Without Characters There is No...?

Without Conflict there is no...?

Earlier I said that without conflict there is no story, no plot, and without characters there is no conflict. When we examined what elements went in to make a novel, the big three were conflict, plot, and character. In a previous post we saw that the unfolding of the plot is dependent upon the type of conflict we have, and so now to complete the circle, without knowing what the characters are going to be like will we really know what the conflict is?

Or is this a chicken...egg conundrum?

In an even older post, I talked about narrative point of view, voice, and narrative tense. So, now we have the cookbook set before us, and we're going through the recipes, considering the ingredients that go to make up a novel. There is one other major ingredient that I have not yet mentioned, and that is setting. I would like to caution new writers that any kind of story can happen in any kind of setting, but in fact, I had a New York editor tell me that the boot heel of New Mexico was an odd place to set a gay story (that's southwestern New Mexico to those of you who don't know; and to those of you who really don't know, New Mexico sits in the 220,000-square-mile blank area bordering Arizona on the west, Texas on the east, Mexico on the south, and Colorado on the north)  I guess what she meant was that gay stories can only happen in exotic settings like, well, New York City, San Francisco, or some exotic location. And we all know that Stephen King's horror novels can only happen in Maine.

A further word of caution. Even though it seems that only certain kinds of stories can take place in the rural Deep South, involving rednecks, hunting dogs, and swamps, that's not necessarily true either.

Anyway...ahem...I digress.

The characters in a novel are central to the kinds of conflicts a plot has, as well as the kinds of resolutions that work themselves out.

I know...you'd think you needed to do a great deal of planning before ever beginning to actually write a novel. In fact, many writers do sketch out their novels before writing them. They already know who the characters are going to be, even what kinds of scenes will need to take place to move the plot along. Seasoned writers who outline their novels even have a good idea how long it will take to finish the novel.

I know...really? Writers can do that?

I think you can consider me a seasoned writer, as well, and I can tell you that the only book-length works I've ever put together from an outline were technical manuals for the various high-tech companies I worked for. Those manuals had a specific purpose, and if I were writing an operator's manual for a new phone, I wouldn't include any information at all about how to operate a forklift. But  writing a novel is much more organic, and halfway through writing the first draft, I've had characters pop into the story that I didn't even see coming. But I suppose this is a digression, too.

If you're going to have a story about bullying, you'll need to think about characters who are bullies and characters who are victims. If you're going to think (similarly) about a story about domestic violence, you'll need the abusers and the abused, and for good measure the relatives of the abuser and the abused. War stories usually have soldiers, generals, and the setting is usually on a battlefield. I know, this is rather obvious.

So the point is there is a great deal of planning that goes into writing a novel, or in my case, a great deal of subconscious fulminating before I sit down to write. I might have the opening lines at the ready when I sit down, and I think I have the narrative voice I'll be using, whether it is going to be first person or third person. I usually also have a kind of vision of what I want the story to be about and I have the main character in mind.

When I wrote the first line of my first novel back in 1986, I wrote:

Joel woke up disturbed.

I also knew why he was disturbed and what had happened, and so much of the first chapter, at least, was there in my subconscious waiting for me to tap into it. But I didn't know what was going to happen during the rest of the day when he woke up disturbed. However, I had a good idea about the kind of character Joel was. And so the conflict for him was not Man vs. Himself, but rather he was the kind of character who trusted his feelings beyond any other trait. He never doubted himself, and his conflict came from those who did not trust their own feelings, but who put more stock into what other people thought, what their religion had to say, whether society would frown on them. So I knew that at least one other character would carry the conflict of Man vs. Himself, and Joel would be involved in Man vs. Man conflict.

I hope this illustrated how we think of what kind of characters we need for the kinds of conflict the characters will be involved in, which determines how the plot will unfold.

Most novels have at least a main character who fills the role of protagonist, and in Man vs. Man novels, there is usually an antagonist. It took me twenty years to learn, however, that the antagonist doesn't have to be totally bad. In fact, villains are much more effective if they are conflicted or the product of abuse, misunderstanding, self-doubt, etc. We love to hate our villains in literature, but we should also have villains that remain human and full of contradictions. And the same can be said for our protagonists. If they are so sugar-sweet and perfect, they become much less interesting. So our heroes might do things that are not nice, just as our villains can do things that are good.

The rest of the characters in a novel can run the gamut from hero-like to villain-like at moments in the story. I would dare say that the most interesting novels are filled with imperfect humans, who show us the widest range possible of human nature, at its best and its worst.

Cowards can have moments of utter bravery; heroes can have moments of paralyzing fear. In the end, unless it is a specific genre, most general novels are character driven. So, without characters, there is no conflict, without conflict there is no plot, and without plot, conflict, and character, there is no novel.