Writing Treatise III. Writing On notion of Character and the world

 

Ahh so you seek to know how to write characters. Go look; find the fine guides to writing characters, there are many great ones such as the ones linked in the first part of this treatise.

 

                Ah, you’ve read them. Welcome back!

                Forget them; forget it, all of it…. If only temporarily here and now.

 

                This, amongst looking for meaning, is one of the biggest gossamer reinforced concepts taught via literature. Bare bones, formulaic simplified.  If only it were so simple, but it is not. Characters are too a sliding bar within a work and can be many things far beyond what is described and often attributed to them. We put much on their importance, but in reality the importance emphasized on them is the ultimate lie of the story due to the nature of stories and stories inherit conflict versus reality that we live both bizarre and real.  For it is scientifically proven that if there is no character, we through our anthropomorphic senses are scripted to make them, automatically, providing agency to that which does not even exist. Quite an epistemological bubbly swamp we’ve found ourselves in.

1. Character as Trope, archetype, and tale formula fodder:

                This may in your mind be not what you desire from this section, but perhaps it will be useful or perhaps not. Characters are the strongest link to audience and reality, the weakest link of your work. This is easy, but so many struggle with it. Basically audience needs and likes having things to understand; especially with a story.  However, an archetype is an archetype, repeating, and locking a work and character within the formula, dulling them, and making it hard to struggle out of what they have been cast.  It is its own uncanny valley. Too far away from nothing recognizable and we don’t have a character, too close, and we have lost our character to the archetype.  This is the buoyancy of balance to keep for a work. Clinging closely to those guides you’ve read as it is the easily repeatable and sellable.

                The main character: What a bizarre notion as there has ever been. Perhaps it is a storytelling artifact too much from the mythcycle. There is a push for this in media, a golden rule of easier publishing, people can only have so much attention span, but what is it truly? IT’S THE MAIN CHARACTER!... no, is it really?  What really is this thing? Look at your main character if you have one and tell yourself, what this thing really is?

                The hard brick of reality begins right here. In real life, there is no main character; we are billions of human actors with tons of living organism actors, spiritual actors perhaps in the belief system, and nonliving actors. No character’s tale is self-contained, self-living, and self-developed. There is always outside forces and characters interacted shaping and impacting the individual. The point being, your concept of a main character is already in flux. Few people shape history by themselves, or at least history lacks the decency for truth as much as expressing individuals this way.

The lie of the great man:
                We perceive history as happening through great men who make themselves great by themselves, but this is the blindness of history. This might be a delusion we wrap ourselves with when we write main characters. All characters have a point and no one is in a vacuum. There is a lot to explore and a story will be better without this. There are counter arguments with writing a myth or a legend, but those tale formulas allow for certain archetypes and concepts that lack in a normal tale world.

So back to the question: What is your main character and why do you have it?

                A hero?: Knee deep in the tale formula are we. The audience wants excitement, adventure, someone who is cooler than the rest? Not a mundane person like themselves; to escape with wish fulfilment and relate to as if they were a mirror to themselves? Perhaps, perhaps not? Back to the sliding bar and myth: The Joseph Campbell hero cycle is abused and often not grasped. We are not the priest king to be lit on fire and we do and do not save the world as individuals.  This approach is writ in archetype and backs us into a corner, and leads to many boring places. The main character in this form is mythic; their myth form detracts from other forms they develop. Think on those charters, the hundreds the media bombards itself with. Is the escapism through them or something else? Is it a simple aspect of expression of power or actual reality? How deep often are these main character’s beyond their roll. Is there more that can be done in there stead? Often, side characters in these cases overshadow these main characters. Settings take the escapism far more than the main character can and ever will.

                A point of view: This is the simplest unflinching answer.  Through third person or first person they hold the camera for the audience to feel and relate to easier through the plot unto resolution of conflict.

 

                So yes, a main character becomes the ball and chain that the audience is stuck with. Too unlikable or unreliable your character is wasting time and space. Too nothing, and well, it is what it is. It is a main conduit people are trained for by media to be the connection between you, the audience, and the work itself. This is a common, but narrow approach. It works; it’s worked for many stories, but is it all you want it to be from this character frame.

                You do not need a main character to have a story, but it is what the audience is trained for.

                An audience too does not need an antagonist. We go through lives without individuals ruining it and most of us live in reasonable peace. Conflict can come from many places and it does not need to stem from people. We are often our own greatest antagonist after all in our self-conflict.

