How very out of character of you...

[otw-staff.livejournal.com]



I'm sure we've all had this experience: You're reading a work of fan fiction and enjoying the heck out of it. Then.... boom; a sudden loss of characterization.
It's not the end of the world; no alarms go off, no oxygen masks fall from the ceiling -- but just like that, the little world you were immersed in goes away. You may forge ahead, but now you're all too aware of the actual process of reading the story again.

It happens even with the best of fan fic writers: Occasionally you're going to write someone's fictional darling acting not quite like themselves. Sometimes it's on purpose, of course; a chance to play with 'what if' scenarios, or to explore a side of him or her that's been shown but not expanded upon.

What's your tolerance for OOC fanfic? Are there stories you feel captured a character particularly well? Stories that play with or alter their behavior in ways that are creative and entertaining? Or ones that put them in wildly unusual AUs but maintain their personalities? Are there characters you have a knack for writing or that you struggle with?

Would love to read your thoughts - and if you have a link to some well-crafted fic with strong or interesting characterization, please share! I could use a good read this week, myself.

Here are some links of interest. The OTW doesn't necessarily agree with every opinion, but offers them as interesting musings on the subject of characterization.

• Characterization in Fanfic: Using Canon as the DNA for Your Characters by Dreamflower


• Avoiding Mistakes in Fanfiction Writing: A Beginner's Guide


• Will the Real John Watson Please Stand-Up


• Common Fanfiction Mistakes - characterization


• The Seven Deadly Fanons of Characterization

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Another example would be cultural expectation colouring the reaction. With 'the Eagle' movie, I was amazed to discover US reviews where the American-accented Romans were taken at face value as 'the good guys' because they were clean and had familiar voices, whereas the Britons were depicted as more primitive and clearly 'baddies' (because in Hollywood, the British accents always indicate a bad guy??).

This amazed me particularly, because I thought the depiction of the Romans in that movie showed them as strikingly unsympathetic - indeed, it came across as having a specifically anti-US-imperialism message to me - and in the British cinema where I watched it, people in the audience were cheering on the native British attacks on the Roman fort!

Where your eyes come from really does seem to make a huge difference to what you see with them.