"The characters are the story" ...or not

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I'm sick of reading every single piece of advice saying that the most important thing in a story is the characters and you need to trim out most of your worldbuilding and focus more on interpersonal conflict. Has to be interpersonal. That's the most important part of a story, that's what people read it for.

Why am I sick of it? BECAUSE IT MAKES PEOPLE FOLLOW IT. And then instead of writing a lot of fascinating worldbuilding and external conflict and delving deep into the details of their made-up cultures and worlds and languages, they write barely any and focus on the characters.

I WANT STORIES THAT BREAK THIS RULE. But this feeling is not shared by a single NT I've ever heard of. So they won't write these stories. And no one will publish them, either.

Surely someone agrees with me. Surely someone here likes Tolkein and doesn't skim the showing-off of his world. Surely someone read, say, Talyn and wanted a list of all the meditations by all the saints. Surely someone read A Song of Ice and Fire and wants a map of Essos and an in-depth explanation of Westerosi timekeeping.

Are you guys out there? Are you writing such stories? Do you want such stories?

I am in, but the world follows. Tolkien was published by accident, it was written as a news paper serial, during the Blitz. It was a time when people wanted to be somewhere else.

While publishers do not take risks, most teens want to be somewhere else. Much of it was overdone, which kills the market for a while, but unlike adults, a young reader generation is five years.

As for Publishing, I expect to see it's skeleton on display at the Denver Museum of Natural History.

Readers do need a character to view things from, and one wandering around talking to themselves leads to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

Bilbo and Gandalf were well developed characters with peacetime roles, then applied to war. Frodo and Samwise neighborhood boys sent to Flanders Field. Ring Wraiths were as interpersonal as conflict gets.

The reader needs a character to view the story from, and that character must start by being less than the reader, then through conflict becoming superior.

Woven into every good worldbuilding story is a mirror held up to our own.

The Ring Wraiths were Kings of Europe that sided with the Dark Lord, the Elves were going to stay out of it, fade away to the West, and be American Isolationists. Orcs were Elves once, who served on the Eastern Front.

The Dark Lord sent flights of birds to search the land and prepare for invasion.

Write for yourself, then think about what in this world lead to another, and it will come through.

I have a book, it is economics and invention set a few ice ages ago, for then they were clearcut in how they benefited the people. It is worldbuilding that once existed, and can be returned to.

The background is woven into the story, and the characters show how they lived in that world. It is time travel to a known past.

I self publish, and if the public does not like it, it will sell when the snows start piling up. It is a prehistoric study, Dawn of the Mesolithic, but an action adventure story. It can be read on several levels.

Keep writing.

What an interesting post! I want to clarify that I have nothing against characters and nothing against character-driven stories. I just don't think it's the only way to do things.

The problem is NTs aren't interested in the big picture.

I was in a group, in lit class discussing Swift's criticism of 18th century society (Gulliver book IV) and how/if in applies today. I noted things like why nations go to war, the legal system, the medical system and politicians... my NT groupies just blinked and stared blankly.

Finally, after scouring the text, they decided how people make a living, and marriage were the most apt criticisms...

It's the little things that interest NTs. They can't appreciate the intricacies of this world, let alone a fictional one.

I am not at the point where I would call myself an author.(perhaps after I finish or at least start writing some of my books) But I just do not see the point of writing characters while ignoring their environment, in fact I feel the environment can add much to a character. An emotion is nothing without context, and context can amplify the presentation of an emotion. It is important and the lack of imagination which goes into environment disappoints me somewhat. But maybe it will give me an edge if I ever finish something and decide to set it on the path to publication.

George Martin has always had what all great authors have. Strength.

Conviction is everything in writing. You, as the author, need to do two things. One, make your characters believe in what they're doing, even when they know what they're doing is blatant manipulation or a position to which they personally do not ascribe. Two, convey that.

I'll use Martin as an example brought up by you. The Second Kind of Loneliness is about not the character but the enormity of the world, or space-void, about him. Nightflyer is the same. As is, really, A Song for Lya not so much about the characterisation or the difference in the psychic abilities of Lyanna and whatever his name was, but about smallness as compared to vastness, both of their psychic discourse and of society and the universe around them.

