the emotions behind a story

I'm a little concerned about this book with no characters, no conflict, and no irony.

Okay, so you're thinking of something like George R. R. Martin's series, where there are a multitude of important characters and their viewpoints are shared throughout the novels. Such books still have main characters; they just have several of them instead of one or two, as most other novels have. There are also less important characters who make up a "supporting cast," and it is a character's greater relative importance compared to those "supporting characters" that defines him as one main character among many main characters.

Yes, there are books out there like that. There are few of them, because they take a tremendous amount of skill and a thorough understanding of character development in order to write them well.

catian said:

I have been thinking of few things on how to challenge the sameness' in writing and not having a main character is one.
The second is to challenge/lax the idea of having the three rigid rules of start, middle and end.
I agree that a beginning has to be just the one, so I would skip prologues altogether.
The middle is a mix of climax and denouments and one can have many of them or less depending on the story.
The end however for me has an unsettling sense to it because as a writer I would like to be able to change my mind and not panick about regretting how the story ended.
So I am thinking yes one story needs to be concluded in order to be published and read but what I am suggesting is to resurface some characters from story A and another from story b to write a story C.
This means that I can always go back on story A or B and write a new story that would be C with new ending (again an open ending) in case I am having second thoughts about the story I have just finished.
I am simply ensuring that I do not want to feel regretfull or doubtefull over stories I wrote.
I am simply covering my back.
I tend to settle on ideas/clear aims before I launch into writing.
It helps me understand what I want to achieve.

The other thing about not having an Main Character simply means that I can pull these out an give them another role in another story.
I won't stigmatise a character by giving a title in case I would need in another story with a lesser title if you like.
It would sound weak if I picked a main character from story A and gave a lower role in story B it would not sound right.
Characters can lose credibility when given higher titles then taking them away from them in other stories.
No main characters means no labelling and more of them in other stories.
It is easier for me anyway.

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This whole ... thing *waves hands* makes no sense to me and seems like you're just worrying over...I don't even know.

A story is going to have a beginning, middle and end. It's just the nature of the narrative. It doesn't mean that once you come to the end, the characters collapse into heaps of dolls that no longer have any life breathed into them when we close the book. It's going to start at some point (the beginning), it will have to stop at some point (the end), with a starting and stopping point there is going to be a point half way between (the middle). It's the physics of the thing.

And I'm not even sure how to touch all that about characters being 'labeled' and titles and a weaker role in another story. There is nothing that says from one story to the next that you have to keep with the same major characters you have in the previous story. You focus on one in one story, focus on another in the next. It's not weak. It doesn't rob anything from your characters. They don't lose 'credibility' (whatever you mean by that).

All the stuff about open ended endings...really catian...what is the problem? You are going to have a story. You write that story however you want, using characters as you see fit. At some point you will, if you're going to finish it, have to write the ending. If it gets published, there will not be any opportunity to go back and change the ending. Until you get to that point, it's all writing. You write and write and write and if the ending doesn't suit you, you go back and write and rewrite until it does.

Once it goes on the page it's not carve indelibly forever with no chance of ever fixing or changing it. Not until it gets published. Short of that, the sky's the limit. You've not written yourself into a corner that cannot be backed out of. You've not doomed your manuscript forever just because something came out such you're not happy with the turn of events.

That's really the sense I'm getting from this whole line of discussion. Maybe stop talking, stop defending and excusing and explaining what you want to write and just write.

I keep wishing the novel I'm writing atm could end differently. Unfortunately, the end is inevitable. *shrugs*

catian said:

I know too well that if you love someone truly, you would not walk them that easily. That is again my realistic view on it.


.

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cat,

you have what is becoming a somewhat annoying habit of saying things like this, where you pass your own judgement without perhaps even being aware of it. your "realistic" view of it, as in mine is unrealistic? because I know lots of ridiculously fucked people who hurt each other and who do it either in spite of, or sometimes even because of, love. I also know a hell of a lot of people who let pride fuck up relationships, and they would indeed walk away.

