My brother read 1984. He said it was okay. Let's not talk about what books that I should read. I am still reading the ones I got. And I will decide later what next book I want to read. Characterization really sounds like you need to put a lot into your character, even if some of the information are just extra. If a story is about a meteor coming to hit the earth, does it really have to tell the reader about the main character's life and issue?
If you want people to read your novels then take the time to figure out why novels are structured in the ways that they are. A story is not just a bunch of random bits crashing into one another like balls on a billiards table. Story are about people acting (and all acts have consequences) in the midst of all the random movements of the universe. Each action a character makes, complicates his/her situation--for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action. In plotting terminology, that is called the "Cause and Effect Cascade."
I'll figure out how to make my own novels work on my own. I pretty much understand how some stories work. For example, Twilight worked because the characters seem to be relate able. Even the Marvel super heroes have the same common problems which real people face today. If characters have to be relate able in order for the book to become a bestseller, then the world is dominated by people who only want to exit to a similar different reality. Some of my stories will be character driven while some will be action driven.
By "similar different reality" you mean as opposed to a completely different reality? If I understand you right, you believe that a fantasy world where the characters feel like cardboard cutouts are more different than one where characters are fully fleshed and complex? You might be right, but I guess the latter are more appealing to most people because well, you don't really have to give up on any of the action or description to have good characters.
I'd say that that means that the world is dominated by people who want to be human. Even if they want to be a stronger, more powerful, more sophisticated human, or superior to themselves in some other way, they still want to be people.
Ya know...most people--whether smart or stupid--are people. And that is where all literature is aimed at. Every story that has ever been written has been written for people to read. And if you think about it...who else is around to read them? We have almost 15,000 years of writing history to prove to us what works and why it works. However, and here is where I bring back up the statement you wrote where I said I may over-look--which I am not by the way: "But good writers are not like that. Some of us want to experiment or make something new. We want to teach readers, give them experience, or help them exit from reality." So...what you are telling all the writers on this site is, that you are a good writer and we are not. That you are experimenting and we are not. That you are so knowledgeable that you can teach people a thing or two. And that you want to help them "exit" reality. How are you planing to do that...? By shooting them in the head? Because that is what "Exiting Reality" seems to suggest. I don't know why you are here; you don't want to learn or share writing techniques or engage in theoretical conversations. Seems you are merely arguing that no one here knows anything about writing. So, here is my advice to you. Go show us up. Prove we are wrong. But you wont do that by arguing with us; you can only do that by writing. Good Luck.
What I'm hearing Miles say is that reader empathy is clutter - that characters, their thoughts, their feelings, and their goals, are just useless, messy, essentially undesirable trimming in a novel. That he's trying to make a "pure" novel that doesn't require any empathy whatsoever, that essentially has no characters, except as essentially mechanical automatons. I think that Miles sees the core of fiction as being the plot, and he wants to have that core without the messy human element. It's a little like seeing dance as a pure form that is cluttered up by the requirement to have human dancers, or song as a pure form that would be much better if it didn't require a voice. I'm not justifying this concept. I guess I'm saying that it is so very, _very_ far from the way that most of us see fiction, that there's no common ground to discuss.
Maybe in 10 more years when he is out of school he might look back at these comments comments of his and laugh.
I'm not trying to insult anyone. All writers have their own writing style. If you feel that characters are more important than action driven plots, than that is your deal. Writing is about everything. And maybe when I become a better writer, I will laugh at my own comments. Why do people want to be human? Are they afriad that they will become blood thirsty savarges like lions, tigers, and bears? And the world of crime is a scary place and being civilized is better? If human characters in fiction help readers avoid those fears, than fiction are also lessons on human concepts. Those are interesting subjerts too about what makes us human and what makes us animals. We are all complex animals trying to live in a world that is mostly safe with love, technology progress, and justice. A fantasy realtiy with cardboard characters can be good, but the main human character can be the only human exploring the world, like Alice in Wonderland for example. How would you react if you enter a Loony Tune world. And I don't mean that readers should jump off a bridge to exit reality. I meant they can look at a different reality that isn't our reality.
Why do we want to be human? Well we ARE all human. It is not possible to comprehend the reality of a lion or a lizard or other animals, as we are so different from them. Like it or not, connecting to other people is important to every human being on the planet, and as a reader, that connection is what I want to experience. Of course I find a well written story about some giant rat stampeding through NYC to be interesting, but to me that is not enough reason to read it. I cant remember a single movie or book that that I liked that did not have characters I could connect with one at least a basic level. I don't know if I understood you correctly with Alice in Wonderland, but did you imply that Alice in Wonderland is a story void of characterization and driven by action?
It is not a weakness to be human. However, it is a weakness for a human being to claim that it is a weakness to be human.
I sincerely hope we misunderstood what he wrote or what he wrote wasn't what he meant. Because MilesTro, i don't want to believe that you honestly believe what you wrote. The Chesire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit and so on are all deep and emotional characters that are the polar opposite of what you imply with your statement. And what you are saying gets more and more inconsistent. If you want a reader to look at a reality that isn't his reality, why would he care about that reality if there was no character for whom he can care? From what you have said, you seem to believe that a story would be great if the protagonist was a pink version of flubber using a bazooka that fires cotton candy to beat enemies made out of cardboard box and for whom you would give no characterization whatsoever, as long as the action was good.
