Home The Author The Book Reviews FAQs More Stuff The Other Side


BLOG

RSS Feed 

Thursday, December 14, 2006

 

Fictional Darwinism

... or 'Darwining' for short. Defined as:

Letting a minor character get bigger and bigger till he or she takes over the narrative - figuring, 'Stuff it, survival of the fittest' and going with it.

Always good? Always bad?

Comments:
I wouldn't say 'always good' or 'always bad', but in general definitely worth a shot.

The counterpoint, I suppose, would be fictional 'Intelligent Design', wherein a character is given traits that are functional in terms of the plot, yet somehow fail to add up to plausible-seeming person.

I suppose that both design and evolution play a part in the development of most fictional characters.
 
Maybe you could work it into the drafts and all. Often character function ends up being determined by the course of the story, and I hear a lot of other writers say, "Oh, I started with this main character, but then this other one ended up being what the story was about." So if a character ends up becoming more the focus than originally intended, one can always go back and revise the beginning to keep it consistent.


www.jrvogt.com
 
If that's Darwining, then JK Rowling has a serious case of genetic engineering. Hermione is forever stealing the show. Me, I would have made Hermione the protagonist, but Harry hangs in there, book after book.

I'm a strong believer in writing the book you want to write, but then I'm also unpublished, and I can't actually prove there's no connection between the two :D. If the lesser character becomes the more interesting one, let them have their way. Why not? Try and force the book where it doesn't want to go and it'll be miserable, you'll be miserable, and your first reader will tell you, "wow, it shows how much you hated writing this book". Meh.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

Archives

July 2006   August 2006   September 2006   October 2006   November 2006   December 2006   January 2007   February 2007   March 2007   April 2007   May 2007   June 2007   July 2007   August 2007   September 2007   October 2007   November 2007   December 2007   January 2008   February 2008   March 2008   April 2008   May 2008   June 2008   July 2008   August 2008   September 2008   October 2008   November 2008   December 2008   January 2009   February 2009   March 2009   April 2009   May 2009   June 2009   July 2009   August 2009   September 2009   October 2009   November 2009   December 2009   January 2010   February 2010   March 2010   April 2010   May 2010  

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?