When people talk about characters making the story, what they really want is something coherent. The things is, Martin will always, in my mind, be better than say, Dumas. Why? Because, consistent with the French storytelling tradition of the time, dialogue was how Dumas conveyed his stories. To me, it has never worked. It inhibits characterisation and limits my ability as a reader to empathise with the characters and the environment in which they find themselves.

The older, more appropriate adage, and really the reason I stopped writing sci-fi in favour of literary fiction, is SHOW what's happening. This implies environmental factors. Too much of modern literature is about TELLING what's happening, which is, ironically, what agents and publishers tell you readers don't want, and they don't, but is what they publish.

Keep writing. Always write. And take your rejections not to heart, but as inspiration to keep writing.

Just remember to keep the strength of your characters paramount, continue to read everything that comes your way, and learn to manipulate your use of environment to make your characters rather than have your characters simply say that the leaves are falling off of the trees.

Maybe something like (off the top of my head):

In the maelstrom of the autumn winds, her heart, once full of naive lust for love, broke as Simon zipped up and walked away. Her innocence lost, fallen, blood-red leaves the trickle of her innocence, wafted in the gusts of his lusting conquest of the virginal plot of her love.

Works, doesn't it? Literature is about layers.

Good luck.

I think there actually is a market for fiction that is not character driven. Writing teachers dismiss it because it isn't literary fiction, it's genre fiction, but nevertheless people will devour books with barely developed characters.

The hugest sellers are plot-driven. Potboilers like DaVinci Code, action thrillers like Tom Clancy writes and horror fiction are plot driven. Dean Koontz writes horror fiction that has characters so thinly written they don't even seem like people, but people devour his books just for the plot.

Then there's enviroment driven fiction like fantasy and science fiction. In these novels, the enviroment is the lead character and the plot and actual characters seem to be there mostly as a way of moving the reader through the enviroment to explore it. William Gibson (cyberpunk writer) once said he wanted to write a novel that was all nouns. That's how much he loves enviroment. He just wants to describe it.

The writing teachers will say that you need interpersonal conflict and character development, and you do. But you can get away with not much characer development if you write a plot so compelling and/or create an enviroment so compelling that readers can get lost in those elements. Philp K. Dick wrote science fiction novels that created enviroments and plots pretty much at the expense of any character development and he was wildly popular. Many of his novels were made into movies. When I found out that Blade Runner was based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I ran out and read it and was surprised to discover that it barely has characters. It is pure enviroment and plot. All its character development was put into Blade Runner by Hollywood screenwriters.

Plot, characters and enviroment are the holy trio of fiction. But most current writers can do only 2 out of 3 and some can only do 1. Writing teachers definately privilege character development and put it as primary with the other two as secondary, but in the bookstores, that's not how it actually works.

Sometimes there is a writer who can do all 3. Stephen King, IMO is one such writer. But most writers just pick 2 out of 3. Chick lit and literary fiction is mostly character. Horror and action is mostly plot. Fantasy is mostly enviroment (world building). Science fiction is sometimes plot and sometimes enviroment.

If you can make your characters seem plausibly human, that's enough. It's already better than either Dean Koontz or Philip K. Dick and they both sold millions of books.

Worldbuilding is among my favorite parts of writing fantasy, so I understand where you're coming from. Settings have a much more important role in stories than many people appreciate. Take Charles Saunders's Imaro and Dossouye books for instance. A major reason I love those books so much is their exotic settings which draw upon African cultures. It's true that good characters increase our emotional investment in the story, but they still need a captivating environment to act in.

The important thing of characters much more that their development and interpersonal conflits is the characters to be lovable. Too much importance is given today to character development, to the point of nowaday frequently be a artificial construction. Characters mostly need to be alive.

Also, you could use characters as a way to present your world, as they journey discovering it.

Dune was all about the setting, the desert people taken from the Toureg of the Sahara, The Blue Men. The men who wear vails. They survive where no one else does. Fremen is from the Amazight, the Berbers, Amazight means Free Men.

From local stories came the reality of living in a harsh land.

"God made the desert to test the faithful" Is Islamic.

It combines the setting, history, the constant warfare of tribal people, and the drugs that made Algeria and Morocco a cheap and great places to spend a year painting or writing.

As a SciFi plot is makes the Sahara a whole planet, and the people the toughest in the Empire.

The Dosade Experiment, three species on one world, which turns out they each inhabit many worlds, and the experiment was to see who would win. They are roughly, Europeans, Asians, and Africans. It was based on Gengis, killed 40,000,000, the Crusades, who knows, and the Arab invasion of Europe.

