Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Five Kinds of Authors

I mentioned that I'm taking a creative writing class. The wonderful thing about writing classes is that with the right kind of instructor (which Laurel Lathrop is) everyone benefits - the newbies and the more prolific bunch. Laurel drops little helpful tidbits too that make me think of writing in a whole new way. One that she dropped at the beginning of our fiction center was the idea of the five kinds of stories:
  • Scenery-driven
  • Plot-driven
  • Character-driven
  • Symbol-driven
  • No one remembers the fifth one.
Scenery-driven is more poetic and is carried by weather and perhaps harsher conditions. Symbol-driven is similar. Both and whatever the fifth one is have fallen by the wayside, it seems. Nowadays people know of the plot-driven and character-driven tales.

In my experience, most stories seem to be character-driven. Even The Hobbit focuses more on the development and friendships of the characters than the story arc. These are stories where characters transform through a course of events or stay true to themselves, but in a profound way.

Plot-driven stories are those "high concept" stories, as a movie expert would call them, where focus is less on the characters and more on what's going on. Disaster stories are more plot-driven.

I've always liked having an incredible amount of action in a story. It doesn't have to be exciting, of course. Maybe it's the same teeny-tiny bit of misanthropy I carry around that pushes me toward veterinary medicine and not medical school, or maybe it's because I've lived a lonely, action-packed life in general. I really just prefer everything that isn't relationships, drama, and character in a novel. I'd rather try to see how a person died in a good mystery than have to read about his weeping widow who misses him oh-so-much. Please!

I prefer a novel that starts with action. One of the best romance novels I've ever read was The Rogue and the Hellion by Connie Mason. Mason throws the reader right in the midst of some heated action with a good old-fashioned carriage-heist. The disguised heroine robs the hero of his money, as she has come to desperate times. They meet several times later. In starting the story with action, the rest of the novel has a bit of turbulence that keeps it exciting. It enhances the character-driven elements, too -- will he recognize her? Why is she robbing this guy? What will he do when he finds out about her double life? The same goes for Kristin Cashore's Graceling hit. She sets us right in the middle of the big rescue on which much of the novel pivots on. She used excellent crafting to time our entry into her world perfectly. This huge first step into a novel is my favorite kind of entry. I think many people agree.

I feel punished, too, if I have to wait to get to the initial conflict in a story. If I have to read 100 pages before I even get a hint of danger, antagonism, or surprise, I'm probably not going to pick up the sequel. I read another fantasy novel that spanned several hundred pages without a single drop of excitement until the very last page. The rest was mundane scenery and very, very weak character development.

Action is integral to a story to me. Something has to be going on. Even if it's subtle or symbolic, the plot is always a key element. Characters are important, but if I wanted to ready thirty pages of idle chatter, I would go have a sit in the dining hall.

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