I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my characters, and how I can take them from two-dimensional “ideas” to more fully rounded fictional “people”. For a long time, I loved the internet and interacting with people online specifically because it was “mind-to-mind” communication. If you don’t know what someone looks like or what their physical characteristics are, then surely that’s a more “pure” form of connection, right?
I think I’ve been wrong about that.
In studying the craft of writing, I’ve been experimenting a lot. When I started writing (and for many years after), I rarely described my characters in any physical detail. I might mention eye color or hair color or general build, but there was nothing to set them apart from any other female or male character, and I never even thought twice about clothing unless they weren’t wearing any…although I guess that means none of my characters were ever dressed unless something happened that actually involved their clothes.
The only thing that set one character apart from the other was their actions (generic, for the most part) and their speech, which served as the conduit for their thoughts. And I thought that was good enough, as they should be able to fit into any generic “skin”, right? Turns out, even in my own mind, that really isn’t the case.
A year or so ago, I took a course on writing with depth, and one of the first things we had to do was write a scene with a moving character. And the thing I remember most is that through the course of building up my scene for the assignment, I had to add details…and that those details, right down to the kind of clothes and shoes I gave the character, were absolutely necessary to give the reader a complete person, rather than just a transparent skin of thoughts and feelings.
What I found is that my characters hairstyle, hair color, dress, and whether or not they wore makeup and jewelry (and what kind) was all very descriptive of their personality, and silently signaled things that would never be revealed through speech and thought. It was eye-opening, to say the least.
I had honestly never considered it before, but then I started comparing that writing exercise to meeting people online first, and then in person. I realized that my impression of someone I’d only ever talked to online, especially if I’d never seen a photo or video of them, was incredibly different and often incomplete from the impression I had of that person once I met them offline. It’s almost like meeting an entirely different person, and it takes a bit to feel like you really “know” them again (at least it does for me).
I think that may be part of the reason video has become so popular on social media sites. Because even though you’re still not in the room with someone, you can get a better sense of who they are as a whole person, rather than only what’s in their head. And I really do think that make a difference in how we relate to people, and whether we see them as just a hypothetical, interactive consciousness, or as a 3-dimensional human we can more fully relate to as “one of our own”.
I have a few friends who have started occasionally making videos, and obviously, for those I knew in person first, there’s no weirdness there. But for people I hadn’t seen or heard speak before, watching them was a bit disconcerting at first, and I think it was because I was experiencing more of the “whole person” effect, rather than just text on a screen. I kind of think meeting those people in person now would be easier than meeting someone I’ve only corresponded with via text, as I’ve gotten closer to that “3-D” experience.
I’m curious – have you experienced this sort of disjoint when meeting someone in person you’ve only spoken to online before? And do you think video helps give us a better impression of the “whole person” than text-based media?
One last thing just to ponder: have you ever genuinely liked and enjoyed someone’s company online having not seen them, only to genuinely dislike them after meeting them offline?
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