Writing against type

[maeve_of_winter]

I'm writing a fic right now that's somewhat challenging in its characterization, and it got me thinking: how do you tackle characters dealing with emotions or reacting to situations they've never come close to encountering in canon? Or them consciously choosing to change who they are as a person?

For me, my fic is a Riverdale/Archie Comics fic for the FP Jones/Kevin Keller pairing called "Second Time Around." It has FP Jones, a rough and tough gang leader in canon, now trying to step up in his role as a newly single parent, as well as trying act more like a gentleman in order to convince Kevin Keller to stay with him. It can get difficult, because the situation in itself requires FP to change from how he is in canon into someone who's more gentle and caring, so it can very easily stretch the willing suspension of disbelief.

And now I'm curious! How do you, as a writer, believably keep a character as themselves while writing about them acting differently than how they are in canon, or willingly choosing to act unlike themselves?

Comments

[the_rck]

I will sometimes consider the aspects of a character's life that I don't see or the things about the character don't quite fit. I look for frayed edges that I can worry at to see what I find. Throwing a character into a situation that canon never did also works.

Ensemble canons tend to give snapshots of a character's life so that one can work in the lacunae. In this case, are there any bits of canon that preclude the character interacting with a pet or having to watch his four year old cousin? Has the show defined his entire family? Could there be someone in his past (a grandparent? a neighbor?) who showed him how to weed a flowerbed or took him on a weekend camping trip? Lives are made of a lot of small moments, and nobody is all one thing, all of the time. Maybe he recorded every episode of My Little Pony, and that's his most shameful secret?

[maeve_of_winter]

Lives are made of a lot of small moments, and nobody is all one thing, all of the time.

Oooh, this is a really good point! I tend to forget sometimes, and I think some other fanfic and even professional writers tend to focus on the big events in characters' lives and forget how the smaller events have impacted them as well.