                Though, if an antagonist exists, perhaps, they are not where the conflict stems. I feel many place conflict directly in the hands of an antagonist and it ruins their plot. Even more than the protagonist, the antagonist should be more real. The antagonist causes conflict for whatever reason in opposition to the world or cast. At the same time, I always feel there is always someone else, always something scarier that is not the source of conflict, but a rationale that is a reminder to the audience there is more to the world then just the antagonist and their conflicts, even if examined briefly. Myth form of course usually does not have room for this, but it becomes very important in writing myth as conflict in myth is not based in the antagonist but in a broken relationship within the myth subject.

2. Setting as character:
                A character does not need to be a person. Character is very much setting. Places are very much alive. We feel strongly with place as strongly with or even more than people. We love place, fear place, hate place, have home in place, are born in place, pay taxes at place, die at place, etc. Treating setting like character helps for good world development. It has connection to characters and will continue to do so when your characters do not exist. This is the true power of setting and of place. It shapes characters and so many forget this. There is a triality of place as mundane day to day place, accepting of place, and rejecting of place. HERE is your main character. How it effects and shapes character from birth to death is far more potent than anything else in setting. It produces every last character and every last character is driven by it despite their type. Plot is shaped by place far more than anything else. So many neglect place, place is everything, the air your character’s breath, their education, their fears, their desires, where they have to be for a time, place is the maddening concept to explore and develop. Approaching character as setting really impacts work. So, think on setting and its relationship to your characters and it will make all the difference in the world. All stories are stories about the world, characters are simply that, stories of characters in their relationship to the world.

3. Character as real people:
                I. There is a large push of authors to argue to write characters as real people. This is not always true. Audience recognizes architypes and they serve fine enough in many a famous tale playing out again and again. Once written this way they become marked in their architype, but stories exist in this medium perpetuates common tale formulas. Characters written as architype often lack the finesse and depth of characters as actual people. Characters as real people become free from trope and their own destiny. In writing real character think closely on those relationships; especially to that of setting. Avoiding stereotype and archetype is important. It becomes a battle between the logos and the pathos tied to these characters. They need to have real emotions in action and reaction. They need to have their logic curved in coming from places of understanding. Remember though, emotions too have their logic. Don’t forget the battle of ethics. Ethics here trumps and is far stronger than architypes, audience expects ethics to play kind for kind in the archetypal, in the real character we reflect real ethics and its weight that play out in all of us in the small and everyday.

                It may be hard for your audience to mark and place them, but in this realness perhaps such characters aremore relatable and feel-able from what they do. It is always based in what they do, not what is said about them. The real human character and their relationship to the small and everyday create more weight in it than big things. Remember the relationships, everything is connected. The real character creates a web of connections and the more you web things out the more real they become. There is a caution to this web mapping… things lacking in the web may be more real and a source of great character depth and conflict then simply filling it in. In the problems we are confronted with we rarely face massive real world changing problems. The degree how much those problems actually exist is up to debate as they are usually not solved every day. This puts the real person in the not every day in a massive problem. A problem of interesting stress and emotion that allows for great storytelling, but can be damaging to the tale if not done right. In the small things though; real characters will greatly shine.

 

II. Actually real people:
                Writing historic fiction with historic people as characters: Do your research, read their biography, watch and listen to video and audio recordings if we have them. Research counts and avoids places of negligence.

                Based off real people you know: Well that is up to you, some see this as lazy, others find it helps them create more real characters. Some do it as tribute, sometimes as joke. Just find the place for this.

Character as notion of self:

                Nothing is as damming to the path of Suedom than character as self. The audience does not wish to read about you in a fictional world. However, self-leaks into characters, as author we cannot help it. It can let us make a character become more real, create a well-deserved joke, but remember the limits of too much else we lose character.

Character as Script:
                Characters do not need to be real or have depth for a story to work. Again we are trained by media and the story to think in archetypes and know tale formulas. Sometimes the tale demands character in scripted form. This is ok, the story drags us along to where it needs to go apart from character, and the characters fulfilling their role like actors upon a stage; in and out. Characters done this way are a bit haunting like ghosts; audience barely catching their glimpses. In this, the characters give way more for the plot itself. In this light, the stories success depends more on pacing, place, and time through tableaux known to the audience. Tale telling can be very powerful here, but difficult to manage as it lies more in turning the story into the character over setting or character. Basically, the story is alive overshadowing everything. More common to tragedy, horror, legend, and myth forms, though becoming more common in the medium of video games.  Still, the strength relies in expressing through thick and I mean some thick action and environment description. High emphasis is on character agency being the connector to that environment.

