Seeking vs. Suffering: The Secret of Passive Protagonists
By Donald Maass | October 6, 2021 |
I’ll admit it. I fell for the title of Kelsey Allagood’s WU post on September 18th: “Active Protagonists are a Tool of the Patriarchy”. Upon reading the title my blood pressure rose, not because of the heated word “patriarchy” but because of the chilly suggestion that “active” protagonists are inherently bad and therefore “passive” protagonists are fundamentally good, and maybe even a necessary political tool for activist fiction writers.
Of course, Kelsey was being slyly provocative. She did not strictly mean that writers should see passive protagonists as a weapon of change. Hey kids, here’s a great way to tear down patriarchy, misogyny, sexism, agism, homophobia, racism, capitalism, gentrification and more…let’s be more passive! There’s an idea, eh?
No, Kelsey was mostly speaking of “active” and “passive” in the technical sense in which we apply those words to protagonists in discussing fiction craft. The distinction is important and Kelsey’s point was a good one: not all protagonists are, or need to be, “active” in the sense of being imbued with agency and embarking on a planned course of action. Kelsey said, “I say let’s talk those of us who aren’t always in the driver’s seat.” Today I’m taking her up on that.
Not every protagonist is Odysseus. It is entirely possible that a main character can begin a story in a state of suspension. It’s a human condition to be oppressed, wandering, lost, stuck or even imprisoned. People don’t always make things happen; things happen to them. Naturally, there is no story without a response to an adverse situation. But does that mean a fist fight? Must a protagonist formulate a goal, or—ask me—engage in the more useful business of task, plan, scheme or gamble? Isn’t it enough for a main character to observe, experience, chafe, resist? Can’t a protagonist give voice to the powerless? Can’t a character just yearn?
More: Who says that women protagonists must be kick-ass, anyway? Must plot always drive toward something? Is a story climax always needed? (Whoa, so masculo-sexual!) Can’t a story be built of retreat, running, seeking refuge, healing? Is courage necessarily violent? Isn’t it equally dramatic to endure? Where is the line between passive as strong, admirable and uplifting and passive as weak, degrading and pathetic? There is a line. It has nothing to do with a character’s circumstances and everything to do with a character’s spirit.
This is where passive dissociates itself from the common, pejorative, unhelpful associations of the word. For fiction writers, a passive protagonist doesn’t have a commanding position in the story world but does have an inner light that says that this character is alive, aware, unbroken, strong inside and seeing. A passive protagonist might be helpless but is not hopeless. A passive protagonist may not be marching toward battle but nevertheless is on a journey to someplace better.
That shows first of all in such a character’s outlook. When a passive protagonist exhibits humor, quiet strength, resilience, firm judgment, a sense of irony, keen insight or in any other way witnesses for us in a manner more piercing than we can ourselves manage, then we have reason to care about, believe in and hope for that person. We admire humans who are curious, sharp, honest, funny or in any other way better at getting through bad situations than are we. Passive protagonists, when they work, have hidden strengths.
Comments on Kelsey’s post mentioned excellent examples of passive protagonists: victims of circumstance from the amusing (Arthur Dent, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), to the naïve (Alice, of Wonderland), to the timid (Rebecca), to the losing-side-of-history (A Gentleman in Moscow), to the lost (Dorothy, of Oz), to the trapped (Starr Carter, The Hate U Give), to the existentially condemned (Daru, “The Guest” by Albert Camus). I would add the angry, drifting Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye), or the enduring Celie (The Color Purple) but to find examples I had only to grab a clutch of novels from the to-read pile next to my desk.
The protagonist of Alison Hammer’s Little Pieces of Me (2021), Paige Meyer, is in for a shock when a DNA test tells her that her father is a man she never met before. However, before we get to that Paige is introduced on a gigantic downer of a day: her birthday. And where is she spending it? In a bar. On a Wednesday afternoon. Yup. She’s in a funk. Her (known) father died two years before. She lost her job three weeks ago. Shit has happened to her. She’s not in a good mood. As Paige drinks with her best friend, though, she hasn’t entirely flushed her zest, as is evident in their opening exchange:
“You’re supposed to be happy,” Maks says from the barstool next to mine. “There’s a reason people say happy birthday—not sad and lonely and depressed birthday.”
“You’re supposed to be at work,” I say, sidestepping the issue of my day of birth.
“Pfft,” he says, dismissing the thought, as if a regular paycheck and insurance weren’t a big deal. Since I was laid off three weeks ago, I’ve gotten a new appreciation for things I used to take for granted. “Work is for horses,” Maks says. “There are more important things.”
I don’t feel like getting into a debate over linguistics, so I don’t tell him the saying is actually “for the birds.” Instead, I give him an if-you-say-so smile and take a sip of the drink I’ve been nursing for the last half hour.
I’m serious,” Maks says. He pouts, and I smile. It’s easy to picture him as a kid, wearing the same distressed jeans and a black band T-shirt, his Ukrainian accent the only thing keeping him from fitting right in.
Getting sloppy drunk on a Wednesday afternoon isn’t exactly designed to win over readers, but Hammer here leavens Paige’s crappy situation and mood with hints that her protagonist won’t be down for long. She can manage a snappy comeback. She has “appreciation”. She’s sharp enough to spot a semantic error. She can squeeze out a smile for a friend she’s known since childhood. Paige is down but not out. Her situation qualifies her for passive status but because she’s got some spirit left, we just might stick with her.
