Out of Character

Another type of fiction is Character Driven.

What’s most noticeable about this form is the lack of a plot. Of course, if it didn’t have much character development or a plot, it would just be bad writing, but that is another story.

The character is central to one of these stories, and they need to be very well developed. Their personality needs to be clearly evident, so evident that a reader can tell if what they’re doing is out of character.

My friend Ann Rant writes about a character who is shy to the point of invisibility, but she maintains a vivid inner dialog, as though she knows what she ought to say, or what is happening, but can’t bring herself to get involved. In one chapter she runs into an obnoxious neighbor. He stinks. He’s rude and leering, but she can’t bring herself to tell him to buzz off, even though she’s disgusted. All the time she’s talking to him, she has this running inner dialog that is totally contrary to the action. It is fabulous, because you can see this is how she IS.

Another time, Ann brought offered some fresh material where her character came home from work intent on reinventing herself. I said, “No! she can’t do that! It’s not her!”

I knew her character so well just from listening to her read, that it was like the character was a friend who was acting strangely—more strangely than usual.

The point of a character driven story is about how she lives her life, or how she is changed by circumstances. The story is not about a series of events, it is about a person, their personality and how they deal with everything life throws at them.

In the best character driven fiction, we can relate to them. We empathize with their dilemmas. We cry along with their disappointments. We share their joy when things go well. That is the kind of thing that makes for great fiction.

Who cries when the plot takes a bad turn? We just flip the page, waiting to see what will happen next.

This is not to say that character development should be left out of plot driven stories. In any good fiction, characters grow and evolve. They have personalities and history. Readers should be able to predict how a character will react in a situation, and ought to be disappointed when they act out of character.

I delude myself, believing that my mysteries are great fiction. They are not, but I like to believe my characters are well drawn enough to perform on a character driven stage.