When you're playing a fictional character reacting to the real world, it's incredibly difficult and confusing and kind of messes with your values a bit.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings standards that no one they know in real life could possibly meet.
The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of what they have in their heads.
I have realised just how important it is to readers to feel that fictional stories are based on reality.
If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.
Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.
I treat all my characters as if they were real, and I am scrupulous about the details of their lives.
We, people, are so very, very complicated that no matter how well drawn a fictional character is, they can't get anywhere near as complex as a real person.
One of the things I strive for is realism. I need to be as real as possible in the dilemmas my characters face.
I've found I can plunge the characters into whatever absurd, awful situation, and readers will follow as long as the writer makes them seem like 'real people.'
It's more difficult playing a real-life person than a fictional character - you can go easy on yourself with a fictional character.