In character-driven fiction how much hope needs to be there? What do you think of characters that have little or no hope of really changing their situations or themselves? I'm not talking about skimping on plot at all. It's just that sometimes no one saves the day and the lessons we learn don't alway leave us better. Some characters are just shit out of luck, no?
On its own, without some greater lesson or other character arc? Then it’s not something I’m personally ever going to be interested in reading. Why? I already know that life isn’t fair and the good guys don’t always win. So, what’s the lesson that that kind of story is trying to make? That everything is pointless and you shouldn’t bother trying because it doesn’t matter? That’s not a theme that’s going to resonate with me. Many tragedies are caused by the characters flaws. They’re warnings, lessons. They could have changed their fate if they had made different choices, and they often start with an ‘upwards’ arc in the beginning with quite a bit of hope, because the higher the character gets, the more crushing it is when they fall. Others teach about perseverance. The external circumstances may be horrible and unfixable, they may struggle to keep their humanity, but at the end they have found sone source of peace or hope, even if it’s purely internal, and the external darkness continues on (re: The Road) Both of those types of stories are grim and dark and will have places that feel hopeless. Neither is without hope though. A story truly without hope would cause me to become apathetic, and I’m interested in books that make me heartbroken, furious, thrilled and joyous.
@Idiosyncratic -- You were thinking about it the same way I was. Maybe you just stated things more clearly. So, how hopeless can a character be? You want the reader to root for them, but at the same time things aren't likely to work out and may even get worse. I mean the general you. This is an aspect of character development I would like to discuss.
I suppose that would really depend on many different factors: the genre, the themes, the target audience, what other elements are there to drive reader interest, and of course the authors skills in executing that idea. To take ‘The Road’ again (I don’t actually like The Road, but I see why other people like it). It’s written in a very literary style, not commercial. It lets you know off the bat that this is going to be a hard read, emotionally, and it’s targeting readers looking for that . The reason for that bleakness is also clear from the start though: it’s a story about love, about how love is what drives the man to keep pushing through the hopelessness, love for his son that keeps alive that last tiny spark of hope that his son can have a future. It’s about keeping the spark of humanity alive. The bleakness is the backdrop that allows these themes to really shine, it’s the antagonist the characters must fights against. And, of course, personal reader taste. The entire reason I didn’t like The Road was because it was too bleak for my personal tastes.
I haven't read Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus," but as I understand it, the gist is that Sisyphus, the icon of hopelessness, can find (or create) meaning in his life by dedicating himself to the pointless action he's condemned to perform for eternity. That seems like the only way a truly hopeless situation could work in a story - by having the protagonist recognize their hopelessness and embrace it somehow. "Yeah, I'm gonna be stuck in this factory until I die, but I'm gonna be the best damn widget twister that I can." I suppose they could also embrace their situation cynically, not liking it but accepting it as the way things are, maybe feeling superior because they know the game is pointless and rigged. "Once, I thought my crappy job was worth it because it benefitted society. Now I know it just keeps me busy. But at least I know. And I'm strong enough to keep doing it until it kills me." There's always the noble sacrifice, too. Soldiers going out to die in a suicide mission, hoping that it benefits the larger cause. Or perhaps not even that. In Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, the hero gets caught up in a fight against automation because it destroys the humanity of work in favor of efficiency (yep, still relevant 70 years later). As it becomes apparent that they're going to lose, he asks one of his compatriots, a priest, how he could have ever thought they'd win, and the priest replies, "It was never about winning. It was about the fight itself." (or words to that effect. Been a while since I read it, but that scene has stuck with me). So, I guess your character can be SOL from the start, but their attitude toward that situation should change in some way to make an interesting story.
