writer's distance from characters

For closer: Lois McMaster Bujold (Miles Vorkosigan series) and Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files series). In both of these series, we're with the MCs through all the ups and downs. Bad stuff happens, sometimes due to the MC's conscious choice, and we see how the MCs react. The passage I'm thinking of in particular is in Bujold's novel Memory where Miles is wrestling with his conscience about a moral decision.

Whether this means the author is emotionally close to the characters, I'm not sure. What I like is when the author shows the shades of grey.

I actually think Tanith Lee's 'Dark Dance' is very close up and personal with the MC. So is her 'Cyrion', 'The Birthgrave', 'Death's Master' & 'Delusion's Master' to name 5.

Sherri Tepper is very into her 'Beauty' MC , same with her 'Mavin Manyshaped' trilogy.

Distance from characters can result from a relatively objective narrator, instead of one deeply concerned with the characters' internal thoughts and feelings. This can be used to great effect, but after a while, most readers want something to latch onto emotionally.

I suppose I am probably in the minority, but I really enjoy authors who keep a definite distance from the characters. Of course I also like closeness (I love the Miles series mentioned above), but I suppose both methods have their merits.

The one author I recall as being rather distant is Kazuo Ishiguro.

I think keeping distance takes a lot more skill to do well, because you have to make sure you're not so distant as to be losing your reader. But when it's done well, it's absolutely beautiful. Emotion is implied rather than explicitly stated, but the story is crafted well enough that the reader believes he/she knows exactly what the protagonist is thinking.

I'm a big fan of distant, 1st person narrators, (i.e. The Stranger., The Great Gatsby.) I emulate that style all. the. time. I'm allergic to melodrama, so this ensures that everything's in check.

JoNightshade said:

I suppose I am probably in the minority, but I really enjoy authors who keep a definite distance from the characters. Of course I also like closeness (I love the Miles series mentioned above), but I suppose both methods have their merits.

The one author I recall as being rather distant is Kazuo Ishiguro.

I think keeping distance takes a lot more skill to do well, because you have to make sure you're not so distant as to be losing your reader. But when it's done well, it's absolutely beautiful. Emotion is implied rather than explicitly stated, but the story is crafted well enough that the reader believes he/she knows exactly what the protagonist is thinking.

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I also really like distant characters. They can have a lot of emotion for the reader to explore, and for me that's a lot of fun. But you're right, it's difficult to pull off well without creating emotionless characters. I think distance works best when it emphasizes intense emotion.

and I love closeness, too. Hence the Virginia Woolf fascination.

Shady Lane said:

I'm a big fan of distant, 1st person narrators, (i.e. The Stranger., The Great Gatsby.) I emulate that style all. the. time.

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That's me, too. My current series of short stories are narrated by the same character, who's very detached from everything that happens around him because of a heartbreaking experience in his past.

Sometimes emotional distance can communicate the most emotional narratives of all. Of course, it's often hard to get right. I'd say Shady's are great examples. Pick up some Albert Camus. And of course, Fitzgerald is simply the best.

Oh, I also thought of a great example of an author who does both, in her one and only novel. Emily Bronte does an amazing job of zooming in and out of her primary characters in Wuthering Heights. I have no idea how she did it, especially considering it's the first and only thing she ever wrote. During parts, you feel completely wrapped up in Heathcliff's and Catherine's love; and during other parts, Heathcliff is the most emotionally distant character conceivable.

I just picked three books from my shelves, all of which I like, all of them at least somewhat comic in tone just to keep it even, and at least as I remember them, having varying amounts of emotional distance from the character. Let's see what the opening paragraphs look like.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

"Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway. At 0627 hours on January 1, 1975, Alfred Archibald Jones was dressed in corduroy and sat in a fume-filled Cavalier Musketeer Estate facedown on the steering wheel, hoping the judgment would not be too heavy upon him. He lay in a prostrate cross, jaw slack, arms splayed on either side like some fallen angel; scrunched up in each fist he held his harm service medals (left) and his marriage license (right), for he had decided to take his mistakes with him. A little green light flashed in his eye, signaling a right turn he had resolved never to make. He was resigned to it. He was prepared for it. He had flipped a coin and stood staunchly by the results. This was a decided-upon suicide. In fact, it was a New Year's resolution."

Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory (mentioned above):

"Miles returned to consciousness with his eyes still closed. His brain seemed to smolder with the confused embers of some fiery dream, formless and fading. He was shaken by a fearful conviction that he had been killed again, till memory and reason began to place this shredded experience.

