The "being an adult" thing isn't very fun and humiliatingly, despite my age, much of it is still a WIP (your resident Draco was always a late bloomer... ). It's an uphill battle, but I'm fortunate enough to have very kind, very competent people in my life who are willing to help push me up that hill and show me where to go. Luckily for my navigators, certain traits of mine have made things that much easier for them and me, however marginal. How did I get those traits? Of all the things it could have been: fanfiction, more specifically, peoples' shitty fan characters.
Back in the day, when I was in the fanfiction circuit... well, I'm still in it, so I guess it's just back in the day. Yeah. So back in the day, I was a part of the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom. Anyone who's been in that fandom for an extended period of time is most likely familiar with the surplus of unoriginal fan characters. Now, Mary Sues are a part of any fandom, but the Sonic fandom is notorious for them. You think KH is bad? You gotta check out the crappy fan characters in Sonic. Recent peeks at the fanfiction has showed me the situation has not improved.
My hatred for Mary Sues and general distaste for fan characters can be traced back to a lengthy exposure to this fandom. I wrote my own fanfics back then, though they sucked tremendously (I have them archived and showed them to Winner's Proof--I might've made him physically unwell), but I took it as seriously as I could. I guess after enough Mary Sues--unoriginal, sappy, blatant wish fulfillment, with canon bending over backwards to accommodate them, serving no purpose but to ship with the author's favorite character in poorly-written romance that makes Twilight look semi-decent--I started to have enough. I was getting so frustrated at them that my hatred for them was actively preventing me from enjoying fanfiction. And I guess the hatred was so encompassing that I eventually just had to take a step back and figure out exactly why I hated them so much. At the very least, I could objectively know the source of my ulcers whenever I go to fanfiction.net.
So I started examining the Mary Sues and figured out they're not characters so much as golems to carry out whatever bullshit romance or "cool stuff" the author wanted to stick in. That's pretty obvious to a lot of people out there, and I unconsciously realized it as well, but consciously realizing what made Mary Sues so stupid opened a new door for me. I started realizing what not to do when writing characters, my own or otherwise.
I kept examining this and when I felt secure in my reasoning for why Mary Sues suck so badly, I realized it wasn't enough. I wanted to make a good fan character, to show those lousy authors how it's done. To that end, I realized just knowing what not to do wasn't enough. I was supposed to know what you should do. That's when I started taking my characters seriously, truly examining their personality and their motives and doing what you can to make your character interesting and hopefully un-annoying. It was a learning experience in more ways than one, because to make a compelling character that truly feels like a person, you need to actually understand how a person operates. And if I can apply that process to making a character, why can't I apply it to other characters? Even better, why can't I apply it to myself and other people?
I've come to realize writers have their own way of viewing the world, just like artists or engineers or whatever have their own ways. I've learned to scrutinize myself and other people because my line of work requires me to do it all the time, at least if I want to (pretend to) make something decent. A good writer will ask the whats and whys about the characters and the plot--how and why things come together, how the characters tick, why this way and not that why, why is this important, etc. And when you have something on the brain, of course you're gonna find it seep into your daily life.
I like to think of myself as an introverted, self-aware, sensitive person. I don't know if I actually am, but I like to think so. I have enough evidence to show it's not an impossibility. Because I've learned to question and scrutinize my characters' personality and motives, I've learned to question and scrutinize my own personality and motives. This isn't an easy thing to do because more often than not, you won't like what you see when you start doing this. But I got used to it and now I don't even realize I'm doing it. I've learned to be honest with myself because if you have to bullshit yourself, where's it gonna get you?
My self-scrutiny helped me realize my thought process, my reasoning, and especially my flaws. In spite of the harm it may have done me, at least I know what to work on. I know where my flaws are so I know what to improve, though how to improve takes outside intervention--if I knew how to do it, I would've done it by now. Being aware of my strengths, ehh... that's another WIP. But I'm getting a little better at it.
Even more positively, my self-examination formed a loop and now I apply it to my writing, which helps me, which helps my writing, etc. It doesn't just help my own writing, it helps me enjoy other peoples' work. I've become very good at finding things to like about things, Kingdom Hearts or what have you. Some people are quick to dismiss characters like Riku or Terra as imbeciles for their poor choices, but the analytic writer in me just goes, "Now wait a sec." Because dismissing a characters' actions for something as simple as stupidity is the easy way out. It means you don't have to think about why the character did what he did. It might be work for other people to think about it, but nor for me. As I said, I don't even realize I'm doing it. I'm able to give characters and the people who made them the benefit of the doubt. That there was a reason for it. And I found myself able to enjoy things far more easily than I've seen other people. It's extraordinarily difficult for me to hate characters, because I've gotten good and finding the strengths in them, understanding their motives and allowing me to see how compelling a character can be, when other people don't or can't.
Overall, I think all this has done me some good. I don't always like what I see, but understanding helps me see where I am and where I need to go. I don't bullshit myself anymore. I freely admit to myself things I may not like, but I figure they'd present themselves eventually. I used to be ignorant about herself, but I feel like I know myself. If I can understand myself, it helps me understand other people. Examining characters got me to examine and understand how other people might feel.
And to think, all this was possible because you just had to make your shitty fancharacter Shadow's long-lost twin sister.
