gwern comments on Skill: The Map is Not the Territory - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 October 2012 09:59AM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 04 October 2012 10:06:03AM 5 points [-]

When I write a character, e.g. Draco Malfoy, I don't just extrapolate their mind, I extrapolate the surrounding subjective world they live in, which has that character at the center; all other things seem important, or are considered at all, in relation to how important they are to that character. Most other books are never told from more than one character's viewpoint, but if they are, it's strange how often the other characters seem to be living inside the protagonist's universe and to think mostly about things that are important to the main protagonist. In HPMOR, when you enter Draco Malfoy's viewpoint, you are plunged into Draco Malfoy's subjective universe, in which Death Eaters have reasons for everything they do and Dumbledore is an exogenous reasonless evil.

This is an awesome trick, and I'll have to use it more explicitly when writing various characters. (I already did somewhat, but I'm not sure if I've explicitly thought of it in these terms.)

Comment author: gwern 08 October 2012 06:31:45PM *  4 points [-]

David Weber places a lot of emphasis on this too; I wrote down what I could remember of his discussion of the topic at ICON 2012:

Then Weber went onto a tangent I really appreciated: while working 4 assistantships at a university, he would tell his class that Hitler's actions were all highly rational & understandable if one understood his world view. An important writing rule: have no simplistic villains. The villains must have good reasons for everything they do.

Weber gave an example: the Mesan genetic slavers in his Honor novels. They are breeding a master race, and during the centuries, they have blighted the lives of billions - but they are all still human. So he described a scene from a book:

The leader and his wife are preparing for dinner in their rooms. The wife - "Oh honey, don't wear that red shirt." The husband: "but that's my favorite shirt!" Wife: "I know, and hopefully the geneticists can do something about your taste. And you're not wearing the red shirt."

(Everyone laughed).

A good writer makes bad guys comprehensible; hence, some fans come to opposite conclusions about Weber's politics, based sometimes, he said, on the same exact passages from his novels.

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