Thoughts about Flatlining

I just finished reading a novel, which will remained unnamed because I don’t want to incur the wrath of true Literature Scholars whose tastes may be more refined than mine.

Anyways, one of the things I kept wondering throughout the length of the story was ‘When is something going to happen?’

That isn’t to say the story was without events, it just seemed to me they were all flat. They were the same events, of a sort, repeating themselves. The only change occurred at the very end. The heroine finds herself happily engaged to the object of her affection, and then she is too bashful to go into any details about their great romance. Up until this point, she had been for the most part static in her interactions with the rest of the world. She was either too ‘good’ of a person to stand up for herself when she was abused or too ‘simple’ to warrant needing anything from anyone. The one exception was the young man which she hoped to find herself engaged to, but whom she was too shy to truly pursue.

Simply put, the heroine was flat.

One of the reasons I give myself the luxury of reading novels (and watching too much Dr. Who) is because nothing teaches like the work of others. I come away from each completed novel with thoughts about how I can improve my own writing and storytelling abilities. I learned from this novel that characters who flatline are not very interesting.

Flatlined characters are difficult to relate to. Is there anyone you know who could really suffer the abuse of snobbish children for years on end without becoming either bitter or abusive themselves? Is there anyone who you know that really can hold their temper so well as to never lose it one frustrating defeat after another? Let’s try a different scenario, can you relate to someone who is always so angry that they never can be kind or sorry for what they have done? Characters who never admit they were wrong or (more likely) try to make up for it without admitting they were wrong? A character who is always the same in every situation puts up a barrier between themselves and the reader because the reader is either incredulous at their promoted goodness, or the reader is turned off by the character’s outlandish badness. Examples of interesting characters are ones who pretend to be good while harboring badness, or who is thought of badly but really has a heart of gold.

Besides being unrelatable, flatlined characters rob a story of interesting plot changes. For example, what if the frustrated governess completely lost her cool and gave her disruptive pupils a good thrashing? What would be the consequences? How would the story alter? How would she change? Most importantly, how would the reader view the change?

Since I finished the book, I have been thinking about my own characters and how little I actually know them. I have spent a certain amount of time with them in certain situations, but I have not begun to account for the gradients of circumstances which they may find themselves in. Are my characters different when they are relaxed on a beach compared to when they are fighting the evil of the world? A better question would be to ask if  my characters could relax on a beach, or are they permanently put on edge? One of the skills I want to become better at, as a writer, is developing a deeper character before I start writing. I think if I take the time to practise developing characters first, and storyline second, I will find a wealth of possible plot points and interesting material to use.

What do you think? Do you like more consistent characters or ones who surprise you now and again?

Continuing the adventure,

Jess