Date:         Thu, 21 Aug 1997 11:21:15 EDT
From: tinkering again? <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      TECH: C.J. Cherryh on Characters

[For those who aren't SF cognoscente (does that really mean people
with smelly brains?), C.J. Cherryh writes good, hard SF, with emphasis
on the "sense of wonder" caused by NOT explaining the background, just
letting the reader deduce it from what is going on...anyway, before I
get too far out on a limb without visible support, C.J. Cherryh is a
published writer]

And in http://www.cherryh.com/charac.htm , C.J. Cherryh discusses
heroic and morally weak characters, along with 'well-drawn' and
'one-dimensional' characters.

[HINT: GO READ IT!  REALLY!]

Along with other interesting points, this piece includes the following:

"What are the reasonable 'dramatic expectations of a novel'?

        1) The central character is supposed to be responsible for things.

        2) The central character has to act and cause things to
        happen, even if the results aren't ideal.

        3) Anticipated consequences have to really happen, and have to
        be dealt with...no 'it was all a dream.' And beware of magical fixes.

        4) No backing away or relating things from second-hand or
        remote vantages.

<snippet>

        5) Create anticipation, and remember terror is one form of
        anticipation.  It's why otherwise rational people wrap birthday
        presents for people they love, and pay to read horror novels.

        6) The character should meet opposition or reversal of some
        kind and should exit with some lasting consequences that aren't
        positive, some cost---and some gain. <... go read it!>

        7) No miracles. The character who fails, the 'morally weak'
        character, the character who must confront...but refuses, will not
        cope, will not bear up, will find a weasel way out or a miracle way
        out rather than face the consequences and who had rather buy moral
        authority the cheap way or have it granted by a god on a rope, rather
        than hammering it out the hard way...that's a villain, or a foil for
        the hero. When it occurs in a hero at the end of the book, it's
        frustration for the reader, and prompts me to remember an author I
        won't buy again. The central character in an adult novel must solve
        the problem, never, never, never have it solved for him by someone
        else. A central character must never be generally absent or
        non-participant in the dramatic sort-out. Sounds silly to have to say,
        but it is true.

"Well, those are 7 rules by which to create a book and 7 rules by which a
reader may reasonably judge a book. They can be bent, but only by a master
hand...and rarely even then."

<snip-clip>

And the very last sentence of the piece:

"What's character? The whole book...for me...is character."

Something else to ponder, perhaps?

tink