I attended CONduit this weekend, a small but lively little SF&F convention held annually in Salt Lake city. In addition to seeing many good friends and making some new ones, I had the opportunity to attend some excellent sessions on writing.
One in particular stands out. Tracy Hickman discussed the craft of story, and mentioned again that our stories don't exist until someone reads them. We don't write to be published, but to be read.
I love that advice. It changes the entire landscape of what we are trying to accomplish and how we go about our business. It's not just about the numbers game, but about the craft and about sharing our stories in a meaningful way.
I believe it was also Tracy who talked about the important role of character. As you know from some of my previous posts on character, I've really been placing a lot of my recent writing education on character and why it's to important to story.
Well, Tray mentioned that we may not remember the plot or stories years later that we've read, but a really good character will stay with us.
That has proven entirely true in my case. I can remember characters from stories I read 25 years ago much better than the actual plot. In fact, I recently reread a book and had completely convoluted the plot in my mind, but the character stayed with me and was basically accurate.
Why is that? And why in some stories does the character just disappear?
I think this question involves that characters are put in situations that really cause them to think and challenge themselves. But it's more than that.
It's characters that have been well thought out and described and come to life. But it's more than that.
It's characters that have flaws they have to work through or deal with. But it's more than that, too.
Why do some characters have a greater impact than others? I think it's a combo of all those things: plot, setting, situation, conflict, and resolution that both speak to us and challenge our own way of thinking, and done so in a way that we both want to be like the characters and don't want to be like them.
And that is a quest we all must figure out, each time we write.
8 comments:
Like actors, our characters with 'personality' stand out, some more than others.
Great advice - thanks for the posting!
I think one way that characters stand out to me is how well I relate to them. Perhaps that is why I love Sarene from Brandon Sanderson's "Elantris" while my husband can't get enough of Kvothe in "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. They both are well done characters in fantasy novels, but we love them for what we see of ourselves in them. One thing I've been trying in my own writing is starting a journal from my character's point of view. I may never use any of it in the actual book, but it has helped me to understand her better.
@Royce: Thanks for your comment. I think it's true with people, too.
@JoLyn: Interesting idea on writing a journal from your character. I think that would really make that character real to you, visceral, and true. But would your mind get confused with real life? ;-)
I love the way great characters become real people to us as readers. (Or we wish they were real . . . as my daughter (a huge Dostoevsky and Brandon Sanderson fan) once said, musing about two fictional heroes, "If Alyosha (Karamazov) and Kaladin both asked me to marry them, what would I even do?"
@Stephanie: That's too funny! I can see she'd be in a world of turmoil... ;-)
Perhaps it is that power of empathy that we can remember the people but not always the incident. I think that is true of real life sometimes as well. Quick, who was your best friend in high school. Easy right. OK, now name everything you've done with your best friend. Not even possible.
I think people will always win out over any other element. We're just wired that way. But put those people in great plots with fun settings and we're hooked.
Thanks for the post!
Oh, and I attended your BCC class at Storymaker11 and it was great. Thanks :)
@Shelly,
Excellent point. I think I'll write a post about that idea of empathy and what it means with relevance to character. I'd like to muse on it for a while.
Thanks for the feedback on the class. I'm teaching a two-hour version--much more of a workshop--in Arizona next February at the ANWA conference, and hopefully a two-hour version at Storymakers 12.
I loved this and shared my reflections of it on my blog. Thank you!
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