Survey: Hardest Character to write?
POSTED BY: Arcadia
UPDATED: Saturday, January 13, 2007 16:21
VIEWED: 20439
PAGE 3 of 6
Weirdly enough, I found River easy to write.
I haven't tried writing Book yet. And that is because I really don't understand Christians. I can suspend disbelief enough to write killers and criminals, but christians and courtesans give me trouble. Very odd.
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I'm working on my first story, now. I find Kaylee to be the biggest challenge. Conversly, I find Mal to be supprisingly easy to write. The character writes itself. I hope to post the first chapter here soon.
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I agree that Mal is the easiest to write. No small reason that he was the first (and only, so far) character I wrote a story for. And I cheated, in that it was only his voice, talking to himself. There was no dialogue with other characters. The words just fell out of my head. Talk about the words writing themselves!
Permaybehaps it's because he spoke the most in the series, and I'm most familiar with his use of language.
Thank you for this thread. Very thought-provoking.
-Hera
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Mark your calendars! Go to http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=19&t=22697 for more info!
"Wanna?" – Mal to Kaylee, Out of Gas
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You are welcome!
I agree that Mal, despite being a pretty complex guy, it fairly straight forward to write. Probably because we know him best, you know? We know about the war, how he lost his faith... its basically all there. Plus, he's just a beautiful character, and captivating, that he just takes over... Gotta love it. 
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Arcadia
aka Greyfable and/or Katie
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For me River isn't so bad. I mostly write her being pretty lucid, of a little werid, when she speaks to people, and leave the crazy stuff to internal thought descriptive bits.
Mal, again not so bad, though I tend to use similar speech patterns that appear in the scripts.
I don't find Zoe difficult to write either. She doesn't say alot or go on too much. So I tend to keep her contributions short and pretty direct. The most irritating thing I've found is when people either write as being too drill sergeanty or too relaxed particularly when she's with Kaylee.
In fact that's one of my pet peeves with Fan fiction, when the characters are written as being too relaxed and all shipy together. I remember reading one piece where Zoe and Kaylee were discussing their periods. Now maybe it's just because I'm not a "modern man" but I really don't really see them discussing this.
Here's how it might of been.... www.stillflying.net/
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Quote:
Originally posted by SpaceAnJL:
I can suspend disbelief enough to write killers and criminals, but christians and courtesans give me trouble. Very odd.
Not so odd - I totally know what you mean, LOL!
I have a hard time with Book because he's actually pretty proper. He doesn't drop his g's, but I find myself doin' that for him anyway. I have to read his lines out loud sometimes, and still bad things get through.
For Inara, I try to get myself in a Jane Austin frame of mind. That generally works.
Kaylee easily becomes too hick, that's tricky. I totally do it! But she has this lilt and tone which is hard to catch without putting some hick in.
River is also hard - I write her lines and then go back over them several times, removing as many words as possible. She's proper, but very minimal. Often no subject to her sentences.
I agree about the foreseeing of danger pet-peeve, although I use that too.
I don't think River actually sees into the future. Her "Fire" warning in OoG could be her sensing the explosion already started with a spark. I try to have explanations like that, but it doesn't always work.Can I share a pet peeve, since we're going that way? Along the lines of wishuponawash - I can't handle it when these characters do really formulaic wedding/romance stuff. Big diamond rings and white wedding dresses and the whole deal. Joss would NEVER do that unless he was making fun of the whole thing (Something Blue on BtVS). We're 500 years in the future with the wild west and space ships - use that to do something new, please! No more champagne and big fancy hotel suites - I can't take it!!
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I'd say (as has been stated before) that Wash is the toughest in my brain. I try to write much Wash-ness, but I, also, have a hard time with his unique humor.
River is both one of the hardest and one of the easiest. Odd eh? I find that I can get her distinct randomness and voice... but not always.
I have not really written any Inara and very little Book, in that case they are probably avoided for their dificulty.
Quote:
Can I share a pet peeve, since we're going that way? Along the lines of wishuponawash - I can't handle it when these characters do really formulaic wedding/romance stuff. Big diamond rings and white wedding dresses and the whole deal. Joss would NEVER do that unless he was making fun of the whole thing (Something Blue on BtVS). We're 500 years in the future with the wild west and space ships - use that to do something new, please! No more champagne and big fancy hotel suites - I can't take it!!
Yeh, I agree heartily to that. In fact, it's possible that I have something like that on my profile. Something like that. Stuff too far from Joss' vison irks and bores me. I tend to skip it.
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I cannot abide useless people.
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I think I'm going for a first or second on this board; I've seen every character talked about here, except for the one I find the most difficulty writing - Simon (I might've missed it, though).
I don't know why, but I find it really hard to get inside the head of that man. What would he be thinking in this situation, what would he do in this, what would he say in retaliation... It surprises me a lot, because his speech pattern is probably the easiest for me to write, being used to all that "proper" mumbo-jumbo and all. It's just... wording his feelings, emotions in sentences, describing his actions...
But, I'll work at it - get better at him and the like.
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The only animals I'm not comfortable with are parrots, but I'm learning as I go. I'm getting better and better at 'em. I really am. - Steve Irwin, our Honorary BDH
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Kaylee!!!!!!!!!!! I have the hardest time in the world making her sound and feel like Kaylee....I hate writing her because I love her character and I hate knowing it's a bit off when I write her (which isn't much).
I have a very easy time writing Wash and Mal; their actions, their motivations, their feelings. But dialog I still am not happy with a lot of the time....it's that speech patterns thing you guys are talking about, especially with Mal. The way he arranges his words and phrases things is very distinctive, hard to copy, but instantly recognizable when it's right. I find coming up with what Mal would say to be very easy; coming up with how he'd say it, not so much. Wash's blunt, understated humor is tough as well.
But Kaylee......grrr.....can't get anything about her right!
"Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you when she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home." .......We love you, captain.
"This is the captain. We may experience some slight turbulence and then.....explode"
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