# James Wood on 'roundness'



## Jeko (Jun 5, 2014)

Since reading James Wood's 'How Fiction Works' is making me consider all the terms and stereotypes that I've applied to the writing process so far, i thought I'd share a snippet of his discussion on characters, which stood out to me as I read it:

_In Aspects of the Novel, EM Forster used the now-famous term "flat" to describe the kind of character who is awarded a single, essential attribute, which is repeated without change as the person appears and reappears in a novel. Often, such characters have a catchphrase or tagline or keyword, as Mrs Micawber, in David Copperfield, likes to repeat "I will never desert Mr Micawber". She says she will not, and she does not. Forster is genially snobbish about flat characters, and wants to demote them, reserving the highest category for rounder, or fuller, characters. Flat characters cannot be tragic, he asserts, they need to be comic. Round characters "surprise" us each time they reappear; they are not flimsily theatrical. Flat ones can't surprise us, and are generally monochromatically histrionic. Forster mentions a popular novel by a contemporary novelist whose main character, a flat one, is a farmer who is always saying "I'll plough up that bit of gorse". But, says Forster, we are so bored by the farmer's consistency that we do not care whether he does or doesn't.

But is this right? If by flatness we mean a character, often but not always a minor one, often but not always comic, who serves to illuminate an essential human truth or characteristic, then many of the most interesting characters are flat. I would be quite happy to abolish the very idea of "roundness" in characterisation, because it tyrannises us - readers, novelists, critics - with an impossible ideal. "Roundness" is impossible in fiction, because fictional characters, while very alive in their way, are not the same as real people. It is subtlety that matters - subtlety of analysis, of inquiry, of concern, of felt pressure - and for subtlety a very small point of entry will do. Forster's division grandly privileges novels over short stories, since characters in stories rarely have the space to become "round". But I learn more about the consciousness of the soldier in Chekhov's 10-page story "The Kiss" than I do about the consciousness of Waverley in Walter Scott's eponymous novel, because Chekhov's inquiry into how his soldier's mind works is more acute than Scott's episodic romanticism._

I've often tried to avoid putting my characters in camps of roundness and realism, but I still find myself doing it as I read. What do people think of Wood's criticism?


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## J.T. Chris (Jun 5, 2014)

That's an interesting criticism. I too can think of many characters who would fall under Forster's "flat" critique. Bartleby comes to mind immediately. Even though all he says is "I prefer not to" again and again, his overall indifference is at the crux of the story because it leads to his physical decline. And it's also true that short stories don't offer ample space for characters to achieve the same level of roundness as they could in a novel, which is one of the reasons I find writing short stories to be so rewarding.


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## Bishop (Jun 5, 2014)

I tend to process my characters as much as I can, making them as deep as I can. I have seven "main" characters, all who get their moments in the spotlight (so to speak) with one of them being the actual MAIN character. I love flawed characters, so they all have issues or problems or character flaws that help give them a sense of realism, not all of them ironic or necessarily plot-necessary. They have a myriad of talents, fears, desires, interests... Obviously the more room I have to develop them, the deeper and 'rounder' they are, but I tend to not think of my characters who are underdeveloped as flat... mostly because they're not flat characters, the reader just sees one side of them.

For instance, in my first novel, I have two sports commentators who make a brief appearance in the third act. We see a lot more of one than the other, getting into his thoughts a little, understanding his feelings and motivations in a very brief, but round section. The other one, however, we only see him in his 'broadcast' form, being showman-shipy. He's got a flare, for sure, but he's ultimately only that. But he's not flat, partly because there's more to him than is shown in the text, but mostly because it's displaying a realism. On camera, sports broadcasters work a certain way, act a certain way. It might be his only real scene in the work, but it's realistic to how he would act in that situation. 

Which I think is more important that roundness or flatness, I suppose. Believable characters are what's important to me. As said above, they serve a great purpose of highlighting an essential human truth or characteristic, and while sports casting isn't an 'essential human truth' it does have a place in both my story and society, so it makes sense.


