At 09:08 AM 29/04/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>but evidently it's
>clear cut to him that people don't want to waste time
on character
>development. Now, I'm just wondering if everybody
knows this but me, and
>how clearly it
>comes across that a book is driven by one means or
another.
Like most of you, I think that plot and character development
are not an either/or proposition. I suspect that what the
"literary" set call character driven stories are those that
exhibit the fundamental error of telling rather than showing.
The narrator or the protagonist sit about telling us what
goes through their minds and what type of person they are.
This is so boring that the writer must employ a wide range of
literary devices and stylistic flourishes just to keep the
reader motivated. On the other hand, a story that shows will
entertain readers to the point that the development of
characters is taken in as evident as readers progress through
the story, driven by their own curiosity to know what happens
next.
I find many writers of noir fiction make good use of three
basic elements- style, plot and character. I've no idea why,
with so many good books available and more every day, why
anyone would settle for less. As Danny Finkleman, a Toronto
DJ once said on his weekly Oldies radio show: "A good story
is simply character revealed by plot, with snappy
dialogue."
Best, Kerry
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