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Plot Versus Character, or What's At Stake
Jun. 2nd, 2010 10:21 amSo, my writer's group met last night. I discussed my muse's desire to re-write Space Rescue. The discussion turned to a concept of "what's at stake."
In most of the science fiction I read, be it Elizabeth Moon or Jack Campbell, the stakes are high. It's "survival of humanity" or "dealing with hostile aliens" or "winning the Big War With The Bad People." In a lot of literary fiction that I read, for example Gil Adamson's The Outlander, the stakes are small. In the case of The Outlanders, it's one woman's freedom. If you don't care about that woman, the novel is not interesting.
To simplify, Campbell is writing plot-driven novels. Adamson is writing character-driven novels. Now, to be a good novel, as opposed to a hack-job, the characters need to be believable, and to avoid a snooze-fest one needs a plot, but the relative emphasis between "character" and "plot" is clear.
In The Mars Run, I kind of stumbled into a good mixture of character and plot. What's at stake is one woman's life. However, by using the first-person point of view, one becomes almost automatically invested in the character. This "trick" is used to great effect by Sarah Hoyt in her novel Darkship Thieves. The narrator, Hera, is a genuine sociopath, but by the time we figure that out, we are invested in Hera. (Although a critical part of making this work is that Hera becomes not-a-sociopath.)
This leads to Space Rescue. I am a bit concerned that my stakes (rescuing one man) are a bit low for a plot-driven novel and that the characters aren't meaty enough for a character-driven novel. So, while the book sits at a publisher, I'll be thinking of ways to increase the stakes. I've also noticed the same problem with my alien novel, Einstein's War. Here, my problem is (I think) that my aliens are a little too dumb to live.
They say diagnosing the problem is the first step in fixing it. Let's hope "they" are right.
In most of the science fiction I read, be it Elizabeth Moon or Jack Campbell, the stakes are high. It's "survival of humanity" or "dealing with hostile aliens" or "winning the Big War With The Bad People." In a lot of literary fiction that I read, for example Gil Adamson's The Outlander, the stakes are small. In the case of The Outlanders, it's one woman's freedom. If you don't care about that woman, the novel is not interesting.
To simplify, Campbell is writing plot-driven novels. Adamson is writing character-driven novels. Now, to be a good novel, as opposed to a hack-job, the characters need to be believable, and to avoid a snooze-fest one needs a plot, but the relative emphasis between "character" and "plot" is clear.
In The Mars Run, I kind of stumbled into a good mixture of character and plot. What's at stake is one woman's life. However, by using the first-person point of view, one becomes almost automatically invested in the character. This "trick" is used to great effect by Sarah Hoyt in her novel Darkship Thieves. The narrator, Hera, is a genuine sociopath, but by the time we figure that out, we are invested in Hera. (Although a critical part of making this work is that Hera becomes not-a-sociopath.)
This leads to Space Rescue. I am a bit concerned that my stakes (rescuing one man) are a bit low for a plot-driven novel and that the characters aren't meaty enough for a character-driven novel. So, while the book sits at a publisher, I'll be thinking of ways to increase the stakes. I've also noticed the same problem with my alien novel, Einstein's War. Here, my problem is (I think) that my aliens are a little too dumb to live.
They say diagnosing the problem is the first step in fixing it. Let's hope "they" are right.