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## EmmaSohan (Jun 7, 2014)

I like a lot of what Forster said. Flat characters can advance the plot or be a foil for the main character. Giving a character one essential trait works well for humor. Flat main characters don't work well for tragedy or suspense.

I have one major character who appears throughout my story. I think he came out flat, and that's okay, he played an important role. But I think Forster is right, it would have been a better story if I made him come alive.

But I completely agree with Bishop, a character can come alive even if the character has a small role and only one "essential" trait. Forster doesn't explain that, though maybe he comes close.


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## ppsage (Jun 7, 2014)

In the arena of scholastic analysis of the novel as an art form, on the sort of technical level, I'd assert that Woods' has certainly supplanted Forester's as the authoritative study.


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## EmmaSohan (Jun 7, 2014)

ppsage said:


> In the arena of scholastic analysis of the novel as an art form, on the sort of technical level, I'd assert that Woods' has certainly supplanted Forester's as the authoritative study.



What is Woods' point of view? In the quote, Woods seems to be mostly criticizing Forster.

I mean, don't we all agree that some characters come off as flat and -- while they sometimes they do the job -- this isn't as good as making them come alive?


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## Jeko (Jun 8, 2014)

> I mean, don't we all agree that some characters come off as flat and -- while they sometimes they do the job -- this isn't as good as making them come alive?



We don't; that's Wood's point. Giving a writer the word 'flat' doesn't do them any good; if you want to make your characters alive, you shouldn't think about them with such lifeless terms.

If you met someone for only a few minutes, you'd probably remember only one or two key things about their personality. That, Wood argues, is enough to make them alive in your mind; sometimes it's all you need. If you never meet them again, and never learn anything more about them, those things you remembered define them. 

Furthermore, to call that person 'flat' would be horribly insulting to them; they have an entire life away from of what you've experienced of them. It makes you sound like your perspective is the only one that matters, and a writer who writers like that will miss out on much of the 'life' that they can put into their characters.

If we view all characters as equally human (as long as they are human), then we will make them all come alive a lot better. That's my opinion.


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## Morkonan (Jun 10, 2014)

Cadence said:


> ...I've often tried to avoid putting my characters in camps of roundness and realism, but I still find myself doing it as I read. What do people think of Wood's criticism?



I think he's missing the point a little bit. Flat characters are characters that do not undergo "change." Round characters are characters that "change." 

Consider the loyal prison guard. No matter how much the prisoner tries to bribe him, he will not accept it. The Reader comes to understand this as the story progresses. But, the prisoner, who was once a haughty nobleman and now understands more of the life of the common man than he ever would have cared to, does... what? What does the Round Character do when presented with a Flat Character?

Well, one of the things that they do is that they bounce off of them...

That's one great use for Flat Characters - You may need them so that your Round Characters can bounce off of them. And, what happens when a Round Character bounces? Why, they change, of course?  So, our imprisoned nobleman can't use his money, which has served him very well his entire life, in order to bribe the guard. He realizes that he can't escape, no matter how wealthy he is. Instead of trying, he uses what money he has left to make life better in the prison for all the prisoners. He becomes a spiritual leader and counselor for the prisoners. In the end, it's this change, initiated by the "Bounce" off of the Flat prison guard, that leads to this character's salvation - He is freed due to his good deeds. (Or.. something like that. I dunno, it's just an example of bouncing.)

Flat characters can be useful. Just like anything, you have to find the right application.


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## Jeko (Jun 10, 2014)

> Flat characters are characters that do not undergo "change." Round characters are characters that "change."



I understand this; but what good is it if a writer thinks of certain characters as 'round' or 'flat' while writing? Readers can say what they like about your characters, but you can't say a character is 'flat' until you've seen that they don't change. Hence, you shouldn't try to define the character, either when reading or writing, while the story is in motion. So 'roundness' not helpful during the drafting stage.

Likewise, in the example you gave, the scene can be planned just as well without considering that the guard could be 'flat' and the protagonist 'round'. Whether you do or don't, what you consider is not the degree of 'roundness' but the traits of the characters that constitute it; the guard will not budge. That's what's important, not his flatness; his simple personality. So 'roundness' not helpful when planning or revising scenes either.


