You spin me right round (like a record baby)
August 20th, 2009by Richard Cox
TULSA, OK-
In fiction, one common and generic way to refer to well-drawn, realistic characters is to call them “round.” As in:
“…characters as described by the course of their development in a work of literature. Flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work. By contrast, round characters are complex and undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader.”
–2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
So they happen to be more fully developed, these “round” characters. But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean that, from whichever direction you look at them, they appear to be the same? Does it mean they exhibit similar qualities across the spectrum of their actions and reactions toward the world? Do they long for things they cannot have? Do they finally obtain the object of their desire, only to learn said object is nothing at all like they expected it to be? Are there characters in fiction who are rounder than some of the actual human beings you and I interact with every day?
Or what if, by way of blogs and Twitter and other social media means, you could actually communicate with a fictional character? Like from a novel you’re reading? Even if it’s the author pretending to be said fictional character, how is it any different to you? Anyone you’ve met online but never in person could be faking their identity, and you still enjoy a friendship with them, right? So if a character’s email or blog address appeared in a novel, would you write to him? Would you follow her on Twitter? Would that make them any more round?
As a reader you know a well-drawn character when you see one. It’s obvious because you forget you’re reading a novel. You may begin to feel like you know that character, and in a really well-written story you might even wonder what character is doing long after the novel is over. But as a writer, seeing the difference between round characters and flat is not so easy. You as the novelist know exactly how the character thinks and feels and will react to certain situations, but how can you be sure you’ve conveyed that on the page?
I’ve published two novels that could be described as “high concept.” Each story places one or more characters into a fairly unbelievable situation (derived from technology), pushes their lives out of balance, and the rest of the story is driven by their desire to put things right again. And of course I tried hard to infuse life into my primary characters, make them real and believable–round, if you will–but as an author this is the area I would most like to improve.
The way to do so, or so I have always thought, is to study the works of fiction I enjoy the most and figure out how they work. Most or all of my favorite novels and films are driven by the people within them, not the concepts themselves. And further, the characters are defined by the relationships they begin and end and struggle with and become consumed by…love and hate and lust and longing, soaring happiness and dark despair. If I love these stories so much, why not figure out how to emulate them?
But more and more I’ve come to realize that perhaps the place to look is not outward but inward.
I wrote a similar blog on this site a year ago, and hopefully I’ve learned something since then. I wrote about emotions being a liability in life, that using logic was by far the best way to make decisions and pick the best course of action in any situation. And in many cases it is. But as much as I’m fascinated by high concepts, by the vast, empty universe, by science and technology and the accumulation of knowledge, what fuels our lives every day? What is the source of our daily drama? Is it supernovae? Nanotechnology? The nebulous, jiggling nature of quarks and leptons?
No. Not for most of us, anyway.
You might have a passion for golf or writing or making films or watching them. You might have a passion for running the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. There are many ways we enrich our lives beyond just the relationships we have. But even so, sharing those experiences with someone else enriches us even further.
And if you’re a fiction writer, and you’re struggling to draw “round” characters, maybe it’s because you yourself could stand to round things out a bit.
Right ’round like a record, baby.
Tags: characters, fiction, haha, large hadron collider, Life, Love, round
Either you could stand to round things out or you could stand to reveal your soft round underbelly.
Excellent post.
Or both?
I feel like I should do some sit ups.
Never! I refuse to believe it! Because otherwise, all my self-imposed plans for total hermitage are worth nothing.
Fight the power.
This made me think of S.E Hinton.
Excellent Post.
Because we both live in Tulsa?
You said: As a reader you know a well-drawn character when you see one. It’s obvious because you forget you’re reading a novel. You may begin to feel like you know that character, and in a really well-written story you might even wonder what character is doing long after the novel is over.
Made me think of SE Hintons characters. The fullness in which she writes her characters, made them living to me and I probably would have written them a letter had I ever been given the chance. Even though the character I would be writing to would not have even been a real person. She was the first writer to ever suck me all the way into a story and make me forget that I was reading a book.
Amazing she had that talent at such a young age, too, which is somehow inspiring and frustrating all at the same time.
