I've seen a lot of people complaining about books whose main characters are "blank slates," and I'm a little curious what you guys think of that. Obviously a character needs to have...well, character...or else they're nothing but mannequins that "plot" happens around. But if you give them too much, you risk the reader having trouble identifying with them. They need to be able to picture themselves as the main character, which becomes harder the less they realize they have in common with them. So obviously there needs to be a balance between having too much personality and too little. Where do you think that is?
I have not heard about this trend, to me it suggests lazy writers. I say that because you said, "I've seen a lot of people complaining about books whose main characters are "blank slates,". "A lot of people" is subjective of course, but to me, if a gaggle of authors and not fulfilling the wishes of their readers, than its a concerning trend for sure. But I also see that trend overall in people, wanting to do the bare minimum, to get the maximum amount of money or recognition. It stands to reason is this applies to people in most careers, then why would we not start seeing that trend in writers? I have always said, "You must do the work up front, to reap the rewards of your work later." For writers it means developing characters, plotting, and setting. The silver lining is, I see many people on this site doing just that.
Honestly the more personality the better. I don't have to identify with a character, I can think of a great protagonist I love right now I don't identify with at all. He's was a terrible, terrible person, and I loved every second he was on page. For characters, I have to understand them, I have to find them interesting, but I don't have to find them understandable. So yeah go make your character really distinct! I'll eat it up.
I don't think you should try to avoid this "problem". I don't try to identify with protagonists in books. Usually they have incredibly different backgrounds anyway, such that I expect them to act differently than I do. I'd be more concerned with creating a compelling story that gets readers thinking about what they would do given the same situation. I spend more time thinking thoughts such as: Would I have done what Protagonist just did? Could I handle what just happened to Protagonist?
My only real issue with the "blank slate" protagonist is that when I see one, what I tend to see is a red arrow pointing toward a polemic. This character is often so lacking in any kind of integration into the setting wherein we find them, that they serve as a kind of ad hoc sociologist, typically making the worst and most classical mistakes of etic-only data collection; to wit, the mistake of only observing and not seeking context for what has been observed, thus leading to misinterpretation guided by one's own preconceptions and prejudices. Else, the "blank slate" is there as little more than self-insert for me to explore someone's worldbuilding folder. No thank you.
The blank slate character you speak of exists to serve as a self-insert for the reader. Works ok in teen fiction. Eragon is a good example. Eragon is also a good example of how not to write a book, as far as I'm concerned.
I could say the same for the HP series (minus the badly written part). Granted around book 5, I had to stop reading cause a whiny angsty teen reading a whiny angsty teen was just not working out for me. Though I never understood how/why/what the blank character really is any good for. Self insert would be better (IMO) if they they skipped making the MC, and just write it in 2nd POV. Saves time and is more honest, even if it isn't a popular POV choice in general. IDK.
This. A "blank state" character isn't a personality-less, story-less, character-less character. It's one that is new "new" to a world and thus creates excuse for worldbuilding description and guidance. Harry Potter is a blank state character, despite having background & personality.
The idea that people cannot identify with a "too defined" main character is a myth. While blank slates are often fun in choose your own adventure, video games, and books designed to indulge fantasy (ie a romance novel), books that truly want to say something meaningful should have a well defined main character who is designed to convey that idea. Unfortunately, a lot of people have lost sight of a protagonist's purpose and seem to think that diversity and inclusivity are the most important metrics for good story telling. This has caused a surge in authors who seem to have just given up and decided to go ahead and just let the audience define the main character.
I feel cliched going on about the book but Stavrogin was the near definition of such a character in Demons and that seemed to be the genius of it....
I realised, as I read through this thread, that I have no idea what you folks mean by 'blank slate character.' What am I missing?
It means a character who is "there" enough to be part of the story, but "not there" enough that the reader can easily imagine themselves in the character's place.
I'm not sure if this is the general consensus but to me, a blank slate character is one that doesn't have a lot of personality to them. A character who doesn't have a lot of characterization if you will. In my mind blank-slate characters do work better in something like a video game. Chel from Portal is an example of this. We really don't get any idea of her personality through the course of the game, but that does mean that GLaDoS's narration can seem to be more directly aimed at the player. It works in Portal, but novels are different mediums entirely. Video games and novels have different strengths and weaknesses, and I think blank-slate characters fit into the strengths of video games better than they do novels. I haven't read the book, but I am a firm believer in there being an exception to the rules when it comes to writing. However good blank-slate characters are the exception and not the rule, at least in my mind. If OP is determined to write one this might be a good book for him to check out! But there's nothing wrong with not writing one.
I don’t think this is true at all. How could you possible write a character every one of your readers will identify with, let alone see as a mirror of themselves?
I don't need to identify with a character, I just need to understand where they are coming from. I certainly couldn't relate to Humbert Humbert but the writing made it worth continuing and to see this character develop. I feel like everyman characters (I think that's the name) fits well in children's but still I don't like it much and think creating that type of character was pretty pointless. I'm reading about someone else's life, not mine and I don't like to "become the character", I like to feel close to them, yes, but I need a character with personality.
I'm not so sure this is a trend or I've totally missed it because I can't think of one book I've ever read with a so-called blank slate character. Now, in my own fiction I once did create a few blank slate characters because I thought I was using them as props almost to underscore a point I thought I was trying to make.. No names. Very few actions. Sort of silent (or maybe completely silent). But these characters were in the story for a reason. I was lucky to get some advice from writers and people I admire in publishing about this story. The main problem was these blank slate characters. I admit I was reluctant to change this at first, but fleshing out these prop-like characters ended up doing so much more for the story than I could have imagined. Our characters need to feel real for readers to connect to them. I don't think readers want to imagine themselves as the characters when they are reading. I think they want full characters, and only then is when they become relatable. I have since sold the story I mention here and it has been published. The publisher who bought my story had rejected the same story before I made my characters more real. The fiction world seems to highly favor character-driven work, and if this is true, without fully developed characters you don't really have much of a story. For a long time, I thought my fiction was very plot driven. I've learned to combine the two. That's what good fiction does. I think a bare-bone story (whether it's lacking character development or lacking a solid plot) reads pretty amateur. That's been my experience.
