existentialist postmodernism

[gauchecritic]

I had to look up both words.

I was sitting in on a writing class last week and the instructor mentioned the two main methods of story writing: plot driven and character driven. He explained how both options were equally valid and that most of the time neither can be successfull without some element of the other.

And then a rather mind-bending thought occurred.

In many discussions here at Lit. we give our thoughts and opinions about realism in stories (like a parent walking in on you masturbating and instead of walking out or givng a lecture has sex with you. Real life. It's all about suspension. No, not a solid distributed through a liquid, I mean disbelief)

In other threads we give our favoured method of writing. Plotting. Characterisation. Stream of consciousness. Unruly characters.

Here is my quandary:

We want our characters to be life-like but we have a plot to follow.

We often see PCs or receive feedback that says our main character would never had done that because...

So the question is:

How can we realistically give our characters free will?

Corollary: Is a character driven story more realistic than a plot driven one?

 

[Liar]

First of all, that's two wery long words.

So the question is:

How can we realistically give our characters free will?

Corollary: Is a character driven story more realistic than a plot driven one?

I don't see why. A character driven story focuses on how the characters change the plot. A plot driven story focuses (or imo should focus on) on how the characters deal with the plot.

I think the most interresting thing to write about is how regular, realistic people react in extreme situations. Situations that have not been brought upon them by their own personality, but something beyond their control. Most of the time, the outcome of such situations are also (If the story is realistic. The anti-hero rarely saved the world.) beyond the character's control. A big event told from a small perspective.

 

[TheEarl]

I had to look up both words.

I was sitting in on a writing class last week and the instructor mentioned the two main methods of story writing: plot driven and character driven. He explained how both options were equally valid and that most of the time neither can be successfull without some element of the other.

And then a rather mind-bending thought occurred.

In many discussions here at Lit. we give our thoughts and opinions about realism in stories (like a parent walking in on you masturbating and instead of walking out or givng a lecture has sex with you. Real life. It's all about suspension. No, not a solid distributed through a liquid, I mean disbelief)

In other threads we give our favoured method of writing. Plotting. Characterisation. Stream of consciousness. Unruly characters.

Here is my quandary:

We want our characters to be life-like but we have a plot to follow.

We often see PCs or receive feedback that says our main character would never had done that because...

So the question is:

How can we realistically give our characters free will?

Corollary: Is a character driven story more realistic than a plot driven one?

I'm of the opinion that a plot-driven story will usually have terrible characters. Characters are organic, they grow as the story does and if you're constantly trying to nudge them towards actions, then they'll be stilted.

In my opinion, characters work best when left to their own devices. If they're the right characters in the right situation, then they should find their own way out, rather than needing the author to punch a hole for them. Just ignore the plot and only occasionally give your characters a nudge towards the intended direction, if possible by altering the events around them, rather than altering their actions directly.

However, it is noted that real life makes for terrible stories. It's untidy, winding and with far too many coincidences to be realistic. If you wrote a perfectly realistic story, then no-one would want to read it as, like as not, it'd be dull. That's why a film'll always be better than watching Big Brother.

Therefore, although it's important to give your characters free will and allow them to dictate the story, you have to curb their realism, otherwise no-one'll believe it.

Strange, n'est pas?

The Earl

 

[Guest]

A quick reply, Yorkshire. I get the general query but the central question implies a limitation (or at least a generalization). A real answer could best be supplied by agents or publishers (if you get my vague sarcastic drift ).

Otherwise, with basic imagination a writer might make character the plot (see S. Beckett).

Seriously, though, "How can we realistically give our characters free will? is a brilliant question. Rather than be glib, I'd really love you to elaborate on it first.


Perdita

 

[Colleen Thomas]

You characters do have free will, in as much as a ficticious construct of your mind can. the plot isn't a static barrier to character growth, it's a form that directs that growth. In my mind, you, as creator, have supplied circumstance that in life would be applied by...well, by circumstance. How the character reacts is totally up to the character. As long as you are willing to portray that reaction, I think you can have both free will and plot.

As to the corrolarry, I don't see either one as being superior. In my opinion, a fusion of both is the best option, if you can manage it.

 

[Boota]

I think you can give your characters free will when they become real to you. They have free will when the characters reaction isn't your own, or the personality is so real that you inherently know what the character would and would not do/say. You're there if you come to a point where you know something should happen, but it can't because Lord Reginald simply would not do it. Instead of forcing the character into your plot, you allow the exercise of his or her free will and work around it, knowing your place. Until that point you are just playing with paper dolls and making them do your bidding.

