Why Character Driven Fiction Can Be Subtle

I'm still at the research stage of my Secret Novel. I'm entering new territory with this novel. Dare I say it is literary?

Perhaps -- I've concluded after spying on the discussion over at The Literary Lab -- not.

Although the period of my piece is fairly contemporary, I see it as historical fiction. Some historical fiction is undoubtedly literary, but some must be mainstream. A definition to distinguish the two has been put forth: "what distinguishes literary fiction is what is left unsaid. Narrators may be self-absorbed or unreliable, things are pointed to without being explained." It is what happens "between the lines."

Thinking about a historical novel like The Source by James Michener, I wondered if what happens is between the lines. I decided, not really. The themes are deep and mind-blowing, almost incomprehensible, despite being stated as explicitly as possible.

I think most literary stories are character-focused and the game is all about inferring things about the characters from their actions, and the descriptions. Frankly, I think the reason it is easier to let these kind of stories be read between the lines is because most humans, perhaps especially most readers, have minds designed to understand other human minds. We cannot intuitively understand the passage of 6,000 years -- on the contrary, to be comprehensible, even this must be shown to us through characters. It must be brought to a human level.

When those other factors are not present, the focus on characters can be subtle in the extreme -- because we have (or at least some of us do) exceedingly refined cognitive powers of inference when it comes to unlocking human motives, emotions and relationships.

I recently finished The Favorite by Mary Yukari Waters. I don't often read the literary genre, so I wasn't certain what to expect. Indeed, for the first third of the book, I kept waiting for "something" to happen. All that appeared on stage was a bunch of female relatives taking tea together, going on walks, and talking about their family relationships. Okay, I get it, I thought, the relationshipsare the plot, but even so... I persevered and a strange thing happened. (Don't laugh, I'm new at this!) I truly began to feel I could enter the minds of these people, like a telepath. And I realized the illusion of telepathic powers was so convincing in part because nothing else dramatic was happening. It was as if I could reach in to the ordinary minds of ordinary people and experience their greatest fears, sorrows, joys and memories.

I have a recurrent fantasy, which often occurs to me when I am walking or driving, of acquiring the ability to read the minds of passers-by, total strangers. I wish to experience qualia as another does (the holy grail of philosophers), to become another person, then return to being myself with full comprehension of both.

There are, of course, many telepathic characters in science fiction, and even in wider fiction, but how convincing this telepathy is depends on the skill of the writer. If the writer is not also a telepath/empath, the portrayal can be weak indeed. According to the cognitive science "theory of theory of mind" (sic) we are all mind readers, to a greater or lesser extent. Those of us closer to the autistic side of the spectrum may prefer genres which tend to have flatter, easier-to-read characters, whereas those with highly honed hyper-acute mind reading skills may find flat characters painfully boring. Such readers need meatier fare, more subtly flavored, and salivate at the challenge of discerning every nuance of realistic relationships between imaginary minds.

I would love to be able to cook up such characters -- in theory. But am I really capable of focusing so finely on characters? I'm not sure. I tend to think more abstractly than empathically, and so I am frequently distracted by other sorts of patterns besides mind reading. I gravitate toward histories more than memories, philosophies more than personalities and clever ideas more than realistic characters.

I do want to mind read my characters as deeply and realistically as possible, but, I realize, not for their own sakes as much as for what they can tell me about their societies, cultures and the great events in which they've participated. In always grasping at the larger picture, I worry I may miss many of the subtle details.