The Hot Air Balloon Hero

Recently I have been discussing the concept of inactive fictional protagonists at Philip Purser-Hallard's Peculiar Lives, and I have been thinking how this applies to the novel and storytelling in general.

What we are talking about here are characters that do not actively affect the story through their actions. As Philip puts it, citing criticism of his novel Of the City of the Saved…,"the protagonists don't seem to do all that much -- they mostly just move around from place to place, experiencing things and having revelations made to them."

Can this kind of protagonist be an asset to a given story? It is a tough call, and it will depend on the nature of the story. Some of the best journalism tells some great stories without pushing people through a series of hoops leading to a resolution; the relentless march of world events and their effects on certain people can make gripping reading. If we say that a story can be characterised by certain emotions, then despair and hopeless defiance are as valid as any other.

Notice, however, that this begins to question the nature of journalism as well as fiction. This does not matter, though, if we go with the gonzo theory that journalism and fiction are two sides of the same coin. But where do these approaches leave the average reader? Let us take a short diversion into television. Take the average script, and examine how any decent plot almost always involves a situation either created by the characters or one that swallows them up involuntarily, which is then fought against until the actions of the characters creates a resolution. The viewer normally feels cheated by the deux ex machina…bearing in mind that the average viewer has watched thousands of hours of television and is wise to many of the tricks. If the writer forces the ending, the viewer senses it.

And yet, an ending unaffected by the actions of the characters can work dramatically, providing that this is the point of the story. The key is to satisfy the viewer, to make him or her feel like the ending was inevitable, no matter how surprising.

This suggests that the plot of a novel is far more important than the characters within it, which is a dangerous notion. Surely what we remember from the best novels are the great characters? Your Gatsby, your Yossarian, your Reginald Perin… But to separate out the components of a novel is poor practice. Reggie Perrin is a creation of true magnificence, but he is also a creation of the time and place David Nobbs wrote about. Without them the character would be irrelevant.

Hmm…I am beginning to realise just how massive this subject is. I will have to leave this post unfinished so that I can lash together my diverging thoughts on the matter without the whole thing exploding in an unfocused mess. All I can say in conclusion is that the rules in force in one brilliant novel will likely be broken abundantly by the author of the next brilliant novel, so all we can hope for the writer to be true to this thing we call reality. Even if we don't believe the story is true, we need to believe in the story. The one rule that cannot be broken is that the writer must never get lazy in their writing. The reader is not stupid...a fact the writer ignores at his peril.