Right now the only thing I have in common with S.E. Hinton as a writer is the whole Tulsa thing. Bahahaha.
You’re either born with the ability to tell it like it is, or your not. Age has little if anything at all to do with writing. The most important thing in a story is it’s truth.
I usually agree with you Sheree, but here I’m a bit torn. Yes, I think some people are born with that innate ability, but I think it’s possible to build to it, also. I was born with an innate ability to spell and understand grammar, but it took a lot of work to be able to write with any reasonable amount of skill. I don’t think I’ll ever get to Hinton’s level of capturing the truth (which supports your point), but the improvement I’ve demonstrated makes me think you can get pretty close even if you weren’t born writing classics.
I’ll take Samuel Clemens venacular over the grammar of Leo Tolstoy any day of the week. Sometimes venacular is way more important to the truth of a story than grammar. I see your point though.
Oh, I didn’t mean that grammar was more important than telling the truth or even a good story. Grammar came easily to me but not storytelling ability, which is something I have less natural talent for and thus have to constantly work on.
They say Leopold Bloom is the roundest character in all of literature because we know when he poops and what it looks like. But I don’t know that I have a perfect handle on Poldy. Characters are more than a collection of foibles. Whereas Daisy Buchanan, I know, and Gatsby, I know, and Jake Barnes, I know. (And, for that matter, I know Peewee Mash and Wayne Fencer and Lulu).
It might also be fruitful to read stuff where the characters are not so round, and try and figure out what’s lacking.
Like, I just read Timeline, by Michael Crichton. Awesome plot, cool idea, and unlike most mass-market writers, he’s really smart and writes well. But the characterizations, if we may call them that, were just so lousy.
That’s funny because in my novel the protagonist wonders if his life is fiction, and as proof he notices that he doesn’t remember ever taking a shit. Because in fiction that’s a rather uncommon scene.
I enjoyed many of Crichton’s novels for their concepts and fast-moving plots, but after a while the lack of textured characters really got to me. Although I thought he did a decent job with that in Disclosure.
I’ve got time for Crichton, although I agree about the characterisation. A lot of the time the people who move through his pieces smell suspiciously of cardboard - Disclosure was an exception, as were parts of Sphere.
What about the last one with the monkey-business and stealing genes?
Thoughts?
Which one was that?
This was the last one I read, I guess its been a few years:
http://www.crichton-official.com/books-next-history.html
:::Well, I’ll be damned:::
Is that scuba you’re wearing, Richard?
Looks good on you, buddy.
And a good thing too because inward is very deep.
That’s why “Richard wants to come out and play,” you know. Because Life and Love have no value if you can’t share them with someone else.
Hi Josie.
Is it wrong that I am cheering and clapping like a seal, complete with the “Ar Ar Ar”?
I have been thinking about this very thing lately, characters becoming real “entities”. Recently, I began following a “Sookie” character on Twitter because it seems to enrich my True Blood live viewing experience. True Blood airs on Sunday nights, so when when Thursday rolls around and “she’s” still tweeting Sookie-ish details, I sent her some snarky comment about how silly I thought it was.
“Do you stop being yourself when you get up in the morning?”, SookieBonTemps says
“But, but, but…” I mentally stammered, “You’re not Sookie.”
That’s the thing with the characters bleeding into the real world. Since we know it’s not them (and in the case of a big television series, it’s probably some assistant writing the posts), it could come across as silly. The idea is, as you say, to enrich the original experience, and luckily in my novel, blurring the lines of reality is the point of the story. So maybe it’ll work…maybe not.
Hi Chrissa!
I, personally, think it will be awesome. (And will be honest and say that I talk to Eric Northman now far more than I care to admit to).
Are you considering this for a novel you’ve already wrote, or still yet to publish?
Hi Richard!!
The novel is written, and I’m currently making changes suggested by my agent. Once it’s in the publication process, at that point I’ll start fleshing out his online persona. He already has an email address and a MySpace page. I need to build him something on Facebook and Twitter as well.
