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Post By
HH
In Reply To
CrazySugarFreakBoy!

Member Since: Sun Jan 04, 2004
Posts: 1,235
Subj: Actually that's a tough lesson.
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 at 02:53:46 pm EDT (Viewed 1 times)
Reply Subj: How to write alienation: A simple lesson
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 at 06:01:44 am EDT (Viewed 361 times)


> I've actually been giving this subject some thought lately, because two of my favorite storytelling franchises - Doctor Who and Spider-Man - arguably revolve around two guys whose chief characteristic is their alienation from the world around them, and yet, an unholy shitload of writers - both among the fans and those officially sanctioned to establish canon for those characters - seem not to have a fucking clue how to actually write alienation.

I challenge the assumption that alienation is their chief characteristic. It's more like a background wallpaper and an easy hook to link the characters to the readers.

In fact Peter Parker's premise is really "I've got a secret. You've all misjudged me. If only you knew how cool I really am". The alienation comes from being misjudged - it's the world's fault not any failing of Spidey's. They're just not ready for him. It's a classic teen angst feeling that lee hooked into way back when, and a big part of Spidey's early success.

As for the Doctor, while the current regime has played up the loneliness aspect ("Last of the Time Lords" and all that), he's often been played as alien - hence the debate amonsgt older fans at the Doctor showing interest in romancing a human companion. But that alienation has often been the alienation of Holmes to Watson, the incomprehnsibility of an eccentric genius, rather than the emotional dissociation you're describing in your article.

But accepting for a moment that your assumption is correct about alienation being a fundamental aspect of the characters you're still making more assumptions still. These are:

1. Alienation can best be written by writing it accurately: If books and movies and TV can't depict love or hate or any other emotional condition without stylising it, why should alienation be different? In real life most emotions make no sense at all. Stories don't allow things to make no sense; there have to be themes and resolutions. Accurate depiction of emotion can destroy a plot because it makes little narrative sense or dramatic activity.

2. The alienation the series want to convey is the alinatation you're describing and have experienced. But it isn't neccessarily so. Just as romantic fiction ensures that dying heroines always die of some wasting illness that leaves them looking pale and interesting to the end - and continent and unsuppurated - so dramatic fiction insists on characters who are tormented in socially acceptable ways. Alienation because tragically terrible things have happened to our poor lonely hero is fine - readers who are sexually attracted to him want to comfort the poor man. Alienation because our hero is misunderstood in a world that hates and fears him is fine - readers who are angry at the world and full of angst identify and get validation. But alienation because the character is emotionally stunted, intellectually remote, morally numb, those things don't play so well.

> So, do you really want to know how to write a character who's alienated?
> Do you want to know what it actually feels like to be alienated?
> Really simple.

But the two are different things.

Now I'm not trying to rain on your parade. It would really help some writers to understand real alienation, either by experience or observation; but writing is like painting. It's about catching the essence of the subject, not making a perfect photograph. There will always be stylistic and thematic choices. And as with all art people know what they like.





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