Character Studies of Life Can Be Found Online

All of us have to deal with people who aren't quite...well...right in the way they deal with people. But social media makes that interpersonal issue much bigger than it used to be. For example, right now I have social relationships with hundreds of people that I have never met except online. You do too. But what do you really know about those people? Only what they have in their social media bios and what they tell you. 

As humans, we rely upon our ability to gauge another person's behavior by hearing to tone of their voice, judging their physical movements, the motion of their eyes, how they gesture, and the context in which they make comments. Online, we don't have that ability. Instead of varying areas of gray, we have either black (everything he says is a lie, or bullying, or bigoted) and white (I accept everything said to me at face value). There is no middle ground. And that, in turn, leads to extremes of human behavior online that are fascinating for a writer to observe. I mean think about it--would our society work if our day to day communication was conducted in the same way it is on the internet? 

How many times have you busted someone in a lie online? Or bullying? How about using a false account? According to Twitter, there are over 20 million of those. Think about yourself--would you interact with people face-to-face the same way you do through your keyboard? I wouldn't. I was brought up with the manners of the Deep South. It'd be real hard for me to look at an elder and say, "You, sir, are a misogynistic bigot playing the white male victim card because you are intimidated by women who are smarter than you which is pretty much the entire race of womankind, you moron."

Hard, yes. Impossible, no. I'd have to be REALLY mad though, and there are a couple of old coots online who would be able to spark that anger in me with two seconds and a gust of wind.

We live in an age where we type faster than we think. For a writer who can churn out 2000 words an hour at peak speeds, making an ass out of myself in 140 characters or less isn't even hard. 

But here's where it can get fun for a writer. Go through your Twitter feed on any given day. From data I can find, the average number of Twitter followers is 208. So take a look at those people. Check how they act online. Read their tweet wars. (No, we ALL have them. Don't lie.) What can you determine about people through their online personalities? 

Because most people project who they want you to THINK THEY ARE as a stronger, smarter, younger, better-looking version of WHO THEY REALLY ARE. 

Take a look at the folks you've caught in a lie. (We've all been caught and we've all done the catching) Ask yourself what that person's motivation was for lying in the first place. That can lead you down a strange path in and of itself, because for most folks, they're not lying to PEOPLE. They're lying to a computer, which dilutes the sense of responsibility a great deal. It's so easy to sit at your keyboard and type "29 year old redhead, green eyes, 5'10" 115 lbs" as compared to "69 year old, don't remember my original hair color so let's go with plaid, blue eyes, 5'8" 215 lbs". See? Lie without guilt. No one on the other side of that lie knows what you look like BEYOND WHAT YOU ALLOW THEM TO KNOW. So who does that lie hurt, right? 

Aside from yourself, of course. You know, when you get the tweet that tells you your online friend is in/near your hometown next week and would love to get together for lunch? 

You have two choices. Deflect, or confess. And since most people would rather die than look bad, most people would...?

Yep. Deflect. 

So when you're struggling to create a new character and make him/her credible, sometimes you don't have to go any further than your own Twitter feed. A little digging can give you new understanding of human behavior, and lead you to giving that new character depth. And it doesn't even  violate the "all characters are fictional" disclaimer at the front of every novel. Because when you get right down to it, the people we know online are ALL fictional characters to some degree or another.

But keep this in mind also. Twitter and Instagram and Facebook are filled with people who are so desperate for attention/affection/acceptance/romance/friends/justification/self-diagnoses/an audience that they are no longer real people. They're caricatures of reality, and even if you call them out you can't help them. They have no interest in doing anything other than what they are already doing, and they won't thank you for the friendly advice.

As I just learned again. Today.

See? Even an old dog like me can (re)learn new tricks. Find that balance between reality and farce, and make that social experiment work in your favor. 

Let's Talk About Writer Etiquette...

I'm not the nicest person in the world.  In fact, there are times that I'm one of the most foul-tempered people on the face of the earth.  But there's one thing I always am.

Courteous.

Never underestimate the Pavlovian tutorial that is growing up in the South.  I still say yes ma'am, no sir, thank you and please to anyone that might conceivably be my elder.  I hold doors open for people.  I moderate my language around people I don't know well. It's just ingrained in me. That courtesy is necessary for success in the publishing industry.

For example--last year one of my editors came to me with a problem author.  At first I couldn't understand what the problem was. Then I opened the manuscript.  If the writer disagreed with the editorial change or suggestion, he left snide, nasty, rude comments in the margins. I mean REALLY rude comments.  This author had a bachelor in the 1880s American West living in a 'pioneer' cabin with running water AND a sofa. So because it was that editor's first book with us, I took over the edits, letting the author know that his ability to go through the editing process like a mature adult was the thread upon which the publication of his book hung. 

Guess who didn't stay with us when we moved the imprint to Musa?

Writers should inherently understand the power of the written word.  After all, words are the tools we use daily.  And yet, every time I see an author behaving like an asshat online--bashing their agent or their publisher, whining about their edits, or worse--responding rudely to a legitimate review or critique--that author's name goes onto my mental "Do NOT Publish" list.  You know--I can't remember my phone number half the time--but I sure as heck remember the name of an asshat writer.