I think you want or need to romanticize things into a sort of disney-fied world where everything goes well, and if you do, that's fine, but I'd appreciate you bearing in mind that there is some sliver of possibility that since much fiction does not follow your template, and real life doesn't follow your template either, well, maybe there isn't something "wrong" with us for wanting that sort of complexity in our stories.

Maybe we want a story that reflects what we know of the real world, instead of ignoring it.


BTW, scarlet's comment about "compelling reading" upthread was snark....put more simply, if you intend to establish a name for yourself as the writer where nobody gets hurt, nothing bad happens, and all is always cleanly resolved, that doesn't leave much in terms of stakes or suspense, does it?

RichardGarfinkle said:

I think you need to worry less about this. Artists of all kinds look back on their works and wish they had done things differently. That's just part of learning. Don't get so attached to your characters that you don't move on to new things.

I have seen a few cases where writers did new versions of earlier books trying to substitute their later understanding for their earlier. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's almost never worth the effort. Finish the book, think about what you did, learn from it, and move on to the next one.

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Exactly so.

As ChaosTitan pointed out, this is the Novels forum. The distinguishing feature of a novel is that it follows the transformation of an individual - you can push these boundaries - the story can follow multiple people as Libbie points out, also the transformation can be very small, but the novel is about the individual. Don Quixote is considered the first novel because unlike many stories that were published at the time, Cervantes did something different, he made DQ a real identifiable person with flaws and strengths, who is transformed by the events of the story.

So, are you going to write a book of the kind you propose? (I'm imagining your book will be something like your piece on SYW) It will be something other than a novel.

RichardGarfinkle said:

I'm not sure that's true. Books had plenty of stakes and suspense in stories even in the era when readers justly presumed that things would end up working out for the good guys. I'm inclined to think that it was writers not readers who got fed up with these stories and decided to change how things worked.

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which era was this? when Melville wrote Moby Dick and Dickens wrote about street urchins? Further back, to when Shakespeare wrote Othello and Romeo & Juliet? Maybe even further, to the stories of Achilles and the various Greek and Roman gods? There's been self-loathing, dysfunction, and personal destruction since we were using charcoal to draw on cave walls.

so....you cherry-picked a couple times when society was especially concerned with romanticizing reality to point out that the modern trend is "unrealistic"?


in any case, i don't think the stakes are "unnecessary". I think they reflect reality in a way Austen (she had plenty of contemporaries who had less happy endings, IIRC) did not.

Some folks do read for escapism and want a world where all is well; the entire romance genre depends on the HEA. And that's fine. But if you aren't in a genre where part of the expectation is that you end in a predetermined and saccharine manner, eventually I suspect you would acquire a reputation as a less-than-exciting read because of the fact everyone knows going in that everyone is going to be ok, coming out.

catian said:

I see.
Doesn't the word 'inevitable' means that it is 'obvious'?
Sorry this is a genuine question and not meant in a bad way.

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No, inevitable means "it's going to happen whether you like it or not and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

I wish the spring could last forever, but summer inevitably returns, with its stinging black flies and third-degree sunburns.

catian said:

I see.
Doesn't the word 'inevitable' means that it is 'obvious'?
Sorry this is a genuine question and not meant in a bad way.

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dictionary.com is a writer's friend on occasion.

inevitable (adjective)
1. unable to be avoided, evaded, or escaped; certain; necessary: an inevitable conclusion.
2. sure to occur, happen, or come; unalterable: The inevitable end of human life is death.

obvious (adjective)
1. easily seen, recognized, or understood; open to view or knowledge; evident: an obvious advantage.
2. lacking in subtlety.

So...no. They are not the same.

Buffysquirrel's ending may be inevitable, but it may not be obvious. I think it would depend on whether it's the writer writing toward it, it may be both inevitable and obvious. The reader reading it may see one or the other, neither or even both.

You know, it sounds to me as if you want the joy of being a discovery writer with the planning of an outliner. It's not an either/or endeavor. Many writers on this board use a combination of the two in various weights and measures to great success.

