The Saturday Post 07-10 (Patreon)

Rain delayed. We had a pop up monsoon last night that cut out internet as we have radio / satellite internet service. Luckily as we create our own power through solar, we did not lose power unlike a lot of others a few miles from us due to lightening hitting a power pole.

Between Heat and humidity, we normally have a high of 15% humidity in non monsoon season, I have not gotten a lot of my projects worked on.

Lets talk about character development, part 1.

When you consider taking an already established character someone else created it allows you to forgo creating the backstory for said character. Their backstory, where they live, how they were raised, what powers / special gifts / interests they have. It allows you to cheat in a way as you don't have to develop all that, you just have to change a few things around to fit in with the story you want to write.

As some point when reading or watching a show, you think to yourself, this person would be so much better / greater / not make as many stupid mistakes, if only this. And at that point you can create a new bio for the character and create.

Lets examine a character from Harry Potter that while I disliked her a bit in the books, i grew to hate her with a passion in fanfiction for the way she is portrayed.

Hermione Granger.

While in the books, she is a socially awkward preteen, she comes across as a teachers pet and controlling. Not someone I would be more than a casual friend of, as in being friendly when forced to interact.

She is portrayed in fiction as I have noticed single children who have a friendship instead of parent / daughter relationship. So in her world acting as someone's mother is not only alright but expected of her as she is the adult. Even when she is not close to being ready to be an adult. These children eventually grow up, but it takes moving away and interacting with her agemates who are now adults before she settles down and has here eyes opened to their views and that she is not always right. Up to now she has had a vast superiority and knowledge she is always right and correct from growing up than her peers. Of course that is because she has been treated like an adult for most of her life and expectations that she is and will act like a responsible adult. Of course her peers are nowhere near where she has been expected to be mentally, so she retreats into books, because she has no clue on how to interact with others her age on their level, not the level of an adult.

In real life those that are like the fictional character Hermione Granger, face difficult challenges that ostracize them from society except for those few so called genius level mature adults / those with no time for childless actions / those that have no social skills past dealing with intellectual pursuits, i.e. scholars. a Few as they grow up start to believe the hype that is heaped on them and then you have a social misfit according to societies rules and are pretty much isolated or ostracized outside of their very narrow band of people they can deal with.

In Fanfiction, a lot of authors have taken Hermione to an extreme. Singling out the flaws that are written as good points to have in an adult and forgetting her actual age or ignoring it. Then because of the lack of character development from the originating author pair her up with Harry Potter due to the dislike of Ginny Weasley. Any girl, or boy at the age they are supposed to be in the story would avoid like the plague someone that acts like she does. And in real life she would fit in more with the seventh years and would be spending most of her time with them instead of her agemates because she is mentally closer to their level than her agemates.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike Ginny Weasley as a partner for Harry, mainly because what we do see of her development, her backstory and as she is written into the storyline, she is a two dimensional fangirl who sees Harry not as himself but someone she has a mental image of that has grown through the years before she even met him.

Back to Hermione Granger, as fanfiction authors write her, their version of what a strong woman should be, there lies the problem. She is a young girl, a preteen not a strong woman. And as some fanfiction authors write her, way to apt to resort to screaming in a motherly fashion to get her way. They write her as the woman / parent they want her to be, not the child she is supposed to be.

Don't get me wrong there are plenty of exceptional fanfictions out there that write Hermione's character better than the originating author, but they are few and far between. Writing her as an equal partner to Harry or whoever they pair her with and showing growth of the hints they write about of the incredible woman she will one day be.

To many who write fanfiction try to change one character, Harry Potter, and forget they also should change the others also. It is a shame as there are many well written stories out there that grow the originating authors work and the world they built, but then they fail when they fail to truly make the story their own or fail to redevelop characters or exaggerate flaws on characters thinking they are a good thing.

Don't get me wrong, I think fanfiction is a good way to develop the skills to step into the realm of writing your own original works. I still write Fanfiction as a way to explore different techniques in writing before using them in my original works. Plus lets face it, there are so many plot wholes in the Harry Potter series that you can move whole continents through them without touching the sides.

This has become long enough and I will pick it up next week in part 2 where I explore creating your own character from scratch.