So think carefully before you hit 'send'.  Make absolutely certain that what you say can't come back and bite you.  The best response to a vicious review? None.  Tweet about your cat or your word count or your favorite football team, but don't be stupid enough to bash your publisher or editor or agent in public.  Take that energy and funnel it into something productive.  

My trick for that?  I create a character in my WIP that's mentally tagged as whoever has pissed me off.  Then, I kill them in the most cruel, vicious, disgusting fashion my fertile and evil little brain can cook up.  Then, when I see that asshat anywhere else online, I can just smile quietly and move on. "Thank you" and "Please" and "I appreciate it" will get you a heck of a lot further in any business.  Employ those words and the intentions behind them frequently.

Trust me when I say that--if you're on one publisher's DNP list, you're probably on quite a lot of them. It's never a good thing when the only thing between a writer and success is the writer.

Learning to Differentiate

Sometimes I am amazed at the manipulative abilities of people.

You find a lot of this online. People who in real life would be laughed out of the room for expressing their opinions somehow gain a strange credibility in the cyber world. It's hard for me to take someone seriously who pontificates hatred, whether in the real world or online. But, what truly amazes me, is how some of these people can manipulate public opinion with their ability to write.

For example: there's really not any way to justify racist behavior in the real world. In the real world, if you expound upon you racist points of view you usually either get your ass kicked or you're dismissed by the people who hear you as stupid and beyond redemption. But, you take that same person and slap them online and suddenly all sorts of whacked-out critters crawl from the woodwork and support them publicly. Why is that?

Is it because of the alleged anonymity online? That doesn't really work any more--I can find out a heck of a lot about a person from their IP address...and their blog...and their website.

What makes people comfortable enough online to try and manipulate other people?

Look at the recent election. Because of online bullshit, there are a whole lot of people who believe the new President is a Muslim and that the Governor of Alaska doesn't comprehend basic geography. Are you serious? What kills me is that there are people who call one of those rumors a lie but still beleive the other one. It makes no sense to me.

As a writer, I'm very sensitive to the power of words. It occurs to me that since the advent and explosion of the internet, that sensitivity has spread into sectors unseen before this time. It was easy to dismiss the KKK newspapers I found on the front lawn twenty years ago.

It's not as easy to dismiss some of the racial prejudice spread over the internet, especially when it's clothed beneath some other sort of rhetoric. It's imperative now that we, as internet users, learn to differentiate between thinly veiled agendas and the outer shell of acceptability that some people are using. We need a new subset of skills if we are to comprehend the ugliness that lies just beneath the surface of much that we find online these days.

When You Don't Know What You Think You Know

Hurray! AW Blog Chain made it here! Looks like Terri in NYC went from travel to her journals from when she volunteered in India, and ended up relating an episode where she didn't know what she thought she knew about a man who helped her when she was lost.

Sounds like a good place to start.

Everyone starts off with first impressions. Some people, like my husband, are so accurate with their first impressions of other people that it makes me want to kick something.

"He's an asshole, Celina. Boot him out."

"I can't boot him out, Shannon; he's just sitting there drinking."

Fast forward to ten minutes later.

Shannon: "I told you to boot him out."

Celina: "How was I supposed to know he'd put a chair through the jukebox?"

So annoying. Here's my question: what happens if you don't know what you think you know? What if the assumptions you make about a person, a story, an entity, a governmental policy--what if those assumptions are wrong? Are you big enough to admit it?

I'm usually not. *shrug* Of course, maybe that's what I want you to think. I could be fibbing. *snerk* Okay, getting serious now.

I've been known to admit that I was wrong. I admitted I was wrong to my daughter when the only boyfriend she's ever had that I wasn't tempted to ram his head through drywall turned out to be a bigger jerk than the other assholes. I admitted I was wrong about a novel I wrote a long time ago--but that took distance and time before I was willing to trunk it. I think I even admitted to misquoting someone the other day online--I'd substituted an 'a' for a 'the.'

If I can do it, anyone can.

If, specifically, you're making assumption about people online--you're doing yourself an inservice. In this blog, for example, I let you know what I want you to know--no more, no less. You know nothing about the few redeeming qualities I have as a human being in real life unless I give you a glimpse in. I think it's probably safe to say that most of you reading this now don't know who I'm going to vote for for President, what I think of yesterday's oil reserve vote in the Senate, who I'm for in the Stanley Cup, or probably even what color my hair is, right?

You know what I want you to know; if I don't tell you, then you don't know squat. I've seen a lot of people make assumptions, one way or the other, about people they meet online. With one extreme, it's dangerous. With the other extreme, you look like a jerk. Try to keep some perspective.

And if you're calling someone names, attributing things to them publicly on a message board, you might be surprised to discover that you had no clue who you were talking to. Makes you look like an idiot.

Trust me.

And so the blog chain moves on. Next up is Rotating Bear.


Auria Cortes

Life in Scribbletown

Polyamory From the Inside Out

For the First Time

Family On Bikes

Writes in the City

Elf Killing and Other Hobbies

Rotating Bear

Fantastical Imagination

Asian Business

Spittin' (Out Words) Like a Llama

As Yet Untitled

Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

Peregrinas

Delirious