I'm of a mind, which could change at any given time, that character is the be all-end all of fiction writing. A story can thrive without a realistic plot, but without realistic characters operating within logical lines of behavior and thought within an unrealistic plot, it won't work.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

In other threads we give our favoured method of writing. Plotting. Characterisation. Stream of consciousness. Unruly characters.

Here is my quandary:

We want our characters to be life-like but we have a plot to follow.

We often see PCs or receive feedback that says our main character would never had done that because...

So the question is:

How can we realistically give our characters free will?

Corollary: Is a character driven story more realistic than a plot driven one?

Realistically? Depends on what you mean. Realism is in the mind, meaning (at the risk of taking philosophical thought too far into question, meaning doing a Charley imitation, in other words ) so the judgment of realism exists there too. Leave that BS to the reader.

Second question: Again, realism is the issue, but it also depends on the writer. I can't really say I've ever written a story that was driven by plot. I think my plots more adhere to the characters. I can see where I'm going, but the characters show me the way. In my case, I think a characer-driven story is more likely to seem realistic. For others, plot may be their guiding light.

Help any? Didn't think so.

Q_C

 

[neonlyte]

Hmmm... I'm with P, I'd like more before being pressed for an opinion.

There is of course no realism in a story, it is just a story, though some seem to possess a heartbeat, or at least a rhythm that keeps the reader turning pages - for different reasons to different readers.

I don't believe you can give a character 'free will' and I'm equally sure that is not what you are asking, that's why I'd like to see more of your thinking. We've all experienced (I hope) the character that takes over the story - a metaphorical free willing character writing your story but guided by your plot, the settings you wrote, the lovers you painted. Even the most liberal of characters is driven or constrained by the plot the author sets.

The nearest, I think, you can approach a character of 'free will' is to dispense with the setting, wipe clean the characters and set them talking. Dialogue will still be conditioned by plot but can be freed of the extraneous writers props that detract from 'character' as expressed by the words they utter.

 

[elsol]

I cannot answer these questions.

I'm story driven.

It's not realistic, but believable within the context that I aim for... I wouldn't read/write fantasy/sci-fi if I wanted realism.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Neon! I'm just here to repeat myself, GC. This thread has potential for profundity (no surprize given its author), but could also become as banal as any majority rule (no offense intended to anyone, but if taken...)

I'm going to think more now given Neon's post. If I can't riposte without insult, I won't .

anon, Perdita

 

[elsol]

Hmmm... I'm with P, I'd like more before being pressed for an opinion.

There is of course no realism in a story, it is just a story, though some seem to possess a heartbeat, or at least a rhythm that keeps the reader turning pages - for different reasons to different readers.

I don't believe you can give a character 'free will' and I'm equally sure that is not what you are asking, that's why I'd like to see more of your thinking. We've all experienced (I hope) the character that takes over the story - a metaphorical free willing character writing your story but guided by your plot, the settings you wrote, the lovers you painted. Even the most liberal of characters is driven or constrained by the plot the author sets.

I think you're secondary characters can have more freedom than your primary characters.

They're not as locked into driving the story forward as the protagonists... They come in handy when you need to cross a bridge.

I've experienced two characters that were meant to be 'temporary' but kept finding ways back into the story until at the end they were a foundation corner.

Reading the stories, I see where they were 'unnecessary' per se... but again and again, they were the most handy way of dealing with a situation or problem.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[rgraham666]

I can't say, for me, which is more important, the character or the plot.

I usually conceive of the characters first. My first thought of a story is usually a flash of a scene with the main characters. Then I build, or more accurately accrete the story around that.

Realistic? Shrugs. Don't know. But I work hard to make the emotions real, and to tell the story.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Gauch: How can we realistically give our characters free will?
RF: We can't. Even if the author is hypnotized, drugged, and mentally numb from watching reruns of "The Gong Show" and virtually typing on auto-pilot, the character is still an expression of the writer's experiences, training, personality and goals for the story.

Gauch: Corollary: Is a character driven story more realistic than a plot driven one?
RF: Not automatically. However, many "authorities" believe it's easier to produce a realistic character driven story, to make the plot fit the character than the character fit the plot.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[CharleyH]

Corollary: Is a character driven story more realistic than a plot driven one?

Is this, a post modern or even structuralist question as a title? Does your question as quoted, even require a "Raw and the Cooked" assessment?

 

[CharleyH]

Spank and bump (jesus lit asks a lot of words L )

 

[Huckleman2000]

I don't know if this point of view helps at all, but as an actor, the idea of plot-driven or character-driven becomes moot. There are lots of parts that exist only to advance the plot - the actor's challenge is to make those parts seem like believable characters. The adage is, there are no small parts, only small actors - I don't totally agree, having played a lot of small roles. Still, an actor has to consider both aspects. What in the character is identifiable to anyone in the audience? In what sense is the character universal, or an archtype? How does the character affect (or effect) the course of the plot? How should the actor reconcile the character with the plot to convey the larger point of the play?

