in your drag racing example you avoid inserting your inner dialogue ergarding the streets being safe it doesn't mean that the information won't be conveyed. Writing from the 3rd-person narrative, you set up scenes and setting without using (or sometimes using) a character's perspective into the mix. By doing so, I believe, your own moral inclinations will be conveyed, if subtly. Word selection, tone, mood, sentence structure, etc all affect a reader on a less-than-fully aware level (I don't want to get into a philisophical debate re: un and sub conscioussness.) As a writer, I usually don't chose my wording, it just sort of flows. Only when trying to set certain things up do I actively write a certain way (Mafia clues are a great example of this).

/shrug, I don't know if I answered anything with all that but lets see if I can't at least be somewhat productive with this post.

So, I feel that you can make moral, deep characters that are like somewhat-like or un-like your own moral values and still convey your own morality. For instance, in the vampire thread 'Our Origins' (the history post in the Vampire Introductions forum, read it if you haven't explains the world...a lot, heh. I know I know still need to finish it up, cliffhangers rock though!) I created a character, though in a moderatly small amount of time, that has his own strict moral guidelines that are almost completely oppossed to mine. Carvon believes wholeheartedly that position, once received, elevates one man above others morally. Furthermore, he clings ot the concept of revenge, something which I abhor. But, you can tell all this from my writing, as he is obviously the antagonist and, from comments others have made to me very unlikeable.

So, I think that regardless of if your characters are making the moral statements or the tone and/or 3rd person narrator is making them, they will inevitably be made. Avoiding it I think is possible, but ENTIRELY avoiding it isn't. Writing, with most other creative forms of expression, relies too heavily on one's own perspective of the world. Intuition and Empathy rather then Logic.

As a side note, some argue that there are 'marks' of a man in things that are less creative and more literal, and although I agree, I have a hard time qualifying them (ie: programmer's coding certain ways, mathmatical 'style' and 'flare' I know some people that can look at a proof and say WHO proved it without previously knowing, just by the METHOD it was proved.)

I have to agree with Geeii, Card meant the book as a whole which means that over the course of an entire story some of your own moral values are going to sneak into the telling. This is hardly a surprise, you have only your own experiences to pull from when analizing a situation. I believe that you could try to consciously write a story that conflicts in every way with your own ethics but that it will ring false and very contrived over all. We simply identify on some level with most of our characters, or at least understand them, if they are a truly well put together character. (Which makes you wonder about the Wolf )

I know Sorin has reasons he is the way he is, his outlook was defined by his human life. I may not agree with him but I can understand how he came to be this way. Like Geeii said though, over time my writing for him would convey on some level my disapproval of his actions. You can have a character opposed to some of your own convictions and still make those known by the way in which you write the story. If not, there would never be any villains in a plot. The most believable of those are ones who's author's at least understood why this character would do the things he did. I am always happy to feel at least something for the "bad guy" it makes the story more complex in my opinion.

I'm not sure that I believe Nova is being entirely unsafe with her drag race. I would say she believes herself capable of handling any unexpected situation that might arise. It would be a matter of confidence, perhaps one that you would not share if you were in the same situation. She is more outgoing and daring than you are personally, but there is probably a wild side of Veri under the cautiousness that sneaks out through Nova's actions. Perhaps some part admires her aggressive attitude while at the same time knowing that it is not your own?

Arguing with characters is understandable. There are times you see them doing one thing and they disagree. For me I believe it is the mark of a good solid character when they can surprise me by coming up with a different solution to a situation. I've sat down to reply many times only to have the character go.."No, I'm not going to do that. Its not me." I find writing a story does not give me as many questions about my characters as roleplaying. I think this is due to the set plot line that you have in mind in a story. You aren't surprising the characters as much with your own set of events and perhaps you've had time in your head to mull over the actions as you go along. Occasionally though, I've had a few surprises even in a story fully written by just myself.

Roleplaying is unique and I find it very satisfying for the way it challenges my writing and my characters. You control only one of the people in a large sea of others and those others are going to do and say things to catch you off guard. When this happens I sometimes have to take a step back and get in touch with my character, "How do you feel about that?" and so roleplaying always has that element of discovery for me.

I would only worry about your own morality coming through your characters or the situation if it begins to compromise the character's indentity. That is one of the best constant struggles when writing for a well defined character. There is a certain satisfaction from hearing other people say, That is totally how I pictured your character behaving or the opposite, He surprised me but now that I realize it makes more sense now that I think about it from the character's point of view.

I hope I didn't derail too badly through that but there is my rambling thoughts on the matter.

Billie, you have to be willing to get out of the driver's seat and let your characters write themselves. In the case of OSC, that was precisely the vibe I got from his early and mid-career work; Ender in EG and Speaker, for example, was not an extension of LDS morality. However, in the present Shadow series, every character is. My theory is that Scott has gotten to the point that a certain ideological framework has totally taken over his mind, and it doesn't allow the creation of the sorts of conflicting ideaological subsystems that a truly great writer requires for effective characterization. As I have said to you before, you live with a character in your mind for a good while before writing anything down about him, and by the time you start to compose, if you're good at this, you split and become two people.

Or in some cases...quite a few people.

I think Thaddeus has become quite the personality and makes himself known to Veri whether she likes it or not.

I believe that no matter how hard you try some of yourself is going to show through in every character you write.. maybe not so overtly, but its still there..

Trust me it does. I could run down my list of a hundred-ish characters I have done over the years, each with such wildly different and sometimes tragic backgrounds and find some small piece of myself in there, even if it was only something as simple as a favorite food or a dislike of something. Your moral views do show through, that I know. I have a couple characters who should be far more ruthless and sadistic.. but somehow I think my own compassion ends up warping what they do.