It was mostly plot. The world was earth like. The three species had the range of Star Trek characters. All humaniod, and english speaking.

Right now, after the crash stories. What happened to the Romans when Rome fell? No economy, no slaves, produce your own food, most died.

Global warming, 125 degree days, how would people adapt, without government or technology?

There is much to learn of the reality of other climates.

It is taking the reader through a tour, teaching what survival takes, letting them see it through local eyes, and find what meaning continues from their world. What are the key points to survival? What are the goals?

There can be a world, a plot, developed characters, and still lack content. It has to engage the reader, and leave them with a wider world view.

Writer research, fact check, and weave it into the story. It is an educated person sharing their world view, which is personal and took years to develop, with a reader who invested $10 and a day.

Give them their monies worth.

No one wants to listen to an aspie talk of their special interest, but books work. Woven through the story it educates the reader from the view of an expert. There has to be more, but content sells. You still need the world, plot, characters, but they are dealing with something that is real in the readers world, or might be.

Frank Herbert's novels are masterpieces of what you are looking for. He is my fave author. Dune is the holy grail of all novels.

You can also look into Peter F. Hamilton.. his novels are based on very complex, very diverse universe. His Night's Dawn novel (Reality Dysfunction) are amazing in how they describe different human cultures and the world they create for themselves.. his aliens are very,very different (not humanized copies like you see in star trek).

While we're on the subject, does anyone have any tips of defining the personality(and behavioral) traits of a character? I don't quite think I've hit a brick wall but some tips would be helpful.(I'm trying to write up a profile for a protagonist, which I suppose is as general as it gets but I'm only looking for general tips so I suppose that works)

I use a system to plan out character personalities.

Take a piece of paper (I use one from my printer), drawn a vertical line splitting it in half. Label one side 'Fiction' the other 'Real'.


Since I know the 'role' of that character in the plot(s) I start thinking what fictional characters I've read in other books/movies/etc have traits that could be applicable to my character... and write the name of that character, where I saw it (book/movie,whatever) and what traits he has that made me think of him/her. In the 'Fiction' column of course.

Then I think of people who I know in real life... this includes historical figures and people I've interacted with personally. Same as above, those that have traits that would be 'fitting' of my character I write down on the 'Real' column.

Once you do that, you will have a rough sketch of what personality traits your character would have. It will usually be very diverse... so you can trim them a bit or you can leave it as it is.

The real benefit of this system is that you mix real people with fictional people traits so your character end up being more realistic and believable...so people can relate and put themselves in that character's shoes when they read.

As you write your dialogue you can constantly look back at that character sheet to keep your mind 'thinking' like that character would..what he/she would say or do.

Tom Clancy does fine without character development.
Atleast in sales if not in litereary quality.

His books are basically just textbooks for military cadets set into narrative motion.

The CSI franchise of TV shows were mostly technology driven, though they gradually became more character driven with time.

I myself can only take only so much textbook reading and need a little character development.

The Tolkien books do have well drawn characters and some of them do have struggles with conflicting motivations and the like.
But if you're writing a story about an imaginary society (in the mesolithic or the future or another planet, or the Middle Earth) then that society itsself is a "character" in the story and would likely have "character development" (just as real societies do in history).

So there are different ways to go when writing fantasy and sci fi.

Take for example the character development through monologue that Frank Herbert used on his God Emperor of Dune novel.. that book was almost completely driven by character dialogue.

If you havent read Dune... the person 'speaking' in the monologues is the God Emperor.. his character is hard to describe in a few short sentences so I'll just say what he is: A man who had prescient visions of the future of humanity.. terrible events and extinction of the species... who merged himself with a giant creature, sacrificing his humanity so he'd live the thousands of years that were required to set his 'Golden Path' (a plan) that would prepare the species to survive. The same thing that gave him his prescience also gave him access to ancestral memories.. in short, he could remember perfectly the events on the lives of every person he is descended from.

He made himself emperor and ruled all humanity through what would best be called a tyranny unlike none seen before.. but that tyranny had a purpose. The god emperor kept a diary that he knew would be discovered a century or two before humanity's demise was to occur.. a message for the people of the era and to teach them a reminder of their humanity

Below are excerpts the author 'put' on the novel so the reader could really understand his personality and character and why he did and say things in the novel. Its a fascinating writing technique.