His other senses tried to take inventory. He was in null-gee, his short body stretched out flat, strapped to a surface and swathed in what felt like a thin foil med wrap, standard military issue. Wounded? All limbs seemed present and accounted for."

Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency:

"Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe--the only lady private detective in Botswana --brewed redbush tea. And three mugs--one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course."

OK. What do you think? First paragraphs may not be the best for this because they have to do so much work, but I still think McCall Smith's is the most distant. We know what Mma Ramotswe thinks of herself and I think we know she's pleased with herself, but the writing doesn't give us that directly.

When I read these novels, the Bujold book felt the closest emotionally, and we're in Miles's head more directly than we are in Mma Ramotswe's. His thoughts are tinged with emotional overtones: "smoldering," "shaken," "fearful." The paragraphs are about his worries. The Smith opening is more emotionally close than I remembered it being, but I think it's between the other two. I think it more clearly shows its satiric intent in its language, and that softens the emotional burden of the intended suicide, which I don't think the reader believes will happen.

I think the difference in these three openings comes from how much we see inside the person's head and much the emotion of that internal life comes through.

Other readings of these or other passages?

Btw, as you know, I don't think your distance from your character is unreasonable. As these passages show, good books come in all varieties.

You might try doing a google search for "scene and sequel". It is in the sequel that a closeness to the character tends to develop. I think standing beside the character as he works out his reactions to the events he's going through is more effective than using more emotive adjectives. It's not an excess of emotion, but an understanding of it.

Here is Jim Butcher's blog entry on the subject. He did not invent the terminology; he's just passing on what he learned in a class.

batgirl said:

I had a comment from beta-readers on being emotionally distant from my characters. I hadn't really thought about this before, aside from being uncomfortable with books where the author was clearly a partisan, on the side of some characters and against others.
-Barbara

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"Partisan" is not the opposite of "distant." When you tell a story in very close third POV, you decrease the distance. That doesn't mean you are rooting for the POV character, but it does mean that you empathize with them enough to portray them--and how they think about themselves--vividly.

Look at Francis Dollarhyde in Red Dragon. Particularly in the case of Dollarhyde, Thomas Harris paints a detailed portrait of what it's like inside the man's head. That doesn't mean he's being "partisan;" he clearly wants Dollarhyde to be the villain, but he wants him to be a believable, vivid villain.

I'd ask my betas to clarify exaclt what they meant. You might be misinterpreting their comments. (Then again, you might not be.)

Judg said:

You might try doing a google search for "scene and sequel". It is in the sequel that a closeness to the character tends to develop. I think standing beside the character as he works out his reactions to the events he's going through is more effective than using more emotive adjectives. It's not an excess of emotion, but an understanding of it.

Here is Jim Butcher's blog entry on the subject. He did not invent the terminology; he's just passing on what he learned in a class.

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That's a great article! I'd have been a long time figuring out that dynamic on my own. Thanks for posting that.

David I, gave the answer I would give. The example is spot on too. Distance/partisan are two entriely different issues.

As a reader I hate 'distant'...for distant I mean characters that simply aren't given enough depth because the author is too busy pulling the field of view right back to take in a large breathlessly pacey and action-filled plot.

I like being right inside their heads, listening in on their interior dialog.

batgirl said:

I wasn't meaning to set distance/partisan up as opposite authorial stances. My difficulty was that I can tell when the author is closely invested in a particular character because of the use of emotional language like 'cruel' 'pitiable' 'brave' and so on.

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That's interesting. Words like 'cruel' 'pitiable' 'brave', etc, if applied to characters, are good examples of distancing words--instead of being emotionally close to characters, down inside their perspectives, those words are authorial judgements instructing us how we are supposed to feel.

So you're right to object to those words*, but the author who uses them is being emotionally distant from the characters--talking way up high in stratospheric abstractions instead of engaging with the truth of what it's like inside.

I am invested in all my major characters, but I get there by portraying their points of view. I, the writer, would never call someone brave (though another character might.) I come to have deep affection even for the truly despicable ones, because I think it's impossible not to care for someone if you see the world through their eyes. A consequence of this is that I've found myself in the position of empathizing with people I'd really rather not understand.

*I'm not dissing those words. They just ought to be reserved for more reasonable purposes than characterization. Cruel daylight. Pitiable four-color plaid. Brave...erm... toast?