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## Terry D (Jun 10, 2014)

We should always strive to give our characters depth, even the minor ones, but the effort-reward curve is steeper for minor characters. There is always a payoff for going to the work of 'rounding-out' a character--each one adds a layer of texture to our stories. However, the character who parks your protagonist's car at a restaurant isn't going to make the tale memorable by himself, no matter how well-rounded he is. I'm not suggesting that all minor characters should be flat by any means, just the opposite, but there are techniques to create the illusion of depth in a character without spending the time to develop an entire back-story and time-line for each one. One way is to give that minor walk-on character one incongruous trait, or detail. Something completely out-of-character for the typical cardboard cut-out.

_Mike erased the water rings from the top of the bar with a towel and started writing down the directions to Franklin's place on a scratch pad he kept under the cash register. While he wrote, I glanced down the bar at the hooker sitting under the neon Blue Moon sign. She was still smiling her fake smile at me. A smile that pulled deep creases in a face coated with too much make-up and too many years. When she saw my glance her hand went to her throat in a practiced, coy, way and she started fidgeting with her necklace. Garish blue and yellow light flashed off the silver oval her long plastic nails toyed with. Even from ten bar-stools away I recognized that medallion; a St. Christopher. And beside it, also suspended from the same silver chain above her sagging cleavage, was a tiny gold ring. The kind parents sometimes buy for new born babies. I realized then that her smile wasn't fake at all. It was sad._


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## EmmaSohan (Jun 11, 2014)

In one interaction, a minor character is known to be a popular-with-females 12th grade jock. He starts the conversation that way, ends the conversation that way. But he seems to come alive in the conversation. (And I am perfectly capable of writing characters that seem flat to me.)

Can I say that he doesn't have or gain any depth, but he comes alive?


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## Morkonan (Jun 12, 2014)

Cadence said:


> I understand this; but what good is it if a writer thinks of certain characters as 'round' or 'flat' while writing? Readers can say what they like about your characters, but you can't say a character is 'flat' until you've seen that they don't change. Hence, you shouldn't try to define the character, either when reading or writing, while the story is in motion. So 'roundness' not helpful during the drafting stage.
> 
> Likewise, in the example you gave, the scene can be planned just as well without considering that the guard could be 'flat' and the protagonist 'round'. Whether you do or don't, what you consider is not the degree of 'roundness' but the traits of the characters that constitute it; the guard will not budge. That's what's important, not his flatness; his simple personality. So 'roundness' not helpful when planning or revising scenes either.



The terms are only illustrative of concepts, not things that are written in stone. Whether you call them "Flat" or just a character that "sticks to their convictions", the result is the _same_. Whether or not they are "Flat" or "Round" is _not a personality trait_, but part of a Storytelling Mechanic. It's about a particular requirement that they serve in the story, seen necessary by the storyteller, and it has nothing to do with a "personal trait", like one would try to illustrate as such. Flat characters are not, necessarily, sullen ones and Round characters don't always find happiness and redemption at the end. A Flat character could have more personality traits than a Round character and even be a Protagonist, despite never changing. It's all very simple and based on "Change." If they "Change", then they're "Round", no matter how much or little the Reader knows about their personality. If they don't ever "Change", then they're "Flat", regardless of how frivolous and flighty they might seem in personality.

Let's consider a "Fairy", from a sort of quasi-historical/mythological/folklore sort of Setting. This Fairy is flighty, never paying much attention to anything, no matter how dangerous or advantageous it could be for them. They've never developed any interpersonal relationships and really don't understand them. Those are "mortal" things and the Fairy is an elemental creature of Nature and Magic. It's timeless and it is as it is because that is the only way that Physical and Magical Law will allow it to be. In short, the last person you'd trust with your life would be a Fairy - Not because they would seek to harm you, but because they wouldn't see it as important, since nothing is important and all they want to do is fly around, sip nectar and tie shoelaces in knots for funsies...

