#i've always preferred things to be a bit messier

[katiesharms]

how do you figure out characterization in your fics? the cheating fic has the best characterization for langdon and mel i have read, especially for langdon, and i was curious if you had any tips or advice!

wow first of all thank you so much, what an incredible compliment and i really do appreciate it. as for tips/advice, i'll try to lay some stuff out!

stick closer to canon than fanon: it's simply in the natural cycle of fandom to evolve characters how they want, usually through basically a feedback loop, and the common understanding of the character begins to be based more on widely accepted traits rather than textual elements. you can def already see this happening with the pitt, and while i enjoy/agree with a lot of interpretations of the characters, when i'm writing them, i like to keep them as close to what's on the screen than what's on ao3. in that vein, i enjoy reading fanfic but i am not a voracious or undiscerning reader; i'm actually pretty picky, which i think helps me keep a clear view of who these characters are. people tend to flatten characters to make them easier to work with and more malleable to tropes or ideas, and to me, it should be about fitting your tropes/ideas around the character rather than bending the characters to the story.

that being said, don't be afraid of their nastier elements: something that i've noticed across fandoms, and most recently with the pitt, is the tendency to avoid traits of a character that make them an asshole or more complex. for example, with langdon, he IS a bit of a dick. he brushes mel off early on, he doesn't want to stay for a moment of silence, he seems like a neglectful husband. these are all things separate from his addiction, which is also an element of his character. i think conflict is a lot more compelling when it's driven by both people kind of sucking a little, rather than external drama/melodrama. for langdon, think about what we know about him: what kind of person gets married and has children while starting a medical residency? he is in a teaching position, does he seem to enjoy it? is he good at it? what makes that the case? as for mel, we know quite a bit about her life compared to other people: she has a sister with autism who is in a care facility, her mother is dead and her father is either also dead or otherwise not in the picture, she gets stressed about families being torn apart, she responds emotionally to many patients but also chose an em speciality. so okay, you know these facts, what kind of person might this have happened to? there's a sense of strong responsibility to her sister and her patients, she is someone who lives her life in service of other people and not considering her own self in many of her decisions. you build up this muscle - examining the facts to find the person underneath - by doing it consistently, and doing it for the bad as well as the good

think about what they would actually say, not what is funniest or how you would react: dialogue should feel different depending on who is speaking. just because you would say something that doesn't mean mel or langdon would, and just because something is funny, that doesn't mean it would be said. mel's voice is a lot harder for me to locate/write in because i am quite different from her (closer to langdon, if i have to say), so i try to read the words with her voice in my head to see if it's something i can imagine her saying. also, when writing in a single pov (which is all i do), you cannot reveal everything about the other person. you should still know what the other person is thinking/feeling, but know that you can't put it all on paper, and especially can't have them say it (i despise therapy talk in fiction haha). think about how a character like mel might miss or misinterpret something wordless that frank is trying to convey.

develop interests for them that make sense, not just what you are interested in: these kinds of small details always vary for me fic to fic, but i know it's easy to have characters like what you do. but you have to think if that makes sense for someone like mel, an autistic late-20s woman who works a demanding job with heavy caretaking responsibilities, or for frank, a 30ish white man with two kids. mel has already demonstrated that she has interests outside what people would think are 'typical' (e.g. rap), so i think making her, say, a swiftie would be out of character.

think about how they would react in different situations: you don't have to write all of them, but think about mundane things (how would they speak to a political pollster on the phone? would they send food back if it's incorrect?) and use those to get a feel for basic characteristics, like extroversion vs introversion or timidness.

not sure how helpful this is! for the cheating fic, it really started with 1) what would the situation have to be that would lead mel to allow herself this? and 2) what about mel would draw langdon to her? and then everything was built around that