posted
We do go on (including me) about how we want to see more character development from DnA. I was browsing in the libe and saw a book on how to create charcters in fiction. The main points:
1. develop emotion 2. use labels so readers can easily recognize them (ex: the old doctor) 3. develop traits and relationships 4. give them motivation - something they must change to win happiness 5. give them a private future 6. supply some background 7. accentuate characteristics in offbeat characters 8. provide insight into unfamiliar worlds
All these seem to have been fulfilled for characters such as Imra, Jeka, Nura, Lar, Tinya, Jo, Shikari, Brainy, Brin, Luornu, Garth, Ayla.
Lacking (so far) in some other characters under DnA's tutelage, such as Violet, and Lyle - who were developed more pre-DnA.
I would also say that I don't have a real great sense of what makes Thom, Jenni, Jazmin and Drake tick - except for what has carried over from the previous writers.
However, we seem to be able to discuss at great length many of the DnA characters - so maybe I have been mistaken in thinking that, until Dream Crime, there hadn't been much character focus. Abnett & Lanning are perhaps not just character writers - or just action writers - but storytellers. I just have to sit still to hear the whole story.
posted
I wonder what is meant by "private future."
I agree with most of these points, although I think it depends on the type of story one is telling. Starting out with a description such as "the Old Doctor" is fine for most, but if the doctor is the main character, I'd want to know more. Stereotypes can be useful, but only to a point.
I also don't think you can separate storytelling and character development in most cases. A story has to have good characters to begin with, or the audience won't care about them. And then, once you have good characters, they have to change as a result of the story. Change is usually the whole purpose of any given story. It doesn't have to be a big change -- sometimes it can be how the character perceives the world or him- or herself (as suggested by point no. 4, above) -- but it should be an important change to the character.
In serialized fiction, such as comics or TV shows, change is often ignored because it's important for characters to remain essentially the same month after month or week after week. But in comics (and in the Legion, in particular, because of its large cast), we can get away with some change. Most of us, I think, have come to expect our characters to grow and become more than they were when the story or arc started.
What we get instead is the anticlimactic notion of Nura getting a ring some of us thought she already had and most of us agreed she deserved. It would have been more interesting, I think (though fans would have hollered) if she had turned it down!
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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