by Pat Bertram
Member since:
October 4, 2007

Character as Fate -- No Whine, Just Champagne Discussion #126

September 15, 2010 09:25 PM UTC (Updated: September 15, 2010 09:33 PM UTC)
views: 0 | 1 person recommends this | comments: 51

Heraclitus believed that a person’s character is their fate. Character -- the sum total of a person’s traits -- influences the choices a person makes, and the consequences of those choices ultimately become that person’s destiny. Or not. Much of life is luck, happenstance, and totally out of our control, though we tend to believe we have much more control over our lives than we really do. But that’s not an issue here because this is a writing discussion, and in our story worlds everything is under our control, and what our characters do determine their own fate.

This is most obvious in a tragedy -- a character comes to an unhappy end because of a flaw in his or her own character, though in today’s stories, because readers like a more optimistic ending, that fatal flaw is often balanced by a special strength. But character/fate works for other types of stories, such as a thriller where a character becomes obsessed with finding the truth, and that obsession leads to both the character's fate and the end of the story.

For example, In Daughter Am I, a young woman is determined to find out the truth of who her grandparents were and why someone wanted them dead. That determination overrides her usual placidity and takes her on a journey that eventually leads her home again, changed forever. She really did find her destiny because of her character.

So, how does your character’s character determine his or her fate and ultimately the plot of your story?

As always, any topic that will help us improve our writing is fair game in these discussions.

Let's talk.

The group No Whine, Just Champagne will meet here at this article for a live discussion about writing and the writing life on Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:00pm ET. I hope you will stop by -- it would be nice to see you.

Comments: 51

Sheila Deeth Sep 16, 2010, 1:52pm UTC
I nearly sent my first novel out in its next search-for-a-publisher quest yesterday, but chickened out and sent the second instead. (They were both home again, feeling lonely and rejected). But your article made me think of it because that first one really is driven entirely by the main character's character, and her quest to change herself.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 9:09pm UTC
The quest is a powerful storyline. All of my characters are on a quest to find themselves, even though they sometimes think the quest is for some other goal. I've always loved the quest for self, quest for change story -- it's so deeply rooted in our psyches, because life is basically a quest for self.
Sheila Deeth Sep 16, 2010, 9:24pm UTC
How very true. And maybe that's what attracts the reader to the story, a resonance with their own quest. At least to a character-driven story.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 9:32pm UTC
So many bestsellers are thrillers where the authors seem to be going for the shock effect of not-so-good versus unbelievably-outrageous-evil, for story people who have identifiable characteristics but no character, for fast-paced stories with little substance or truth. Though most of these stories are loosely bound quests, they lack the basic quest for self, and so are unsatisfying. I used to like thrillers, but I seem to have lost my taste for them.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 9:38pm UTC
I wonder if the opposite is more true (if truth has degrees), that destiny is character. Does what happens to us, both the actions under our control and those beyond our control, determine who we are? Determine who our characters are?
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 9:45pm UTC
Hi Pat!
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 9:49pm UTC
Hi, Suzanne! Great to see you! Are you doing any writing? I'm not holding up my end of our pact, but I did write an entire chapter!
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 9:51pm UTC
No I haven't been doing any writing. I can't seem to get motivated. I thought maybe if I came and talked to you it would help. :-)
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 9:58pm UTC
I'm trying to back into writing instead of running full tilt into it. I'm doing a collaborative novel with some of the other authors at Second Wind Publishing, and since my character starts the story by finding the victim, I had to actually sit down and write. Took me a while, but I did it. I'm waiting for a couple of others to get their chapters done, and then I'll post it online. It was strange actually writing something from scratch. Mostly I've been doing blogs or snippets of scenes for a new novel, and not much of that.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 10:07pm UTC
I often sit down at my computer and think about writing, because I tell myself I really miss it. But when it gets right down to it, I spend all my time procrastinating. I just don't seem to have the will any more. I set myself a goal of 500 words a day, which is half my pre-funk output, but I haven't managed to do it once in the last month. I'm thinking of changing it to 15 minutes or something ridiculous. It isn't writer's block. I have a story and I know where it's going. Just can't seem to get there.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:30pm UTC
Maybe we should resurrect tu-pac. Send each other our word counts, even if zero. Maybe enough zeros will get us to writing again. It's interesting -- I want to write. I even have a book I want to finish and one I want to write, but I cannot make the mental leap from "not writing" to "writing".
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 10:32pm UTC
I think that is a great idea. Accountability might make a difference!
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:42pm UTC
The only words that count are fiction -- no blogs, no stream of consciousness. I'll make a note to send you my wordcount. Tomorrow. Isn't that when all good intentions start? Tomorrow?
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 9:49pm UTC
I heard a pastor say that we are what we are both because of the choices we've made and the choices we passed up. Choices do have consequences, some trivial and some life-altering. I certainly don't believe in fate, not in the kind that's been laid out beforehand. I do believe that what we do and think and say affects our futures.