The "being an adult" thing isn't very fun and humiliatingly, despite my age, much of it is still a WIP (your resident Draco was always a late bloomer...
). It's an uphill battle, but I'm fortunate enough to have very kind, very competent people in my life who are willing to help push me up that hill and show me where to go. Luckily for my navigators, certain traits of mine have made things that much easier for them and me, however marginal. How did I get those traits? Of all the things it could have been: fanfiction, more specifically, peoples' shitty fan characters.
Back in the day, when I was in the fanfiction circuit... well, I'm still in it, so I guess it's just back in the day. Yeah. So back in the day, I was a part of the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom. Anyone who's been in that fandom for an extended period of time is most likely familiar with the surplus of unoriginal fan characters. Now, Mary Sues are a part of any fandom, but the Sonic fandom is notorious for them. You think KH is bad? You gotta check out the crappy fan characters in Sonic. Recent peeks at the fanfiction has showed me the situation has not improved.
My hatred for Mary Sues and general distaste for fan characters can be traced back to a lengthy exposure to this fandom. I wrote my own fanfics back then, though they sucked tremendously (I have them archived and showed them to Winner's Proof--I might've made him physically unwell), but I took it as seriously as I could. I guess after enough Mary Sues--unoriginal, sappy, blatant wish fulfillment, with canon bending over backwards to accommodate them, serving no purpose but to ship with the author's favorite character in poorly-written romance that makes Twilight look semi-decent--I started to have enough. I was getting so frustrated at them that my hatred for them was actively preventing me from enjoying fanfiction. And I guess the hatred was so encompassing that I eventually just had to take a step back and figure out exactly why I hated them so much. At the very least, I could objectively know the source of my ulcers whenever I go to fanfiction.net.
So I started examining the Mary Sues and figured out they're not characters so much as golems to carry out whatever bullshit romance or "cool stuff" the author wanted to stick in. That's pretty obvious to a lot of people out there, and I unconsciously realized it as well, but consciously realizing what made Mary Sues so stupid opened a new door for me. I started realizing what not to do when writing characters, my own or otherwise.
I kept examining this and when I felt secure in my reasoning for why Mary Sues suck so badly, I realized it wasn't enough. I wanted to make a good fan character, to show those lousy authors how it's done. To that end, I realized just knowing what not to do wasn't enough. I was supposed to know what you should do. That's when I started taking my characters seriously, truly examining their personality and their motives and doing what you can to make your character interesting and hopefully un-annoying. It was a learning experience in more ways than one, because to make a compelling character that truly feels like a person, you need to actually understand how a person operates. And if I can apply that process to making a character, why can't I apply it to other characters? Even better, why can't I apply it to myself and other people?
I've come to realize writers have their own way of viewing the world, just like artists or engineers or whatever have their own ways. I've learned to scrutinize myself and other people because my line of work requires me to do it all the time, at least if I want to (pretend to) make something decent. A good writer will ask the whats and whys about the characters and the plot--how and why things come together, how the characters tick, why this way and not that why, why is this important, etc. And when you have something on the brain, of course you're gonna find it seep into your daily life.
I like to think of myself as an introverted, self-aware, sensitive person. I don't know if I actually am, but I like to think so. I have enough evidence to show it's not an impossibility. Because I've learned to question and scrutinize my characters' personality and motives, I've learned to question and scrutinize my own personality and motives. This isn't an easy thing to do because more often than not, you won't like what you see when you start doing this. But I got used to it and now I don't even realize I'm doing it. I've learned to be honest with myself because if you have to bullshit yourself, where's it gonna get you?
My self-scrutiny helped me realize my thought process, my reasoning, and especially my flaws. In spite of the harm it may have done me, at least I know what to work on. I know where my flaws are so I know what to improve, though how to improve takes outside intervention--if I knew how to do it, I would've done it by now. Being aware of my strengths, ehh... that's another WIP. But I'm getting a little better at it.
Even more positively, my self-examination formed a loop and now I apply it to my writing, which helps me, which helps my writing, etc. It doesn't just help my own writing, it helps me enjoy other peoples' work. I've become very good at finding things to like about things, Kingdom Hearts or what have you. Some people are quick to dismiss characters like Riku or Terra as imbeciles for their poor choices, but the analytic writer in me just goes, "Now wait a sec." Because dismissing a characters' actions for something as simple as stupidity is the easy way out. It means you don't have to think about why the character did what he did. It might be work for other people to think about it, but nor for me. As I said, I don't even realize I'm doing it. I'm able to give characters and the people who made them the benefit of the doubt. That there was a reason for it. And I found myself able to enjoy things far more easily than I've seen other people. It's extraordinarily difficult for me to hate characters, because I've gotten good and finding the strengths in them, understanding their motives and allowing me to see how compelling a character can be, when other people don't or can't.
Overall, I think all this has done me some good. I don't always like what I see, but understanding helps me see where I am and where I need to go. I don't bullshit myself anymore. I freely admit to myself things I may not like, but I figure they'd present themselves eventually. I used to be ignorant about herself, but I feel like I know myself. If I can understand myself, it helps me understand other people. Examining characters got me to examine and understand how other people might feel.
And to think, all this was possible because you just had to make your shitty fancharacter Shadow's long-lost twin sister.