Sometimes Love takes work
Dec. 30th, 2011 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsI felt like writing here today, and was struck with a little curiosity/meme sort of thing for fellow fan-authors, so if you'd like to play...
Tell me about or post about a character who didn't really grab you in the canon --- maybe you liked them but without passion, or maybe you even disliked them --- but whom you then fell in love with in the process of writing them or inventing their role in your fanfic.
I don't know if it's a universal experience, but it struck me as an interesting thing...
The time that springs to mind for me recently is Carr Benedict from Allison & Lillia. In the canon, I thought he was kind of cool, but he was mostly just there, and there were problematic aspects to him with the womanizing and chivalry and how his wife was painted as rather shrinking and dependent --- plus in the second half of the series we barely see him, and when we do, the personality he had before is obscured in mush. When I wrote Setting Fractures, though, he was the scene-stealer for me whether he is for readers or not. I was able to get inside his head and his perceptions of the people around him and especially how he thinks and acts as a father, and to draw some connection and continuity with the time when he had some sharper edges, and I really fell in love with him. He's not my favorite A&L character in terms of affection-and-investment (that would be Treize), but he might be my favorite in terms of affection-and-respect.
Tell me about or post about a character who didn't really grab you in the canon --- maybe you liked them but without passion, or maybe you even disliked them --- but whom you then fell in love with in the process of writing them or inventing their role in your fanfic.
I don't know if it's a universal experience, but it struck me as an interesting thing...
The time that springs to mind for me recently is Carr Benedict from Allison & Lillia. In the canon, I thought he was kind of cool, but he was mostly just there, and there were problematic aspects to him with the womanizing and chivalry and how his wife was painted as rather shrinking and dependent --- plus in the second half of the series we barely see him, and when we do, the personality he had before is obscured in mush. When I wrote Setting Fractures, though, he was the scene-stealer for me whether he is for readers or not. I was able to get inside his head and his perceptions of the people around him and especially how he thinks and acts as a father, and to draw some connection and continuity with the time when he had some sharper edges, and I really fell in love with him. He's not my favorite A&L character in terms of affection-and-investment (that would be Treize), but he might be my favorite in terms of affection-and-respect.