Character as growth:

                Ah the great lie! Characters need growth to be likeable! And Good! Absolutely not! This is a split in reality. Most of us grow slowly and change slowly, or rarely in our lives.  We are ourselves unchanging internally for a good portion of our lives, thus escapism becomes common in this regard as reflection. It could be argued we are all seeking change even if we don’t get it or take years to get it. There is a process known as liminality, what comes before, where we are at, and what comes after. It is a state we are constantly in more than a state of change. We do seek it in the story and have a great appetite for it. Liminality is the heart of every fairytale after all. However, for a story and characters it is not needed for a story to work or characters to exist. Writing real characters needs to reflect this on a down low only keeping this to extreme real events which would change real people. Archetypes are architypes; they are difficult to change as they are architypes. Now you see the pickle of growth in the story. It is a difficult balancing act. Forced growth without reason ruptures an audience’s sense; a story with no growth is possible. Now, the longer a story goes on with more life changing events over a more longer period a time then yes you should think of how character’s grow over time and express that growth. A good notion is change of place reflecting change of character. That is where you will find the most growth in character. A fairytale depends on liminality so you cannot escape that fate else you destroy the fairytale. Transformation works are liminality in heart and too cannot escape the notion of growth.

Character as AWHAT!
                Exactly characters as AWHAT!?. What are you doing? Out of all the above you are still here.  Creating a AWHAT!? What are you making if it is nothing in the above? What game are you playing to the audience? What thing that is not architype, not script, not real person are you making and why? There needs to be purpose in the AWHAT! Something so alien to you and the audience’s senses that is hard to grasp. It needs purpose. Truly alien, truly not knowable, truly uncanny, a force of nature? This is the line you are working with. The AWHAT!? Depends on setting, but do not trip up and destroy setting by being lazy or overbearing with the AWHAT!?. Do not try to explain the AWHAT!?, you can only work on light description and heavy action and reaction of character to the AWHAT!. Ask yourself is the AWHAT! Worth it or is there another means to express this purpose through plot or simple metaphor. AWHAT!? It is poor character form even if it may “act” and speak. AWHAT! Should never have the same agency as character, definitely not understood agency, it is AWHAT! . Audience cannot really treat and feel with AWHAT! Easily, so think very hard on AWHAT!’s purpose in the work as a whole and how you use it.
 
Character as object and object as character:
                As we write characters they become categorized and marked in people’s minds. There is no escape for them in the minds of audience. Despite how real we make them or trivial they will become categorized and repeating, imagined actors in the minds of audience.  You must take care with keeping your characters as the character they are no matter their form. If not, you could jar and lose your audience. Audience is trained to take to character and will reproduce them through art and conversation. Characters will be the main focus to your work to whatever their degree. Audience wants to know what they look like, feel, dream, come from, and their lives. Your duty is of course to provide this for an audience to a degree of necessity to the story you write. This is why thick description planted throughout a work aids in your audience getting to know the characters and feel for them. Though it is the resolution of conflict the audience ultimately leaves with the audience will feel with characters for the long haul. So treat your characters with the respect in the form they are.
                Characters also become objectified beyond archetype. The actions they do reflect and are felt with audience. The audience sees themselves in character or parts of themselves, rather real or not. They will label things that may or may not be real to the character in the work. This is especially important in two categories: Concept of protagonist and antagonist and sex. A protagonist and antagonist can create backlash in audience if such characters do not perform their role in the setting. Audience may also take such characters in inappropriate places beyond intent and this may impact the work.  Audience has libido and sexual interest and will automatically begin objectifying your characters based on their feelings and desires. Make sure your work maintains balance in its expression of a character to whatever a degree beyond just a fetish or sex object. The audience will do that anyway, it’s your choice to play along, but be reasonable as it can come back to haunt you.         

                At last objects as character:
                AWHAT!? Yes more of a character as AWHAT!? Objects in stories become categorized both in the story through setting and character by audience. Objects might not talk or act, but they carry weight. Their characteristics bend and form to audience. Take a minute and think about a world and think about an object: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars. You are bound to select certain objects. Remember these things, the small things and the big things that build character. Keep your environment description well aware in your head. It’s the small things that crop up that become characteristic to setting in the minds of audience. These objects come to life. When they are missing or forgotten about by you the author it creates logic issues. They create time and space and feelings for your audience. Objects become the world to the reader. Objects provide awe and wonder both in character and through them the eyes of audience. Explore these things even if seemingly minor. Avoid spectacle, as simplicity works.  An object should make sense in the world that in inhabits. Form fits function. Take them slow; take them in action and reaction.

Objects to mark characters:
                The audience in their mind often associates character with objects; especially clothing. Clothing becomes a quick recognizer for audience, but limits the reality factor, for who wears the same thing every day? There is a bad habit of summarizing characters down to their weapons. This is why thick description is needed throughout the text. Work on expressing character face and action far more than clothing or a weapon, as people we are far more than that. However, items and clothing can be used to tell us of character, it should not define them.