No matter how many crazy things this character does and no matter how many things that they seem to change with their presence in the story, this character is "Flat" because it never changes. The Fairy never learns responsibility, never learns what "love" and "friendship" are about, never sees the importance that mortals place upon their lives and, in short... never "grows up." None of the values, morals, ethics, personality traits, ideals or political affiliations change with this character - They abide. The character can appear to be dynamic, simply because of everything they're involved in and all their escapades. But, they're still Flat as a pancake and that "Flatness" is necessary - Our somewhat stodgy Protagonist learns to "appreciate living in the moment" through his Fairy friend, even though that "friend" doesn't have the foggiest clue what any of that means.


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## Jeko (Jun 12, 2014)

> Whether you call them "Flat" or just a character that "sticks to their convictions", the result is the _same._



This is where we disagree. A character can stick to their convictions and still be in Forster's 'round' camp; it's part of being human, whether it belongs to a storytelling 'mechanic' or not. So the concept of roundness is unimportant; what matters, to me, is humanity. It's a more useful scale.

Any character who appears to be dynamic _is _dynamic, because it's up to the reader to decide how dynamic they are. As EmmaSohan says, the character comes 'alive' in the reader's mind. Therefore, all characters are human in the reader's mind, just like every person we meet is human. We wouldn't call any of them 'flat', so why would we call our characters that?



> It's all very simple and based on "Change." If they "Change", then they're "Round", no matter how much or little the Reader knows about their personality. If they don't ever "Change", then they're "Flat"



This means that all characters in flash fiction are flat. And if flatness only means change, then flatness/roundness would then be synonymous with change itself; it's just making something natural feel artificial. 

As you say, it's only illustrative; what use does a writer have for illustrative words? Being illustrative of what I'm doing gets me nowhere; focusing on what I'm doing, with the words that I would use for real people (not 'story mechanics'), gets my characters moving.


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## ppsage (Jun 12, 2014)

I think as one reads wider in Wood's book, it becomes clearer that he often finds Forester mechanically prescriptive in a way no longer really considered conclusive, for understanding the artistic impact of novels. Partly this is due evolution in the art form, but perhaps also due the deeper analysis having now been incorporated from the so-called soft sciences. We know more, or at least we speak differently about, the things that make people tick. Both as characters and as readers. Black and white, flat and round, these are now a touch too nineteenth century


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## tabasco5 (Jun 13, 2014)

flat, round = flat, phillips.  Different tools for different jobs.


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## Morkonan (Jun 15, 2014)

Cadence said:


> This is where we disagree. A character can stick to their convictions and still be in Forster's 'round' camp; it's part of being human, whether it belongs to a storytelling 'mechanic' or not. So the concept of roundness is unimportant; what matters, to me, is humanity. It's a more useful scale.



How much "humanity" can you carry in a bucket? The concept of Flat and Round are quantitative terms. They're simple story-mechanics and nothing more, though. It seems as if you're attributing some negative or positive traits to such terms and characters. While you may personally prefer one or the other, the terms themselves have nothing to do with "Right" or "Wrong", "Good" or "Bad." They're just tools, just like "Characters" or "Plots" are tools.



> Any character who appears to be dynamic _is _dynamic, because it's up to the reader to decide how dynamic they are. As EmmaSohan says, the character comes 'alive' in the reader's mind. Therefore, all characters are human in the reader's mind, just like every person we meet is human. We wouldn't call any of them 'flat', so why would we call our characters that?



A Flat character does not change, that's why we would call it "Flat." Again, there is no positive or negative attribute added with either of those terms - They just _are._



> This means that all characters in flash fiction are flat. And if flatness only means change, then flatness/roundness would then be synonymous with change itself; it's just making something natural feel artificial.



Huh? I don't think you understand how these tools are used. Just because something is in a short-fiction genre doesn't mean that it must have characters that do not change. Length has nothing to do with it and neither does breadth, or the expansion of character details people assume to be "fully fleshed out characters." There's only one attribute you must be able to measure - Does the character "Change." IF, for instance, the character changes their mind about something in the story, then they're "Round." If the persist with their beliefs or attitudes, despite overwhelming adversity, and if they emerge unchanged to the delight of the Reader or to the Reader's chagrin, they're "Flat", no matter how much adversity and how many trials or experiences they have had.... or how few, as in the case of "Flash Fiction."

