Comments on: Creating Fictional Characters—Part 6: Putting the Right Words in Their Mouths

By: Lillie

Lillie — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:07:24 +0000

Godel,

Wow! Using no speech attributions is the goal of good writers, but I didn’t know someone had actually done it.

By: Lillie

Lillie — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:06:22 +0000

Appreciate your comments on a topic I’m not very familiar with, Godel.

By: Lillie

Lillie — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:05:34 +0000

Godel,

Sounds like you are very knowledgeable about sci fi. Thanks for your insights.

By: Godel Fishbreath

Godel Fishbreath — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:01:58 +0000

“Aliens, monsters, deep space, encompassing silence – that leaves little room for dialogues or complex characters. Descriptions of the battles are not enough.”
You must have been seeing the movies, not reading the stories. Almost none of the above is true for the best in the genre.Agreed, that the descriptions of battles or actual battles themselves are not enough, and there are many stories that lack battles.
And what goes for SF goes often for fantasy. Watership Downs did have battles, but they are not what the book is remembered for.
There usually is a fight scene in Bujolds books (see Sharing Knives series) but while important to the plot, are not the total point. The point often is the character struggling against a problem. (see Memories for a no fight book.)

By: Godel Fishbreath

Godel Fishbreath — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:52:44 +0000

There have been character based SF stories.

SF can encompass many other genres. Anne McCaffrey did mostly romance, little plot tension, but wonderful stories (if you ignore Dinosaur Planet and sequels). Lois McMasters Bujold does excellent character and action in the same story (see Brothers in Arms). Isaac Asimov did mysteries with a logical protag, and was mostly character based. Heinlein’s characters are memorable (just stick to the books before and including Stranger). Elizabeth Moon in Reminant Population and The Speed of Dark is wonderful with character, and does decent character based story telling in Sheepfarmer’s Daughter and its sequels. Roger Zelenzy Characters drove both This Immortal (aka Call me Conrad) and many of his other books. Manly Wade Wellman might be character driven.

And sometimes the idea or the landscape is a character in its own right.

SF moves in similar ways to fantasy. LOTR had action, but also had characters. Terry Pratchett does character well.
The big problem/opportunity is to get the attributes of the world into place as the story unfolds.
Some of the best have a blend of character and plot.

So it is established that character based stories can be done in SF, they have been done, and done by some of the best ever. Since I am still unpublished, I will leave it to you to find how they are done.