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You, the first person to encounter my chronicles for at least four thousand years, beware. Do not feel honored by your primacy in reading the revelations of my Ixian storehouse. You will find much pain in it. Other than the few glimpses required to assure me that the Golden Path continued, I never wanted to peer beyond those four millennia. Therefore, I am not sure what the events in my journals may signify to your times. I only know that my journals have suffered oblivion and that the events which I recount have undoubtedly been submitted to historical distortion for eons. I assure you that the ability to view our futures can become a bore. Even to be thought of as a god, as I certainly was, can become ultimately boring. It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.
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When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security, they squirm init. How boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto's Peace shall abide with them forever. They will seed their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation.
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Groups tend to condition their surroundings for group survival When they deviate from this it may be taken as a sign of group sickness. There are many telltale symptoms. I watch the sharing of food. This is a form of communication, and inescapable sign of mutual aid which also contains a deadly signal of dependency. It is interesting that men are the ones who usually tend the landscape today. They are husband-men. Once, that was the sole province of women.
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The pattern of monarchies and similar systems has a message of value for all political forms. My memories assure me that governments of any kind could profit from this message. Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained. Monarchies have some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and parasitic nature of the management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions when necessary. They fit an ancient human demand for a parental (tribal/feudal) hierarchy where every person knows his place. It is valuable to know your place, even if that place is temporary. If is galling to be held in place against your will. This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way—by example. Even though you read these words after a passage of eons, my tyranny will not be forgotten. My Golden Path assures this. Knowing my message, I expect you to be exceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any government.
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One of the most terrible words in any language is Soldier. The synonyms parade through our history: yogahnee, trooper, hussar, kareebo, cossack, dernazeef, legionnaire, sardaukar, fish speaker...I know them all. They stand there in the ranks of my memory to remind me: Always make sure you have the army with you.
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Given enough time for the generations to evolved, the predator produces particular survival adaptations in its prey which, through the circular operation of feedback, produce changes in the predator which again produce changes in the predator which again change the prey—etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...Many powerful forces do the same thing. You can count religions among such forces.
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Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. you restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.
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You cannot understand history unless you understand its flowings, its currents and the ways leaders move within such forces. A leader tries to perpetuate the conditions which demand his leadership. Thus, the leader requires the outsider. I caution you to examine my career with care. I am both leader and outsider. Do not make the mistake of assuming that I only created the Church which was the State. That was my function as leader and I had many historical models to use a pattern. For a clue to my role as outsider, look at the arts of my time. The arts are barbaric. The favorite poetry? The Epic. The popular dramatic ideal? Heroism. Dances? Wildly abandoned. From Moneo's viewpoint, he is correct in describing this as dangerous. It stimulates the imagination. It makes people feel the lack of that which I have taken from them. What did I take from them? The right to participate in history.

The God Emperor combined everything. An immortal head of State, Church, Economy. And he was bored, but not for the first thousand years. The Golden Path, the only path, Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path. Our way to survival, where everything else comes second. He loved the Species, but no one in particular, he could send millions to their death, for the greater good.

As Bush the elder said, "I don't do that vision thing" and an older version, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

It is the deepest quest, providing for a better future. All the kings of old had a seer, Visier, a standard part of government. The job was not to do, but to see the results of taking one choice or another.

Native Americans chose their path by considering how what they did would affect the next six generations.

"Chose a path with heart, for you will be on it for a long time."

"You cannot tell much about a man from his friends, but you can know him through his enemies."

Characters have character and values. These only show through their actions. The path forever forks, and turning right or left shows what is deep within, where the center lies.

"Anyone can create a hero, it takes other people to create a villain."

I character shop everywhere, I listen to conversations, reality is stranger than fiction. What I can make up seems shallow compared to what I can steal from life.

A character has a role, they carry the story, but they also have an unseen center, motives, that only come out by their actions. They lead or follow, and their actions define thier relation with other characters.

The Greeks claimed there were only seven, but what made each telling great, was, the character had a flaw, and watching how that flaw played out made the story.

My main character is the leader, everyone follows, but the leader forgets to lead, special interests and all, and being lead by someone who does not think of themselves as a leader, everyone thinks they are lead to do just what they think best, and it works.

Those who would do as they are told have to fake it, and it becomes a way of life. Each has a view of an ideal leader, they follow it.