Writing And Being -- Why We Should Think About Characters and Their Authors Separately:

Reading is a wonderful medium that invites people to think, discover, and challenge.   Since readers are invited to contemplate a book's meaning and draw conclusions about the story and its characters, there is always the risk of misinterpretation, especially since many of the best authors won't bluntly state the point of every tale.

I know there's been times when I've disliked statements I've read in stories, and from some comments I've noticed online, most people have had the same experience.  

That's perfectly alright.  We are only human, it’s important to oppose bad things, and some authors do have beliefs that deserve to be challenged.  But, there are times when an author's intent is completely misunderstood .

Writers will often design their stories based on their beliefs and what lessons they want to convey, so to that extent, a story can and often does reflect its author, but not in the way we think.  Someone can write bloody horror without being a serial killer. People can write a racist villain without actually being racists themselves. A person of one belief system can write about characters of a different belief system.

This is often necessary, especially when tales have a large cast, go through a plot line that puts characters through heartache, and reflects an expansive world with complex cultures and history.

Furthermore, when writing from a certain character's point of view, we see what that character thinks and feels.  We get to learn each character's journey, see how and why they got there, and perhaps even feel angry or disappointed at their chosen path.  But that is vital for understanding how people operate. Knowing how people behave can make it easier to solve problems or even keep ourselves from becoming destructive.

People have to be careful when writing about things they haven't experienced, and writing about groups they are not a part of can be particularly challenging.  But, pretty much every story requires authors to step outside their own experiences in some way or another.

This is important on a personal level, because it makes authors empathize with others and invites their readers to do the same.  It is also important for at least some authors to show the world as it is.

Bad people exist, and villains reflect that.  If villains aren't bad people and don't do bad things, there's usually not a good reason for the heroes to fight them.

Furthermore, heroes are people, just like us.  Everyone has flaws. Sometimes those flaws are major and not socially acceptable by our modern standards.  Sometimes authors want to express that reality in a story, or even take those characters on an adventure that forces them to face their flaws and change their perspective.

Keeping that in mind increases our chances of interpreting a story accurately and getting something wonderful out of it, instead of getting angry and assuming the worst about an author.  This also helps us in writing our own tales. Why not study other people closely and learn how to write them accurately and fairly, even if they have a completely different belief system?  Why not illustrate the fact that bad things exist and have consequences?

The hows and whys of that are important, and would constitute entire videos of their own, but, hopefully this was food for thought. So, what do you think? Have you been angry at something an author wrote, only to learn that they meant something entirely different? What's your opinion on the relationship between what an author writes and how an author actually thinks? Let me know in the comments below!