Haha... you think? If there's a bleaker narrative in print, I haven't seen it yet. I would say the jam with hopelessness is that hope can/will/should exist regardless of the futility of its existence. The whole "not giving up" is one of the mother archetypes of narrative themes that seems to get old. I guess the alternative to just roll over and die, which doesn't make for a compelling story. And there are plenty of readers who can identify with situations that appeared hopeless at first but were overcome through perseverance and NOT luck. It would have been easy to give up a die a thousand times but they didn't and everything turned out okay. Or it didn't turn out okay but the perseverance stood on its own merit. Which is kind of hopeless if you think about it, so who knows?
Blindness by Jose Saramago comes close aside from the nailed on happy ending that feels like it was insisted on by his publisher, Atonement is also pretty bleak in a different sort of way
I have a note tacked to the top of my current WIP: "People don't dislike sad characters, they dislike passive ones." Personally I think hopelessness can make for a pretty good poem, not so sure you could make a good story out of it. It has its place IMO but maybe a prose narrative isn't it. Then again, there's always an exception. I'm not sure I'd class The Road as hopeless, even though much of the plot is pretty grim--the protagonist's whole deal is trying to keep the kid alive, and if he was hopeless I don't imagine he'd try so hard. An interesting book dealing with hopelessness is Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. That's maybe the most passive, hopeless protagonist I've come across...but it still manages to be an interesting book, because she almost makes hopelessness itself the goal. Like the protag is chasing some ideal of hopelessness that she really wants to achieve. Of course a lot of it is told through flashbacks to times she wasn't as passive.
Hello again Deadrats, I think hopelessness can be a part of the story and depending on your audience base, that can be a characteristic of your character. And not all stories have to use the same formula that has the character learning an important lesson and changing their lives based on this. I think hope is a difficult concept and it can be motivating, but I see nothing wrong with having a character continue to feel hopeless even in the face of good odds. It depends on what you want to focus on in the story. I like to read realistic and well defined characters so I like stories where hope is questionable.
I think hope is an inherent part of the human condition. All people have hope in some way - even if it is just the hope that tomorrow will be better. The only people who feel truly hopeless are those with clinical depression.
i personally like stories that dont always end happily. i like messy endings. endings that make you think. 3 books i can think off the top of my head have that kind of ending where the MC has a spark of hope and you THINK things will be turning out alright for them... and then it goes down hill and ends. The Red Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk death with a hint of a resolution to the point where the 3 other people in my book club were debating over what actually happened in the end and WHO was the narrator all along (we all came away from the book with 3 completely different interpretations of the ending and none of them were happy). My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Brathwaite the MC starts off as someone who is well put together and well respected... but then we are introduced to her sister and the MC seems to pale in comparison. like all that confidence gets tossed out the window. through out the whole book, you HOPE the MC gets through this. you HOPE the MCwill have her happy ending. and things start to allign to where she can have that happy ending: her sister gets whats coming to her, her coma patient wakes up and expresses his feelings for her (she's been talking to him for years since he arrived in the hospital and when he wakes up, the first thing he recognizes is her voice). you are holding your breath for this big happy ending..... and its shattered and the MC goes back to being hopeless Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich in this one, the MC is hopeless from the start. the odds are so stacked against her, you arent wondering IF she will get caught but WHEN she will and WHO will betray her. and then when she's caught, you have some hope of her getting out and when she DOES get out, its like you just know that it cant be good. then once again, it gives you a spark of hope as she is almost toward freedom... then she gets caught again and it ends with her back in the institute worse off than before. Personally... if there is a little hope to a hopeless character, it makes me want to read more and makes the "ride" all thr more thrilling regardless of the genre (the 3 above are 3 completely different genres). If an MC is hopeless and nothing about the situation or character has a shred of "light" (even if the ending is bleak), makes me thing "ok, i know how this story is going to go" and then i dont read it. I guess i read it for the choices they make. the "will they/wont they" type of choices. Will Cedar leave her doomed companion behind and make that mad dash to safety? Will Korede finally turn her sister in and stand up for herself?
Show-don't-tell probably applies to hopelessness. How else to show it than to build up the reader's hopes and crush them?