It comes down to simply putting it out there and getting started. But no matter, there will come a time when you type The End that you will no longer be surprised. You'll know the whole story. Then you'll go into edits.

RichardGarfinkle said:

I don't want to get into a fight about cherry picking. Please remember that this part of the thread started on the question of whether a writer of predictable outcomes would have an audience or not.

Author reputations are used by readers to determine whether or not they wish to read that author. You seem to be asserting that a reputation for always having a happy ending will lose that author their audience. I just think that it will determine the audience and that there is a big enough audience for such things in any genre (up to and including horror) provided the writing is enjoyed by the readers.

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I appreciate you taking the time to let me know what the thread is about, in case I forgot, but barring certain genres where it is an expected "norm" you WILL get flack for every book ending neatly. Doesn't mean there is no market; hell, I can't recall the last Koontz book where someone close to the MC actually dies (hell, in the last Snowe book--Fear Nothing, IIRC--I read he even sent his MC back in time to save his best friend....pukey), but it is a choice you make, with pitfalls.......there's a reason I don't read Koontz any longer, a large part of it is I know the MC and the MC's besties will all have a harrowing trip where I'm more likely to die reading the book in bed from a fluke embolism than any of the characters actually being chased by hell-minions or slashers are. Do it poorly, and instead you'll get rejections because the reader can feel the "shoehorn" of you cramming the story where you want it to go.

Cat, write what you like. Just be aware there are essentially 2 schools: "write the world you know," and "write the world you wish it to be." If you do the latter, do it well, because if you don't have suspense to fall back on you better really bring it in everything else....the reader already knows the end so you need to work harder to bring them along anyway.

catian said:

I have been thinking of few things on how to challenge the sameness' in writing and not having a main character is one.

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I don't think the "sameness" in stories is because they have main characters and a beginning, middle and end. I think sameness happens when the same old things happen in story after story.

But even if the same things are happening, they can be made new and fresh enough to make it seem like a different story.

Sassy up-n-comer gets championship training from reluctant old champ.

• The Karate Kid
• Cars
• Surf's Up
• El Camino (sort of)

Kind children fight evil government scientists to help misunderstood alien find his way home.

• ET
• The Iron Giant
• Super 8

A wounded warrior infiltrates natives, falls in love with one of their women, and turns his back on the government he was wounded for to becomes a native himself.

• Dances With Wolves
• Avatar

Not only do these stories have beginnings, middles and ends, they have main characters and they have essentially the same plots as other stories. Unless you watched the movies I just categorized in quick succession, you might not even notice the similarities. A lot of the details are similar as well: the protagonist in all of the "kind children/alien" stories is always little boy being raised by a single parent who is too harried to pay enough attention to him.

Originality doesn't come from dreaming up unheard of character names, or not having main characters, or not having a plot. Originality is all in the details.

catian said:

I see.
Doesn't the word 'inevitable' means that it is 'obvious'?
Sorry this is a genuine question and not meant in a bad way.

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In the way I was using it, 'inevitable' to me means that the story simply can't end any other way while remaining true to itself. Whether that's obvious to the reader depends on how well I've communicated my vision of my story to them.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if a reader can work out how a story is going to end. Perhaps in a murder mystery it won't work if they guess who the killer is forty pages in or so. But if the general tenor of the work has been leading in a particular direction, they can--I hope--have a feel for what will happen without losing their interest in how it will happen. After all, in those same murder mysteries, we usually assume that the crime will be solved and the murderer identified. That doesn't mean we don't read them. We want to see how the solution is reached.

In the past few days I've had great trouble writing this novel because the protagonist doesn't like the ending and he baulks. I can't get him along at all. I could change the ending, and make him--and myself--much happier. But then everything I've worked on in and layered into three ~100k novels will have been a waste. Everything's been building up to this. Tacking on a happy rather than a hopeful ending would be a lie.

Nope, no harm in experimenting at all.

The answer to this, and most of your questions, is: write what you want, how you want to write it. Just write.