Why you should respect your characters

Hey guys, DarkShockBro here.

*WARNING!*

Just a fair warning, this journal MAY be controversial. Plus, it's pretty personal. I want you to go into this with as open of a mind as you can, please. Also, I will be referencing none of my stories or any other stories, as I feel like that would defeat the purpose of a journal that I want to be universal. OK? Thank you.

Now then, you may or may not be familiar with my two prior 'respect your characters' journals. If not, I'd like for you to give them a read before heading into this journal, as I feel like it would help my points sink in that much more.

Here are the links:

http://darkshockbro.deviantart.com/journal/How-to-show-respect-for-your-characters-461845331

http://darkshockbro.deviantart.com/journal/How-to-show-respect-for-your-characters-Part-2-470522960

Alright, thank you. Now I'd like to detail why I believe respecting your characters (as well as I respecting my own characters) is so important not only in fiction, but also in real life.

First off, I'll get most of the controversial parts of this journal out by addressing the elephant in the room: hot-button issues. Before I continue, I'd like to state that, yes, racism, homophobia, sexism, and other hot-button issues are all very undesirable and negative beliefs to have, period. However, the key word in that sentence is 'belief.' The issues themselves are beliefs that could be instilled as a result of many different experiences a person may have had during their life, along with the interpretations of certain groups in the media. Plus, modern society tends to teach out children that having a negative position on a hot-button issue is unacceptable, so I believe these parasitic beliefs do not occur naturally. In other words, you can NOT throw one of these beliefs onto a character and declare them unlikable haphazardly! By doing this, you, as a writer, are trivializing the fact that there are still people in the world who have those beliefs for, believe it or not, good reasons. Additionally, you are also playing into the media and society's game of constantly hiding issues like this from communities until it's far too late for those particular people. The only way an issue like this is getting into the press is if someone does something extremely negative so that people can demonize them and declare them 'Un-Persons', instead of actually using these stories to help misguided people such as this get back on track! So, the next time you think of including a Politically Incorrect character, please, for the love of all that is holy, keep this in mind. Because if you don't, this vicious cycle will continue.

Additionally, I believe one of the main reasons as to why people hold these types of Politically Incorrect beliefs is due to a lack of diversity. Admittedly, for about 18 years, I never truly understood why diversity was so important. I think this is mostly due to the fact that I've lived in middle to upper-class suburban areas all my life where there are seemingly no crimes whatsoever, and the population consists of almost all Asian and Caucasian overachievers. To be honest, it feels like I'm constantly living in the 1950s, where everything seems great, if you're white, straight, and live in a Levittown, because I rarely see people who are homosexual or even African-American in real life. And, to be perfectly honest, I've felt a bit detached from these groups all my life, which is why it took me such a long time to truly think about this and realize that I haven't had the experience with other cultures that I need to be able to mesh together with the new majority-minority America. So, you can imagine my horror to think of what would have happened had I not been raised right or been through terrible experiences relating to race or sexual orientation. Yeah, this is why I take the portrayal of hot-button issues and antagonists in fiction so seriously. It's truly frightening to think of what I could've been had events not progressed the way they did, believe me. The closest thing I got to that experience was in 9th grade, where we were talking about a gay rights story, and I, being the sheltered boy that I was, mistakingly questioned if being gay was something that developed over time, and not at birth (and I know now that it is, so don't worry). And boy, did I get shut down. It probably wasn't as bad as I'm making it out to be, but it certainly stuck in my head. This is what led me to start to believe that we are naturally intolerant people, to the point where we become intolerant about people trying to figure out all the sides of a hot-button issue, which is what I like to try to do. So, it is for these reasons that I believe that if you want to include a hot-button issue or a polarizing issue in your story, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.

1. Never use it as a cheap way to make a character unlikable and villainous. Because that is, simply put, lazy writing.

2. Never use it as a way to say that the character with positive hot-button beliefs is better than someone else. I like to call this Hyperbolic Morality Placement, and I truly believe it needs to die. If a character does something negative without good reason, whether 'hero' or 'villain', I believe they should get called out for it. If only one side is called out, the other side become Karma Houdinis. And no one likes those types of characters.

3. Do your best to portray both sides of the issue, and if you don't think you can do that due to personal experiences, try your best to leave it out of the story. I know it can be difficult, but it's always important to keep an open mind.

4. Realize that there are people who do have negative stances on some of these issues, and you shouldn't try to alienate them. Let me put it this way: say you believe in something. Now imagine almost EVERYONE saying that you shouldn't believe that thing, and that you're a horrible, irredeemable person for believing that. Yeah, doesn't feel good, does it? Trust me, if you treat your characters with respect, you'll also be treating your audience with respect, and that's very important.

5. If you want to draw attention to why a negative stance on a hot-button issue is negative, do your best to explain, in detail, why that's the case. Most people listen to reason, believe me.

6. Give your characters outlets, and most importantly, present an environment where getting help is OK, and not considered to be a weak thing to do. The world would be such a better place if schools actually cared about counseling and promoted the idea of getting mental help as you try to work your way through tough issues. Masculinity and Femininity? That stuff doesn't matter to me, and it shouldn't matter in the world. What's important is your ideals, and trying to figure out your way through life.

7. Understand where your character is coming from. You can create a backstory after you create a character, but if you're dealing with these kinds of issues, you need to put yourself in your character's shoes and see what he or she sees. Then, you can create events that would best help that character, if at all possible.

8. Above all else, love your character. Treat your character like you would treat your own child, and if they need help or have lost their way, give them the help they need, or at the very least give them the chance to recover and mature. Just because someone has warped beliefs, that doesn't mean they're a monster, hate everything, or are even nasty. They could simply be angry, off their meds, mentally unbalanced, or even going mad. It's always important to keep the logic that everything happens for a reason in your mind, because it's true in real life, and it should definitely be true in fiction.

Some people may scoff at my thoughts and say 'it's only fiction.' Well, I disagree. Fiction comes from real-life people going through real-life events, and mediums from games to movies to novels have created many role models that have inspired people from around the world. But it has also created characters who you shouldn't aspire to be, and most writers simply end those characters right there. But this kills the very nature of a story. A good story takes experiences from real life and twists them into a tale that not only entertains you, but also makes you think about life. Sure, there are some times when you can create a demon or an angel to help progress the story, but turning that monster into a human is another story entirely. Because humans, even the serial killers, have feelings, and were once nowhere near as bad as they became. And yet, we shoot them down as simply evil people that we have no chance of becoming. Well, what if those serial killers, those dictators, those hateful people once were just like you and me? What if one event caused a downward spiral that no one bothered stopping? And what if their early life became irrelevant after deciding to partake in such heinous actions? If we don't stop and truly question these things, the era of Black and White Morality, ignorant news stations, lazy, money-grubbing professional writers, and stories used as outlets for pain that the world has inflicted on those writers... it will continue and blacken the very evil we've tried to deny and ignore for so long. It's time to face this evil, understand it, and vanquish it. And you, as a writer, can do this through the simple act of respecting your characters. And if you respect your characters and tell others to respect their characters, the word will spread, and the literary world, and as such, the real world, can only grow brighter. Thank you for listening.