I also love quest stories, but I enjoy them when they are larger than a self quest. I like that a character grows to know himself while on a quest, but if there is nothing larger, it becomes a narcissistic story rather than an epic with consequences for many. I like seeing how one person can affect the big picture, not only how that big picture affects the individual (although both occur).
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 9:53pm UTC
In my books I do both (at least I think I do; it's been a while since I've read them) -- the big picture affects the individual, and while on the quest to find the big picture truth, the individual finds him or herself and ends up affecting the big picture.
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 9:51pm UTC
A wonderful topic to explore, by the way, Pat. This is one of the deep elements of fiction that make it so enticing and compelling.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:02pm UTC
I'm still trying to figure out what I want from writing -- just putting words on paper doesn't seem to be important. But delving into what makes us human, what creates our lives, that's worth writing about, especially if told by way of seemingly simple stories. I have no use for self-important fiction.
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 10:07pm UTC
Delving into our humanity and using fiction to do it sounds like a perfectly marvelous use of writing and writing time. The good thing about writing is that we can do whatever we want with it. And we can do it however we want to. Yes, being published requires that we play by someone else's rules. But the writing itself? We are not bound by others in all our creating. How marvelous to explore any subject with any words! I love writing.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 9:53pm UTC
I like weaving seemingly insignificant choices into my stories that turn out to be turning points, because I think all our actions are far more significant that we realize.
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 9:58pm UTC
I agree, Suzanne. One act, one word can change anything. Everything. Pretty amazing.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:07pm UTC
Life is like that. I came across a saying once that made no sense at the time: nothing happens and then everything happens, but found it comforting these past few months. For so long nothing changed in my life, and then in a single moment, everything did. The best stories start at the point right before the avalanche of "everything happens."
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 10:00pm UTC
Developing a character, plotting his story so he'll mature and come to an understanding of life and his role in it, that's an important step in the creation of a story. I'm guessing we don't spend as much time on that as we should, as we do with other parts of storytelling. But this is something to be looked at when we rewrite. We can look for ways to tighten threads, to build inevitabilities into the manuscript. Such crafting can only make for stronger stories.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:05pm UTC
That feeling of inevitability is what holds a story together and makes it great. I have a hunch that's why tragedies have such an impact despite the depressing endings -- watching a character's inexorable fall into tragedy keeps us fascinated (in the way a snake fascinates its prey).
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 10:10pm UTC
Yes, what is it that draws us to tragedy and sorrow? Our desire to inoculate ourselves against it? The need to know that others suffer as much if not more than we do? Empathy? Or just plain interest in human activities?
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:10pm UTC
Sometimes, if a story is properly constructed, we don't have to spend time on plotting a character's story so he matures and comes to an understanding of life and his role. Following the character's actions and reactions will take us there if those actions and reactions are true.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:18pm UTC
Beth, I don't know what draws us to tragedy. All those things you mentioned, I bet. Traumas and dramas, especially those involving death or dying, have an edge to them -- a brink of truth. Death is one of the few things that cannot be changed. Once someone dies, that's it. The world is changed forever. Anything else can be done over, changed somehow, what is lost can be found or replaced. But death is irreversible, and so is true tragedy. A character cannot change their fate because they are their fate. Maybe we like to look at the abyss from the safety of books.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 10:11pm UTC
Nothing worse than a tragic story with a tacked on Hollywood happy ending. But they seem to be common these days. When someone asks me why I had to kill off a major character than they liked, I have to tell them that the story demanded it. It isn't really a choice...
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:20pm UTC
One of the most powerful movies I ever saw was the Dutch version of The Vanishing. Spooky as heck. The Hollywood version was just plain sappy. It negated the entire point of the story.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:25pm UTC
Here's another question: does the writer's fate affect the character's fate? None of my books have totally happy endings. There is always a pinprick of unease in the background, but the book I am now contemplating is going to have even less of a happy ending. Perhaps because I know the ending of my own love story? Not my story, obviously, since I'm still here, but the story I shared with another. Except for my work in progress (the one that's been stalled all these years) the stories I'm contemplating all end up with the characters alone.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 10:31pm UTC
I think we as authors all gravitate to the stories that help us work through something in our own lives. Endings are no different. My books all end with the bittersweet. Things work out, though by no means perfectly. Very much my own experience.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:36pm UTC
Suzanne, I like that -- your saying that in your books your endings work out though not perfectly. Heart of Hythea was a powerful book because of that not-so-perfect ending.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:40pm UTC
I sometimes get an urge to write a fun book, something completely different than I've ever done, somthing frothy or silly perhaps, yet because of my new frame of mind, I have a hunch it would end up having that same ending -- where the character ends up alone. Which sort of answers my question -- the author's fate (or frame of mind) dictates the character's fate.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 10:51pm UTC
I took the ending from life, I guess. I've had people tell me that my life is like a fairy tale, because I met a handsome prince and moved somewhere far away to be with him. But as with real fairy tales (not the Disney ones) there is loneliness and heartbreak at leaving family behind, and the sort of dislocation that you can only feel if you are 10,000 miles from home and all the stars are weird.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 10:56pm UTC
All the original fairy tales had bittersweet endings, some even simply bitter. And the characters were real people, not cartoons. In cartoons, the dead can come back to life, one can live 10,000 miles away and next door from family. The best endings are not those that make everything turn out perfectly, but those that tell the truth of life. Another proverb I didn't understand but now do is: take what you want from life and pay the price.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 11:03pm UTC
Ah yes. Everything comes at a price, doesn't it? Trying to be true to that as authors can be pretty difficult. I have to resist the urge to wrap everything up in a neat little parcel for the reader.
James R. Sep 16, 2010, 10:51pm UTC
Hi. Suzanne, I do think it's inevitable that authors will write stories that play to themes in their own lives, and as you say, perhaps help them work through a particular issue. I think that helps the author to get invested in their story and tell it with energy.

