Why is it easier for some people to share their deepest, darkest secrets, fears, hopes, pains, whatever, in a public forum (Facebook, Twitter, etc), than it is for them to discuss them face to face with the people they’re closest to?
And on the other side of the coin, how is it that some people manage to always maintain a cheery happy public face, despite personal pressures?
What is it about this medium that makes sharing an expectation? We figure if we see someone online, we know them. Whether or not we ever actually talk to them. We’ve seen their status updates, their tweets, their blog posts. We’ve seen them talk about not happy things in their lives. That must be the real them, right?
What is it about social media that’s turned all of us into tabloid headliners/readers?
And how do we know, when we do actually connect with someone (as in, we talk to them, they talk back, dialogue ensues, conversation happens past a single post), that we’re actually connecting with who they are, and not an extension of the persona they play online?
It’s possible some people are reading this and saying “I don’t play a persona online. I really am a single/married, mother/father/sister/brother who writes in their free time/at work/while the kitties are sleeping.”
But that’s not all we are. We’re more than the bio we past in the character limited box. We’re more than the 2-6 sentences we use to describe ourselves in third person. We have depth, personality, motivation, likes, dislikes, pet peeves, bad habits, paranoia’s…
You get the point.
Here’s the thing. Even if we never speak those things about ourselves, they still influence the small snippet of personality we allow out to play. They’re evident in how we interact with people, even people we barely know. They speak of our insecurities and our vanities and our hidden thoughts. But not blatantly.
Kind of like when you write a character.
That’s my writing advice for the day – if you wouldn’t say it online, does it need to be said to tell your story?
Okay, I think that one needs work. There appear to be holes forming in my analogy even as I examine it, but…its a start.
How do you decide which pieces of your characters to reveal when you write?
And what do you try and say by not saying anything when you interact online?
I think we all have pieces of our character that we reveal in different ways depending on circumstances. One person online. Another when at work. Another when we’re hanging out with casual friends and an entirely different one when spending time with the closest people in our lives.
When I write, it actually depends on the voice I’m using. Third person narrative reveals different things than first. I’m finding I really like the unreliable first person narrator, because I love things that go unsaid.
Good question. The facade is a complicated factor. I try to keep what is shown relevant to the story, the plotline, though other things get out occasionally. That’s part of why blogging as characters is fun. I can show anything, especially things that may not be able to make it into the books.