Colorful, Believeable Characters

Bramblethorn said:

Funny that - I agree dialogue is an excellent way to develop characters, but Heinlein's doesn't work well for me because he often uses dialogue as a way to present his own social/political ideas rather than as character development per se. e.g. Valentine Michael Smith is a literary device that Heinlein uses to challenge our taboos*.

*except for the ones about homosexuality

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He does, in many of his books, but it's a style I really like and of course I like his social / political ideas. It's something a lot of writers do, John Scalzi being a prime example but there's a lot more, and I agree with you, when you don't agree with their politics, it does turn you off the book.

I love the way Heinlein throws in lines of dialog and one liners that just give you a picture in your mind of the character instantaneously without long-winded descriptions. I always thought he wrote female characters really well, albeit within the context of his background. "Podkayne of Mars" was the first SF book I read with a strong female main character and I loved it. And then "Friday" was great. He really was a master of writing.

ChloeTzang said:

He does, in many of his books, but it's a style I really like and of course I like his social / political ideas. It's something a lot of writers do, John Scalzi being a prime example but there's a lot more, and I agree with you, when you don't agree with their politics, it does turn you off the book.

I love the way Heinlein throws in lines of dialog and one liners that just give you a picture in your mind of the character instantaneously without long-winded descriptions. I always thought he wrote female characters really well, albeit within the context of his background. "Podkayne of Mars" was the first SF book I read with a strong female main character and I loved it. And then "Friday" was great. He really was a master of writing.

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Indeed. One of my favorite Heinlein pieces Is "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" The book opens with a couple sitting in a restaurant having dinner and talking. There is a playful air, friendly banter, sexual innuendo and just general conversation before she excuses herself to the restroom. During that time you feel you have come to know the characters so well that you can not only picture them in your head but you actually feel as though you have met them.

What you don't realize during this dialogue is that you have now read 54 pages before the Maitre 'D finally addresses him as Col. Ames. You think 'Yeah, That's his name.' But then you go back and scan those 54 pages again to find that it was not mentioned before that. It was brilliant.

BTW: "Friday" is one of my Favorites. Right after anything with Lazarus Long.

My I said:

Many women have told me they hate Heinlein because he was sexist.

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Sometimes he was. Pioneer though he otherwise was of the action girl trope. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Heinlein was reasonably progressive as weirdly militaristic jerkass white dudes of his generation went, of course. Probably moreso than Gene Roddenberry.

My I said:

That must be the only Heinlein book ypou read.

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I've also read "Starship Troopers", "I Will Fear No Evil" (didn't finish), "The Past Through Tomorrow" (many times), "All You Zombies" and "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long". Please don't assume that anybody who ventures a (fairly mild) criticism of your fave is uninformed.

But, yes, there is political discussions in it. As well as religion, sexuality, relationships, culture.... Harshaws disdain for technology was great. Anne's Fair Witness persona made me think a lot about just what "Truth" is.

And isn't that what a story is supposed to do? Make you think?

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There's no one "supposed to" for fiction. Stories can provoke thought; they can also entertain, characterise, comfort, arouse, terrify, advertise, or (quite important) pay the author's bills. Any of those are decent reasons for writing.

"Make you think" is as good a reason as any other, and authors have been using SFF to explore social/political ideas for more than five hundred years. Nothing wrong with that. Heinlein explicitly stated that he wrote SiaSL to question assumptions, and it does that very well.

But you can't do everything at once, and Heinlein is one of many authors who prioritise the sociopolitical commentary ahead of characterisation. Again, not saying that's bad writing, just that it hurts characterisation.

ChloeTzang said:

He does, in many of his books, but it's a style I really like and of course I like his social / political ideas. It's something a lot of writers do, John Scalzi being a prime example but there's a lot more, and I agree with you, when you don't agree with their politics, it does turn you off the book.

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I am one of those terrible people who enjoyed the movie of "Starship Troopers" better than the book, partly for that reason ;-) Though my favourite Heinlein adaptation is "Predestination".

Re. "Stranger in a Strange Land", though... most of the politics didn't bother me. All the social/political stuff that RAH was challenging, I was fine with that. My point above was just that the novel focuses on this stuff more than characterisation, because that was the purpose of the book. Valentine Michael Smith is a literary device ("would this make sense to an alien?") than a developed character. He's basically Basil Exposition.

There is stuff in that book that did bug me (homophobia, blaming women for rape) but I doubt Heinlein even thought about that as controversial content.

I love the way Heinlein throws in lines of dialog and one liners that just give you a picture in your mind of the character instantaneously without long-winded descriptions. I always thought he wrote female characters really well, albeit within the context of his background. "Podkayne of Mars" was the first SF book I read with a strong female main character and I loved it. And then "Friday" was great. He really was a master of writing.

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I'm kinda ambivalent on Heinlein's female characters. On the one hand, yeah, he writes a lot of them, and his female characters are usually smart. That's pretty good by the standards of (male authors of) his day. OTOH, sometimes the way he writes about them feels pretty skeevy. I'd go into detail but I don't want to pull this thread too far off-topic.