Suppose I was writing something in an even more restrictive genre, like "Fan Fiction." Everything and everyone has to have continuity, right? They all have to remain the same so the fan Readers will be comfortable, right? At the very least, I can't do anything major or life-altering unless I wanted to delve into my own alternate universe. (Not a fan of fan-fict, btw.) So, I start writing... Am I stuck with completely "Flat" characters? HECK no! Captain Kirk can journey to a new planet and learn something new about himself and his constant desire for green women. Arthur can finally take out his frustrations on a dragon, instead of having all his knights do that bit for him, and learn that such releases aren't what he really needs. Frodo can finally return to Bag End and kick one of the Sackville Bagginses in the cohones, just on general principles, and revel in defying his otherwise Hobbitish good nature. There, in three sentences, I've written three "stories" with "Round" characters in them...



> As you say, it's only illustrative; what use does a writer have for illustrative words? Being illustrative of what I'm doing gets me nowhere; focusing on what I'm doing, with the words that I would use for real people (not 'story mechanics'), gets my characters moving.



That's fine. But, this a thread that is about terms being used which are traditionally in the genre of "Storytelling Mechanics" and "Character Building." It has nothing to do with your use of "illustrative" words and methods, which I don't see the sense in defining as such, really. Do you have a unique definition for the word "illustrative?"


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## Jeko (Jun 15, 2014)

> How much "humanity" can you carry in a bucket?



Depends on the size of the bucket. 



> It seems as if you're attributing some negative or positive traits to such terms and characters. While you may personally prefer one or the other, the terms themselves have nothing to do with "Right" or "Wrong", "Good" or "Bad." They're just tools, just like "Characters" or "Plots" are tools.



I'm not. I'm saying both terms are useless, because they are surface-level illustrations of the entirety of the depth of a character; thus, they are only a barrier to seeing that depth, as they simplify it so crudely.

I think the easiest way of iterating this is to take your example of the loyal guard:



> No matter how much the prisoner tries to bribe him, he will not accept it. The Reader comes to understand this as the story progresses.



So the reader is full of expectation whenever he sees the guard. But, what if we, after keeping that guard so 'flat', give him a stimulus to change? Let's say his family have lost their home, and the head of the guard won't give him a raise in order to support his family. He needs the money, bad. _Now _will he accept that bribe? I think Aristotle would call this a probable progression.

But what is he now? Was he always 'round' because he changed, or 'flat' until this point? 

Since the reader can't see into the future, all they see is a human being; humanity. With the guard finally accepting the bribe out of compassion for his family, he shows more depth of humanity than he has ever before. Is he suddenly a deeper character? No; he always had that depth. Only, we couldn't see it before. Now the reader will look back at him, knowing that he had that capacity to change all throughout the story.

But if we hadn't given him a stimulus to change, he would have stayed the same.

Conclusion: it is the _stimulus _that defines whether Forster calls a character 'flat' or 'round', not the characters themselves. If all characters are human, all characters have great depth to explore; it is the writer's choice, then, what is explored. But to explore it, summarizing it into an artificial illustration can't possibly do. That is why I find the terms useless; they are plotting terms that turn the characters into devices. They dehumanize them in the writer's mind at least to some extent, if not to complete tools.

All characters are deep because all humans are deep, no matter how shallow they may appear. 'Flat' and 'round' are words for the lens of a judgmental observer; they can only get in the way of seeing and using the depth of the humanity of one's characters.


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## Jeko (Jun 15, 2014)

> But, this a thread that is about terms being used which are traditionally in the genre of "Storytelling Mechanics" and "Character Building."



Yes; James Wood is saying they're unnecessary - not how we should use them, but whether we should use certain terms at all.


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## Lyra Laurant (Jun 25, 2014)

Cadence said:


> _In Aspects of the Novel, EM Forster used the now-famous term "flat" to describe the kind of character who is awarded a single, essential attribute, which is repeated without change as the person appears and reappears in a novel. Often, such characters have a catchphrase or tagline or keyword (...) Flat characters cannot be tragic, he asserts, they need to be comic._



I couldn't disagree more with Forster. 