One postmodern existentialist play is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", by Tom Stoppard. The show takes two minor characters from Hamlet, really just there to advance some plot elements or highlight some aspect of the title character, and makes them the central characters of the piece. Their brief interactions with Hamlet are part of the play, verbatim from Shakespeare, but the rest of the play is a character exploration - How do characters adapt or justify their existence within a larger plot, of which they are unaware?

 

[CharleyH]

One postmodern existentialist play is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", by Tom Stoppard. The show takes two minor characters from Hamlet, really just there to advance some plot elements or highlight some aspect of the title character, and makes them the central characters of the piece. Their brief interactions with Hamlet are part of the play, verbatim from Shakespeare, but the rest of the play is a character exploration - How do characters adapt or justify their existence within a larger plot, of which they are unaware?

Stoppard is standard, how is he post modern or even existential?

 

[Huckleman2000]

Stoppard is standard, how is he post modern or even existential?

I don't presume to characterize all of his work that way, but "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" can surely be described as such. Here's the Wikipedia article Are any existential works not post-modern?

 

[lil_elvis]

First of all there is an inherent suspension of belief in what we're writing for lit. Sure it's a generalization, but most of what's written here has characters dealing with each other (character driven) or the situation in which they're placed (plot driven) by having a sexual encounter.

How many of us could say that represents reality as we have experienced it?

Thus, the best we can hope for is that the characters and plot show some semblence of reality in that as you read the story it's not, a series of 'WTF?' moments. There needs to be a progression of events/interactions that at least give some flow to the story.

There will always come a point in the story where we'll have to suspend belief to some degree, but the surrounding story needs to be plausible.

It can be at the beginning where an event places the characters in an unrealistic situation. It could just as easily be some epiphany a character experiences midway through the story.

For me, the most important aspect of the story must be how the characters evolve in response to their situation. If we coherently construct the events and characters, in terms of their interactions and shared influences, we could make an argument that he is repsonding out of free will.

But that will always beg the question of whether it is free will or if the character is being driven to certain actions by people and events beyond his control. I tend to go with the latter.

As to character vs. plot driven stories being more realistic, I'd go for character driven, but that also reveals bias towards how I write and the stories I prefer to read.

 

[Boota]

Do we, as humans, have free will? Or is there a god sitting at a word processor forcing us to fit into his/her plot?

Same difference with characters. When I write, I'm a god. Can I force my creations to do everything I say, regardless of what the personality they have demonstrated would dictate? Of course. But in giving them those personalities, and in turn free will, I should be able to let the character do what he or she would do naturally without any divine intervention. In my mind, divine intervention is cheating. If I have to force my character to be out of character to make my plot work, my story is wrong. I see it as a kind of collective story telling, except that all the participants are in my mind.

That said, there are characters who are merely plot devices. To be a successful god, the trick is not to make them look like that's all they are. I guess that would be the intersection of the two approaches. A realistic character who is really a plot device, but moves the plot through being a character. That doesn't mean that the plot device character can't have free will, he/she is just in the right place at the right time. I look at it as the times in real life when you meet someone who makes a big impact on you for a brief time and they move on. They have steered the plot of your life, but they have their own free will.

Either that or the god at the keyboard was looking at my life and said, "Hmmm... I need something here. Boota would never burn down that church on his own." LOL.

 

[amicus]

From the Wikipedia article mentioned above:

"...Themes
Existentialism - why are we here? Why should Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do anything unless someone asks them to? They find themselves as pawns in a gigantic game of chess, yet make no effort whatsoever to escape.

Free will vs. determinism - is it their choice to perform actions, or are they fated to live the way they do? The implication the play gives is that it does not matter what choices Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make, they are trapped within the logic of the play, and cannot escape, being fated to follow a destiny determined by the plot. Hamlet ends with the news of their deaths, so they have to die.

Search for value - what is important? What is not? Does anything matter? If we are all going to die, why do we continue to live?..."


Existential Post modernism is a mouthful and big words scare many people.

Think of it as a 'there is no god, oh god what do we do now...' realization.

I often wonder how many Litsters can write either plot or character without a well defined moral code upon which to base either action or thought.

Most here seem to claim that there are no 'universal' morals, no absolute rights and wrongs, good or bads and that everything is just opinion and subjective and that, 'whatever works for you...' is an ethical standard.

The 'modern' sense is pretty much that nothing matters anyway, so who cares about any thing?

"Slice of life..." stories with neither a beginning nor an end and usually without a moral theme, are an indication that the writer 'believes' that life is meaningless, without purpose and but dust in the wind.

