Character

WARNING: this will not be well-written because I am tired and have almost just saved this as a draft 3 times already. ... and I know that if I do that, I will never come back to it.

 

"Listen for the actions and words of the human characters. Ancient stories were not as “psychoanalytical” as our modern tales. We don’t get a glimpse “inside” a character’s mind and emotions. We come to know them through their words and actions. Who are these people? What are they like? How do you picture them? How would you describe their moral and ethical qualities? How do they relate to one another?" -Chaplain Mike

In this particular article he's referencing stories from the Bible, particularly the story of Ruth. The more I thought about it, the more I saw just how little our imagination works for us these days. Usually we don't have to work for it. We don't have to use our creative senses to intake a story. We forget that a story, in and of itself, is a piece of art because we are usually being given the pieces and told what to think and perceive from the story. I think this is why I like mysteries so much- because it allows me to make my own mind up about things. It's annoying that story writing has caught on to that and now tries to manipulate the desire for mystery by creating a false path for your mind to trail leading you to realize where they are already going with the story and subsequently taking away the mystery they could have had to begin with if they weren't robbing foreshadowing of its purpose.

Wow, I didn't see that vent coming. 

Anyway, back to what I was originally trying to say.... it's true these days that story-writers/tellers have taken on the habit of giving us too much detail in the wrong areas and taking away our chance to formulate our own opinions about the characters. This must be why I liked LOST so much. You could never tell who was "good" and who was "bad" until the end. You were forced to base your thoughts about a character on what their actions. 

You know, the world today is obsessed with trying to explain away our actions. "I did this because that." "It's not my fault, see- I was wounded here and you know what they say, 'hurt people hurt people'." blablabla. I understand why this is the way it is. And fine, it's whatever (I hate that phrase). But aside from being frustrated at the resulting actions that nobody takes responsibility for, I am frustrated at how it's affected writing. I believe that story writing has now gotten lazy and because we are so used to just allowing actions with nobody fully responsible for them, we write and accept these characters who have no character. These mannequins who just put one foot in front of the other, perhaps weighing the responsibility, but not worrying about it too much, cause by the end of the story, it will be justified one way or another. 

blah. this is why we have shitty movies, boring books, and irresponsible people just shooting out actions  making wake with no one answering for it. bla bla bla.

I'm going to read this tomorrow and regret posting it. I'm tired and doubt I've actually articulated what I thought when I read "We come to know them by their words and actions."Wouldn't it be nice if people could come to know the characters we are/have by our words and actions? Wouldn't it be nice if words and actions could bare the weight we give them without the support of justification by our weak human nature?

I think it'd be nice. If you made it this far, I probably coulda just posted that last paragraph. Oh well, like I said, I'm tired. That's my justification for putting shitty writing out there wasting people's time.