Even if a character is human, he or she doesn't have to choose to behave like a human. We're all animals, and some of us probably carve the beast within ourselves. In the stone age, we probably all enjoy being animals. Now we evolved into civilization people who dislike our old savage way in the past. If we meet an alien race who are savage, would we just kill them? If so, that proves we only like something that has similar human traits. But we can choose of what we want to be. And some stories can teach us that with animal characters. Alternate realities can come in different forms with different laws. If the characters seem too flat in their own universe, that is just the way they are. Does the author have to explain that too? Some readers don't even care about logic. If the story is action driven, it doesn't have to focus on the characters, but back story information I agree is require. If the story takes place in our reality, than the characters should be human. Unless it is a parody of our reality. "If you want a reader to look at a reality that isn't his reality, why would he care about that reality if there was no character for whom he can care?" For entertainment, to learn about the concept, and wonder what is going to happen next.
Lions, tigers, and bears have histories, emotions, and personalities. Writing about them doesn't get you out of writing about characters. Criminals have histories, emotions, and personalities. Writing about them doesn't get you out of writing about characters, either. And criminals are certainly human. The above paragraph seems to be arguing in favor of deep characterization. Have you reversed your position? As others have said, Alice in Wonderland has characters with personalities. Writing about nonhumans doesn't get you out of writing about characters, either. If you mean the cartoon, Bugs has a personality. Marvin the Martian has a personality. Cartoons don't get you out of writing about characters, either. Yes, but it's incredibly hard to avoid characters. The only way that I can see you having a world without personalities, emotions, feelings, and histories, is if you write about objects. A story about an avalanche, for example, would have bouncing rocks, noise, lots of action, and no personalities - as long as you make sure that you don't include any animals or humans. But it doesn't sound very interesting to me.
There are still human beings living today in what we call a stone aged life style. Turns out, they are fully human just like us. They laugh, love, cry; carry themselves with dignity, and strive to be good members of their society, just like human beings living in a modern city do. "Some reader don't even care about logic..." One of the things all writers need to do is get their readers to "suspend their disbelief.' That means you need to write in a way that will not jar the reader into questioning what the hell is going on here. You can not do that by ignoring what every human being knows to be true from their own experience about reality.
On top of a snowy mountain, an avalanche slide down like a wave of snow. It kept going down and down without stopping. Below the mountain is the happy town of Whoville. When the people of Whoville saw the avalanche coming down, they screamed in terror. They tried to escape, but it was too late. The avalanche crashed into the town. It knocked down houses, covered the streets, and buried the poor people a live. When it finally stop, Whoville was no more. All was left was snow. (Yap, that's boring). Okay, everything that is a live has character. In order to have no characterization, the setting has to be empty. Of course in that brief story on top, there were characters, but it only focus on the avalanche, killing the characters. I didn't add any background information about them. There's nothing to care about in that flash fiction. What about characters that are not complex, like stereotypes? Characters who never change and never go through drama. Would a fantasy world full of stereotypical characters be boring or entertaining? And how about stone age humans who are not peaceful and don't care?
I think you're going in circles. If such stories were entertaining, then people would value stereotypical stories and not character driven stories. So, if you see a genre or market for the book type you want to write, then go for it. If not, then you probably won't be the guy to start a new one.
People who do not care about human beings and are just as likely to bash them over the skull as they are to say howdy, are what we call "Psychopaths" it is debatable whether these individuals are in fact actually human beings at all, so...they might like those types of stories. But, then again, they may just kill you for writing them.
During the Great Depression, I guess readers don't care about complex characters as long as they sound interesting and go through impossible adventures. Pulp fiction is full of damsel in distress, evil villains, and manly male heroes. Nobody cares about the villains, and the female characters are basically stupid because they fall into danger too often. And those girls always need a man to save them. Those were the old days. The Joker is a Psychopath, and some readers like him.
Biologically, the stone age humans are no more different from us than people are different from each others today. The main difference between a man from the stone age and the modern age is that they had vastly less information and ideas available through them than we do today, as everything they knew had to be passed down from mouth to mouth within a small tribe, and there is a limit to how much information you can share within such a society. However, I do not doubt the stone age humans had the same capacity for love and emotions like we do. And I can only assume they had the same natural curiosity about life as we do. We have cave paintings dating back 40.000 years, suggesting that humans were already beginning to ask questions of why we are here by then, if not even earlier than this. It is very limiting to thinking stone age humans were not peaceful and didn't care about anything. It would be no different from having a group of modern people stranded on an island for several generations, isolated from the rest of the world. Only what knowledge was passed on from parent to child would remain, but they would in every sense of the word, be human.
I am beginning to question if you actually pay any attention to characters at all. First Alice in Wonderland and now the Joker? He is certainly a very complex character, and far from stereotypical evil villain
The Joker used to be stereotypical in the old Batman cartoon shows. Now he is freaky in the new comic books. It is very hard to find any flat characters in anime series. They are more complex than Cartoon Network characters. What about love and sadness? Do your story always need those too? It seems every fiction I read have those emotions. And what doesn't make a character human?
The world full of stereotypical characters would likely be very boring. What does peaceful have to do with this? Once in a while you throw in something else - people acting like animals, criminals, people who are not peaceful - in a context that suggests that you believe that these things eliminate character and personality. But they don't, not at all. The Joker is a character. Batman, who originated in the Great Depression, is a deep and complex character. Your profile picture is of Darth Vader, who is a complex character in a movie full of complex characters. Among the examples that you've mentioned, that I'm familiar with, you have yet to mention an example of a flat character that is really a flat character.
The Joker was never a stereotypical villain neither in the old nor in the new versions of Batman. Arguably there are a few cartoon shows which are themselves ridiculously bad, but even in them the Joker is a complex character. Plus Joker seems more like a sociopath than a psychopath to me. As ChickenFreak mentioned, could you give us one or two characters you believe are flat and cardboard so that we can more or less understand your viewpoint?