I know you will consider the source and roll your eyes, but a survey of Ayn Rand's articles on Romantic Literature and her essays on ethics and morals in, 'Art and a Sense of Life' is an interesting read.

amicus...

 

[Pure]

I have no idea what a character with 'free will' is like. Does this merely mean that s/he sometimes does surprising things (or 'out of character')?

Characters have to have coherence and plausibility. [Where there is an element of surprise] They have conflicting impulses and tendencies, just as 'real people' do; or they have desires which are buried or deferred:

If the story reads "Joan Doe walked into the room and shot Bob, her husband of 10 years, to whom she had never even raised her voice." That has to make sense. (She was in a hidden, simmering rage over his constant whoring.)

I believe this is similar to the points Boota made so well, above.

It's always been virtually impossible to say what 'free will' in a person amounts to (e.g. the act gratuit). Is it simply surprising others, on occasion? But that too has to make sense: (Eg. hypothetically) I quit my job after 20 years because I always wanted to be writer.

 

[gauchecritic]

I'm really glad I asked this...

The main question revolves around the words 'give' and 'free will'.

If there are things that our characters are required to do: fall in love, get the other into bed etc etc, we as writers are determining their actions. However much they twist and turn from us sooner or later (if we are to follow our plot) they will end up where we have decided they will go.

For those of us that believe in fate then there is no problem. Fate denies us free will. And so our characters (being controlled however lackadaisycally by plot) can only act within the confines of our plot. So does this mean our characters can never be 'real'?

(to avoid any confusion I'm defining fate as a given circumstance that is bound to occur rather than how our desires, chemistry, love, greed or guilt make us tend towards one action over another)

A few have said, with regard to the corollary, 'character writing' is as near to free will as we can get. When our characters decide what they will do rather than what we want them to do.
But as Earl pointed out, if there is nothing that makes our realistic characters behave uncharacteristically then we don't have a story but a dull tale.
As Liar said, it's unusual situations that make a story.
I'm close to agreeing with Boota and Colleen that our characters will do as they will (and should) when we throw them a curve ball.

I feel that this is probably about as far as you can go in the exercise but it still leaves me unsatisfied and the question unanswered and because of the metaphysical nature of the question I doubt very much that it can be answered as long as the philosophers can't answer the question of free will in the mundane.

I'm assuming of course that most people here believe in free will rather than determinism or fate.

So the questions still remain, can realistic characters have free will inside a plot?

I can't find who, but someone mentioned death, which is the only fate that lies in store for every one of us. I've seen it said that this is the single factor which drives all our lives, except for the young who are immortal, until they learn they're not.

Rump and others have said that since our inventions are constrained by our own individuality and experience then they can have no free will, simply because we are writing them.

So, is it possible then to give our characters free will by drawing upon our youthful immortality?

We can make them immortal just by saying so, but even R. Daneel Olivaw (the robot from the Foundation and Robot series) speaks about finishing his job amongst humanity and thereby his usefulness)

But saying they are immortal doesn't imbue them with free will

Does character driven story give more free will than a plot driven one?

If we free our characters from plot (or fate) is this the only way to make them realisitic? I suppose ultimately our characters have to be deterministic in order for the plot to flow that is, their actions have to be at least plausible given any background that got them to any particular situation and so in this sense no-one has free will, real or imagined.

But, as several have mentioned, a story needs a curve ball in order for our creations to react in unpredictable ways. So is it this that gives our character free will? The fact that we give them choices.

But animals make choices, computers can make choices, do they have free will?

 

[TheEarl]

But animals make choices, computers can make choices, do they have free will?

I'm too tired to apply to the rest of the post, but on this last bit, yes and no, in that order.

Animals have free will because they think. It may not be very in-depth thought, but there is still thought and therefore they have free will. Computers don't think. Computers make choices, but only based upon what they have been programmed with. Even with intuitive and learning AI, a computer does not think (as yet. We'll wait for Daneel). Therefore it cannot have free will.

The Earl

Tangent: Lord, that name R Daneel Olivaw brought up some memories. I haven't read those books in years! Thanks for the nudge Gauche, I feel a reread coming on.

 

[lil_elvis]

Free will within a story is difficult to have in the absolute sense and as you say, GC, it's an argument of semantics that has no end.

However, there is a certain amount of free will that gets exerted as it gets written and we, as authors, either in the midst of writing or in editing, say to ourselves, "I don't like what he did/said there."

We change the story.

Is that the character showing some free will or just our efforts to improve the story by revising the characters' words, thoughts or actions? Are the characters speaking to us and saying "I wouldn't do that!" or is it some god-like intervention to impart our will?

So is writing really author-driven as opposed to character and/or plot driven?