Beth, I also like your point about writing stories within stories. The challenges a character faces may be superimposed upon themes which go far beyond one person's life, but if the story is well crafted, the threads will intertwine and produce a greater whole.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 10:54pm UTC
Writing "Song of the Arkafina" was definitely free therapy for me, and I used it to deal with my divorce and subsequent relocation half way across the planet.
James R. Sep 16, 2010, 11:03pm UTC
Yes. I sometimes find that if I have an experience that's hard to process, writing about it in fictional form will help me understand it better. In the process, the characters will often take the themes in directions I'd likely not explore personally, but which offer a stronger dramatic punch.
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 10:52pm UTC
I think we have interests and those come out in our writing. I wouldn't be surprised that some writers have different types of stories as they age, or different tones. But other writers might continue in the same vein all their lives. This is the truth of writing what we know. It's not what we know in our heads. It's the knowledge that's in our hearts.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 11:01pm UTC
This is one reason why I have no interest in writing a series -- I know some authors let their characters change as the author changes, but I prefer to start over each time. Let the story tell my truth of the moment.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 11:06pm UTC
It is a challenge to write a series, but you also have a lot of breadth to follow a character from cradle to grave. I like to make a major character in one book become a supporting player in another of the same series. That way you get to start fresh with new characters and develop the old ones.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 11:10pm UTC
My novel Light Bringer (which should finally be published in March -- how long has it been since you read it? Three years?) should be a trilogy, though I'm not sure if I want to write the subsequent books. If I do, though, I've decided that I will start with new characters and a new story and bring them to the setting of the first book and let them mingle with the original characters.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 11:15pm UTC
I think that would be fantastic! There are many corners of that Universe still unexplored.
James R. Sep 16, 2010, 10:53pm UTC
Pat, if the writer's life isn't affecting the stories we tell and where they go, we're disconnected and what's the point in that? It's quite possible to do this and still write something other than thinly disguised autobiography.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 11:04pm UTC
I get the impression from reading some modern bestsellers that the only thing the author is connected to is the amount of their advance.
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 11:06pm UTC
Very true, and something I hadn't thought about -- the connection of an author to his or her story. The two are entwined, aren't they? One reason I haven't been able to write is that for a long time nothing happened -- my life was one of waiting, so I had nothing to write about. And then when everything happened, I couldn't even begin to process the situation. I'm hoping now that I can step back a bit that I'll be able to write my story. According to Freud, all characters in a dream are part of the dreamer's psyche. So it is in my novels -- all the characters are some version of me, though the actions and situations are not ones I ever lived through.
James R. Sep 16, 2010, 11:15pm UTC
Thanks for hosting another fascinating chat, Pat. Time for sleep back here in the east.
Suzanne Francis Sep 16, 2010, 11:17pm UTC
I'm going to have to disappear as well. Time for my son to arrive home from school. It's been great chatting with everyone. And Pat, I'll send a tu-pac letter along shortly!
Pat Bertram Sep 16, 2010, 11:21pm UTC
Thank you all for stopping by tonight. It was wonderful talking to you, as always.
Beth H. Sep 16, 2010, 11:22pm UTC
Sorry I disappeared--technical issues with my Web hosting service. I was trying to take care of business while I was here and I lost my connection to my host, as well as to my business e-mail. Their phone is busy, so I'm betting I'm not the only one with issues.

Great topic and discussion, guys. See you next time.
Angela A. Sep 16, 2010, 11:36pm UTC
Sorry, I missed the discussion tonight. I watched a movie with hubby.

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