His description of "flat" characters fits what we call "types" in Portuguese. "Types" are characters who are consciously crafted to have only some key features, often representing a kind of person typically found in a society, or even representing whole nations. A "type", for example, can be a brute man who vagely knows that the powerful people of society explore him. Brazillian classical books have many "type" characters, and they are not less interesting because of being "flat". They are not usually comic either, but tragic. Is there anything comic or boring in watching that brute man working hard to make his family survive, while knowing he will never be capable of changing his destiny due to his limitations? It makes ME want to change his reality, it makes me want to change the reality of all the real people who are explored like he is. What Forster calls a "flat" character can touch the readers in such a way they remember that character for ever, for generations.

The problem, in my opinion, is not a character with few attributes, but a character with no soul. A marionette character whose actions' only reason is "because the plot needed to". That kind of character may show contradictions not because they are "round", but because they do not have a personality at all.


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## Ride the Pen (Jul 21, 2014)

I'm going with Forster, definitely! What is Wood's criticism about?

Readers care about characters who feel real. of course it's rarely possible to make a character feel as real as a living person, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to come close to it!

"Real character" means: Several character traits that fit together in some way and complement one another, and also seeming contradictions. 

Example: the wealthy, stingy person who loves to donate to charity, because he feels it gives his life some meaning (and that feeling is one of the things his money can't buy him). That would be an example of a seeming contradiction, which is carefully interwoven with the whole personality of the character ---> so in the end that contradiction DOES make sense.

This is how 3D characters come about!


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## Jeko (Jul 22, 2014)

> I'm going with Forster, definitely! What is Wood's criticism about?
> 
> Readers care about characters who feel real. of course it's rarely possible to make a character feel as real as a living person, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to come close to it!
> 
> ...



Wood is arguing that characters can feel 'real' without being 'round or '3D'. Binding the two concepts together limits, in his opinion and mine, the capabilities of a writer and the perspective of the reader/critic.


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## aj47 (Jul 22, 2014)

Hiya, my tuppence. I think that minor characters can be real if we let them be.  The only time it would be a huge issue is for a semi- or major character.

Is that your point or am I off the mark?


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## ppsage (Jul 22, 2014)

Woods point is that Forester's generalization is too shallow or too narrow to reasonably characterize what is actually happening in many texts, even 19th century ones but most assuredly most contemporary ones, and that clinging to it as a definition of character skews the creation and/or understanding of a text, even 19th century ones but ... Woods typically finds Forester's generalizations narrow and prescriptive and only marginally suitable, in which opinion, having read as much of Forester's _Aspects_​ as I could stomach, I heartily concur.


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## Jeko (Jul 23, 2014)

> I think that minor characters can be real if we let them be. The only time it would be a huge issue is for a semi- or major character.
> 
> Is that your point or am I off the mark?



Yeah, that's about it. My personal issue with Forster's criticism is that he makes characters who get more story-time seem 'better' or 'more human' or 'more real' than those who get less. 

When I write, it's not the characters I try to make feel human; it's the whole story. If I'm successful, then everyone and everything feels 'real'. It's not like the story has parts or elements that are more/less 'real' than others.


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## aj47 (Jul 23, 2014)

Cadence said:


> When I write, it's not the characters I try to make feel human; it's the whole story. If I'm successful, then everyone and everything feels 'real'. It's not like the story has parts or elements that are more/less 'real' than others.



^^ This.  That's how I do it, also.


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## Ride the Pen (Jul 23, 2014)

Cadence said:


> So the reader is full of expectation whenever he sees the guard. But, what if we, after keeping that guard so 'flat', give him a stimulus to change? Let's say his family have lost their home, and the head of the guard won't give him a raise in order to support his family. He needs the money, bad. _Now _will he accept that bribe? I think Aristotle would call this a probable progression.
> 
> But what is he now? Was he always 'round' because he changed, or 'flat' until this point?
> 
> ...




This is true, in a philosophical sense. It goes into epistemology and the likes.

