I can understand falling in love with characters, with their worlds and their struggles; haven't we all done that at some point? Where it crosses into entitlement for me is when the reader seems to imply that they know best. A few years back I had one particular series of stories I would update weekly, and a decent following. I made the mistake of making my email address public, and while much of the feedback was positive ( or when negative fairly objective critiques) it was the type of attitude you describe that I couldn't get over. I received hate mail telling me that a character would never do the things I'd had them do, or feel the way I'd written they were feeling. That they, the reader knew better, and that I was writing them wrong.
I can understand people not liking a particularly facet of a character, a certain storyline or an event that changes where they thought the story was headed. What I can't understand ( and frankly cannot stand) is someone telling me that they know my characters better than I do, simply because they don't like the direction that they are heading in.
The other issue I have is that people expect characters to be static sometimes, to experience no growth. For me part of the joy of writing is that I don't always know the ways that a character will evolve, but I enjoy finding out. Knowing that specific decisions and events WILL change who that character was, and that his reactions and behavior will likely be different as a result.
As a writer my goal is to tell the story in my head in a way I feel is faithful to the story AND the characters, not in the way my readers feel it ought to have been written.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 06:08 pm (UTC)A few years back I had one particular series of stories I would update weekly, and a decent following. I made the mistake of making my email address public, and while much of the feedback was positive ( or when negative fairly objective critiques) it was the type of attitude you describe that I couldn't get over.
I received hate mail telling me that a character would never do the things I'd had them do, or feel the way I'd written they were feeling.
That they, the reader knew better, and that I was writing them wrong.
I can understand people not liking a particularly facet of a character, a certain storyline or an event that changes where they thought the story was headed. What I can't understand ( and frankly cannot stand) is someone telling me that they know my characters better than I do, simply because they don't like the direction that they are heading in.
The other issue I have is that people expect characters to be static sometimes, to experience no growth. For me part of the joy of writing is that I don't always know the ways that a character will evolve, but I enjoy finding out. Knowing that specific decisions and events WILL change who that character was, and that his reactions and behavior will likely be different as a result.
As a writer my goal is to tell the story in my head in a way I feel is faithful to the story AND the characters, not in the way my readers feel it ought to have been written.