Bramblethorn said:

I'm kinda ambivalent on Heinlein's female characters. On the one hand, yeah, he writes a lot of them, and his female characters are usually smart. That's pretty good by the standards of (male authors of) his day. OTOH, sometimes the way he writes about them feels pretty skeevy. I'd go into detail but I don't want to pull this thread too far off-topic.

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Yes and yes, but given the era, his background and everything, i think he did really well. Far more believable female characters than his contemporaries, and his female characters were all strong characters in themselves. The girl in "Have Spacesuit Will Travel," Wyoming Knott in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and there were a lot more.

Contrast his female characters with Marion Zimmer Bradley's in her Darkover books (another author whose books I grew up with), where I always feel a lot of her female characters are quite weak and powerless, altho that's also within the context of the society she's portraying. Elizabeth Moon and her Vatta's War series, where her lead character, Ky Vatta, is quite the heroine. There's also Honor Harrington in David Weber's books, who is I guess by far and away my favorite, but maybe a lot less realistic than Ky Vatta.

ChloeTzang said:

Contrast his female characters with Marion Zimmer Bradley's in her Darkover books (another author whose books I grew up with), where I always feel a lot of her female characters are quite weak and powerless

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I try to avoid reading authors' characters through the lens of their private lives, but I have to admit it would be a hard temptation to avoid in MZB's case. I wonder how Mists of Avalon would read now (though I have not to date wondered enough to actually pick it up again).

CyranoJ said:

I try to avoid reading authors' characters through the lens of their private lives, but I have to admit it would be a hard temptation to avoid in MZB's case. I wonder how Mists of Avalon would read now (though I have not to date wondered enough to actually pick it up again).

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Ohh, that's horrible. I had no idea she was like that, altho I admit I very rarely bother to find out much about authors. Heinlein's a bit of an exception for me. Thank you and yes, after reading about her, I don't think I'll be able to look at her books the same way again. That's sad.

ChloeTzang said:

Ohh, that's horrible. I had no idea she was like that, altho I admit I very rarely bother to find out much about authors. Heinlein's a bit of an exception for me. Thank you and yes, after reading about her, I don't think I'll be able to look at her books the same way again. That's sad.

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Her daughter only talked about MZB's abuse in 2014, so it'd be easy to miss unless you were following that corner of fandom in the last couple of years.

I meant to say in an earlier comment, but got sidetracked - I like Scalzi as a person, he seems like a lovely and sensible guy, but "Redshirts" just didn't work for me. The central idea was cute, but for me it wasn't enough to sustain a novel. I don't know whether that book's typical of his work, though?

(I keep meaning to respond to the OP in this thread, but it keeps taking too long and I have to go do other stuff. Some day...)

Bramblethorn said:

I don't know whether that book's typical of his work, though?

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He's better known for meatier stuff like the Old Man's War series. Redshirts was kind of a one-off.

Bramblethorn said:

I meant to say in an earlier comment, but got sidetracked - I like Scalzi as a person, he seems like a lovely and sensible guy, but "Redshirts" just didn't work for me. The central idea was cute, but for me it wasn't enough to sustain a novel. I don't know whether that book's typical of his work, though?

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I don't enjoy Redshirts, but I really liked his first couple, "The Ghost Brigades" especially, but after that not really. A bit like David Brin with his Startide Rising. The first couple were great but after that they were a bit forced. His characterization s of alien species was wonderful!

electricblue66 said:

These are the best sort of characters for me, where I the writer can't wait to see what they do next. Give them a pen and they write themselves.

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That's my fave (lazy) way of writing. Imagine a setting, some characters, and a few plot points, then set the players loose and transcribe their words and deeds. I love it when they totally surprise me.

IMHO, a realistic character begins by making choices which feel reasonable. Tossing a character into any situation opens the question in the reader's mind, "If I was that person, is that something I would do?" If the action is unreasonable, the character becomes unbelievable.

BrandDickens said:

IMHO, a realistic character begins by making choices which feel reasonable. Tossing a character into any situation opens the question in the reader's mind, "If I was that person, is that something I would do?" If the action is unreasonable, the character becomes unbelievable.

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So if the character was a 20 yr old Indonesian pool boy and he walks into a bar to see Hillary handing Putin a sack of money and the bartender says, "What is this a joke?" And the pool boy says, "Has anyone seen my cat?"

Would that be one of those unbelievable actions?

Hypoxia said:

That's my fave (lazy) way of writing. Imagine a setting, some characters, and a few plot points, then set the players loose and transcribe their words and deeds. I love it when they totally surprise me.

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I have several stories in my WOP/WMM file that I started just like that. The characters spend 5 min talking and then hate each other. I even had to pull one of the characters out and put him in another story because she was gonna kill him in the parking lot.

My I said:

So if the character was a 20 yr old Indonesian pool boy and he walks into a bar to see Hillary handing Putin a sack of money and the bartender says, "What is this a joke?" And the pool boy says, "Has anyone seen my cat?"

Would that be one of those unbelievable actions?

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