However, it doesn't really help anybody who is actually crafting a story. Somebody might have the most awesome, well-rounded, vivid character in his head or out there in open philosophical space, but he decides to only bring a little fraction of that character's personality onto paper and into the story, because - well, every human is multi-dimensional and 3D, that's for sure and so it's really superfluous to explicitly show this characters 3D-ness in this story!

But that's not how writing works. Having the perfect thing in a theoretical world or even inside of our heads isn't enough - we need to _communicate_ it to the reder as well. 

That's the hard part.


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## Ride the Pen (Jul 23, 2014)

Cadence said:


> Yeah, that's about it. My personal issue with Forster's criticism is that he makes characters who get more story-time seem 'better' or 'more human' or 'more real' than those who get less.
> 
> When I write, it's not the characters I try to make feel human; it's the whole story. If I'm successful, then everyone and everything feels 'real'. It's not like the story has parts or elements that are more/less 'real' than others.



Sounds like characterization doesn't matter to you that much. Which is perfectly fine! There are awesome writers who don't give a flying fuck about characters (nobel-price winner Elfriede Jelinek, for example, one of my favourites), and others who are great and don't care about style (Stephen King, another favorite). Everybody has a different approach.


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## Jeko (Jul 23, 2014)

> However, it doesn't really help anybody who is actually crafting a story... that's not how writing works.



Depends on how you define and approach the craft. Such a perspective may not help you, but it has helped (and will help) many, many writers in one way or another. 

You can't define how writing 'works' if you're just one writer. The different ways writers go about the communication of their ideas is what gives us the variety of literature we have today.



> Sounds like characterization doesn't matter to you that much.



Not at all; I just go about it a different way. I think about characters the way I think about human beings.


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## Greimour (Jul 23, 2014)

ALERT: 2cents incoming.

Whether my character is the protagonist who is everything a character could be - or a momentary interjection of a character who appears only once, uttering just a single line before he dies - they are both alive to me. (or were before one of them died)



> _because fictional characters, while very alive in their way, are not the same as real people._



How so? My characters are more real to me than him. What is he to say he is more real than my character? 
(And yes I meant what, not who. He is less real to me than my characters, so what is apt. I can assume he is human, but whatever he _really_ is has no relevance to me)

Just because my readers won't mourn the death of little Tommy who was so poor he couldn't even afford a last name; doesn't mean I won't mourn his death. Even if it was me who wrote his death - as the vicious writer of fates that I am whilst in my writers seat.

My characters _are_ real people. And those that have died - they _were_ real people. As real as you or I. He can argue against their lack of physical presence as much as he likes - but once he is out of my sight and vicinity - his physical presence is less meaningful than that of my characters. So to hell with his 'not real people' comment.

A reader may not get to know the fullness of my characters - and some of my characters may be 'flat'. But I know my characters, even if no one else does. I know my brother, but many of you don't. Does that mean he is not real, because you do not know him? Or is he real, because I do? What is real/reality anyway?



> *Reality* is the conjectured state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. A still more broad definition includes everything that has existed, exists, or will exist.



My characters actually exist. In my head perhaps but that is only where all of you exist too - from my perspective. Everyone I have ever met, spoken to, interacted with or anything else. All of that information is in my head. Including existence. What difference is that to my characters?

"Rather than as they appear or might be imagined" ... they appear on paper and are imagined upon reading but their physical existence is evident by the ink that effects our physical plane.

"reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible" - exactly.

"A still more broad definition includes everything that has existed, exists, or will exist." - even if that existence is purely in my mind... it is included. Even if I die and they are forgotten forever - they still existed at one point. As much as I did at least.

Not real people my foot!

~~~

I don't try to do anything specific with my characters. They are people and they have free will. They do whatever the hell they please and I am happy with that. 
My stories are just tellings of what those people do. 

Flat? Round? Full? Phooey!

I might look mad when I talk to invisible people that have no physical presence - but I think he is the crazy one.


~~~~


In short. This does little for me and by focusing on one single point, I felt like completely ignoring and bashing the rest. ^_^

Still, I am sure this will be useful to a great deal many people.


~Kev.


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