In the case of this novel, looking him up as you encounter his addresses and URLs in the book will enrich the reading of the novel. Like there will be content online that isn’t in the book, and again, the book deals with multiple layers of reality. For instance, when you are reading any novel you are an observer of someone else’s world, right? In this story, you may also become the observed…either by the protagonist or by someone else in a layer of reality above yours. Maybe. It’ll be interesting to see how well the idea goes over.
I’ve dropped a few hints in this blog about the novel. One word of warning–watch out if you see one of those blue orbs headed your way.
hmmmmm… by jove, I think he’s catching on
There is a happy medium between too much outward and too much inward. between science and mysticism. Billy Ray Cyrus and… hee hee hee.
Good to come home early and get to read you. You were the treat of my day!
Hi RC!
Columbia!!!!
XOXOXO
I’m curious what the other side of the spectrum from Billy Ray Cyrus is. And what the happy medium is.
Thanks for stopping by! How’ve you been??
Hi RC!
Well rounded seems so… Victorianish
I’m a fan of edgy. Which I suppose in the writing sense means well rounded, in words.
How about that Volt? Does it really move itself down the road three times easier than a gas engine transport variety? THAT would be a well rounded car.
And yes - I think charachters via blog-eye-view has its merits. But blending a real person wiht an on-line characher, walking in the same skin is a delicate balance. We like to be heard, and have our privacy.
For example:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/21/outing.anonymous.bloggers/index.html
If any story ever lent itself to a character taking an online persona, this novel I just wrote is it. But it is a delicate balance, and I’ll be curious to see if I can pull it off.
Richard, my love, you are obsessed by that godforsaken Large Hadron Collider!!
hahaha
Nice to see you blogging, bro.
Logic has it’s place, but it makes for very flat, algorithmic interactions…
Show me the passion & you will likely show me a character that is “round”, fleshed out… alive, Alive, ALIVE!!!!
xoxo
Hey there CC!
I agree that passion is the key to being fleshed out, whether in fiction or real life.
But some people, yes, even have passion for the LHC!
And you have a passion for blogging. I looked on MySpace yesterday and saw you were part of a blogging consortium that is #1 on the entire site. Way to go!
well HELLLOOOOOOOOO there BB!
I have two round things on the front of my chest!
In fact you do. Hello, SS!
Does Encyclopædia Britannica not credit E. M. Forster with first using the word “round” to describe fully-realized characters? But even Forster recognized that, in any novel, a few characters are bound to be “flat.”
I’ve never read Forster, incidentally. I don’t think we’d get on, judging by the costume dramas made from his work.
Nice to meet you, sir. I read your “Vulcan logic” piece when I arrived at TNB, and still consider it one of the best I’ve come across here.
Britannica did not credit Forster, at least not in their online version. Shame on them.
Nice to meet you as well. The Vulcan logic blog is sort of a sister piece to this one, I suppose. The novel I’ve just written actually contains a lot of flat characters on purpose, but I wonder if such a device will work as expected or make it seem as though I couldn’t write fully developed characters even if I wanted to?
Your book sounds interesting. I’ll have to order a copy. And by the way, I don’t think Oswald acted alone. If he did, he was one hell of a shot.
“but I wonder if such a device will work as expected or make it seem as though I couldn’t write fully developed characters even if I wanted to?”
That’s often a problem in instances in which a writer deliberately deviates from convention. I wrote something once in which, by design, the characters were spouting cliches, and I thought my meaning was implicit. Not so.
In any case, your link made it implicit that this piece is a companion to the one about Vulcan logic. But I would’ve thought so anyway, bearing the earlier piece in mind. I’d guess that we approach things very differently, seeing that I’m a dramatic sort, and so have to restrain myself from jumping the emotional shark. I cut the number of exclamation points in the novel I recently published by a good seventy percent, and I still hear: “There are a lot of exclamation points.” But they’re mostly in the dialogue, and particularly in the remarks of a specific character.
Oh, and Oswald — I remain open-minded about the subject, and leaned to the lone-assassin theory only because of a persuasive argument put forth by Norman Mailer. But I won’t bore you with the specifics. And thanks for reading the piece in which Oswald was mentioned.