Paige’s situation is bad but it’s nothing compared to that of Paul, the writer at the center of Adrian Barnes’s Nod (2012). In Barnes’s Vancouver, some bizarre catastrophe has made it so that only one in ten-thousand or so people can actually sleep. Since psychosis sets in after six days without sleep, the general population—called The Awakened—are howling in the streets, killing the few Sleepers. Paul’s girlfriend Zoë is one of those, asleep in the next room as the novel opens, and so some gristly stakes are quickly set. Grim stuff. Paul’s fatalistic, too, but in his fatalism, he retains a surprisingly insightful perspective.
And speaking of Escher, it’s worth recording this for posterity: the artists were right, literally right, all along. Beneath was we used to call ‘reality’ there was always an Escheresque, a Boschian, a Munchian fact—a scuttling Guernicopia of horrors just waiting to be discovered once the civilizational rock was finally overturned. Who’d have thought that the real high wire act of imagining was the old world, that seemingly bland assemblage of malls and media that came to a crashing end less than one month ago? Who’s have thought that the real fantasists were the Starbuckling baristas, the school teachers, and the pizza delivery boys? If we’d really stopped and thought, it would have been obvious. A cursory look at the latest appeal from sub-Saharan Africa should have told us that our privileged world was a pretty slapdash affair, always smouldering at the edges.
But no one stopped, and no one thought.
No one thought. Well, fortunately we don’t have to because Paul’s sharp insight is ready to show us what we missed in plain sight. And if you still are down about the awful state of things, you can enjoy Paul’s wordplay. Guernicopia? Starbuckling? Mobs in the street may be tearing Sleepers to pieces, but Pau is still a writer and in that we may find some hope.
But, hey, let’s extinguish even hope. How about a novel about a woman who’s actually dead? Such is the case for Nora Seed, the protagonist of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library (2020). After her departure from a sad existence (She wasn’t made for this life.) she determines to die but then finds herself in a strange library. The Librarian explains that it is full of volumes recounting the alternate lives she could have lived:
“While the Midnight Library stands, Nora, you will be preserved from death. Now, you have to decide how you want to live.”
Nora thus begins a journey to find out what life is really all about and—maybe?—why it’s worth living. And that, I think, is the most salient point to note about passive protagonists. Frozen, stuck, powerless they may be—even dead—but they are nevertheless on their way somewhere. They are on a journey toward…well, what? Something—a state of being—that is better. It may be a journey mostly inside but nevertheless there is movement in a new and ultimately better direction.
Passive protagonists are, in their way, actually quite active. In the majority of such novels, the passive protagonist later on winds up doing things—or at least going through things—that alter their state. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2012) revolves around two teenagers who are terminally ill with cancer. There is no hope for them, they are going to die, sorry, but—as you know if you’ve read it—that does not mean they cannot journey (to Amsterdam) and discover, though each other, how beautiful is living. We could go on citing examples but you get the point.
Passive protagonists aren’t stuck in suffering. They move forward, seeking.
The middles of novels about passive protagonists—the different ways in which they get moving, the crisis, the task-plan-scheme-gamble-quest, their complications and enemies—is a whole topic unto itself, and one for another post. For now, with thanks to Kelsey Allagood, I’ll just say that there is nothing wrong with creating a passive protagonist.
What can you say? It’s fate. However, when such protagonists move us, that fate is actually a destiny; which is to say something to do, to accomplish, to avoid, to seek and/or to find. Passive? Maybe. Technically. But that sounds plenty active to me.
Are you working with a (technically) passive protagonist? What is he/she seeking? And how?
[coffee]
Donald Maass (he/him) founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency. in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004), The Fire in Fiction (2009), The Breakout Novelist (2011), Writing 21st Century Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2019). He has presented hundreds of workshops around the world and is a past president of the American Association of Literary Agents (formerly AAR).
Thank you for this post, Donald. I feel vindicated! My protagonist’s journey is not a “kick-ass” one, but it she definitely fits your description. I’m saving this post for the next person who says she is too passive!
Please! Write the article on how to handle the middle with passive protagonists. I have a gruesomely-scarred telepath who wakes on a cruise ship with total amnesia. And a hangover. And a drink in her hand. Much of the advice I’ve read is: more agency! More badass. And I’ve woven that in. I’ve made her funny, even though she’s got a tragic past. I wonder what my story would contain, had I read both your and Kelsey’s posts earlier? Haha. Trusting I’ll get the right advice at the right time, but I’m posting this comment in the hope that your article comes sooner rather than later. :)
Hey Kelly,
… I have a gruesomely-scarred telepath who wakes on a cruise ship with total amnesia. And a hangover. And a drink in her hand. …
I’d root for her!
Yay! Fan #1.
I will write that post! Watching this space…
I’m interested in this too. My protagonist doesn’t know her own strength and is limited due to her physical circumstances (truly out of her control). She reacts to events, so we the reader see what she is made of before she realizes she has agency. I know the ending, and she does assume more of her power, but the middle is a slog for certain.
Thanks for posing it Kelly!
Yay!!! Thank you so much! And thank you for this thoughtful insight …
Good morning, Don.
The line, “on a journey to someplace better” is, for me, the essence of hope. And great characters, no matter how grim their journey, I believe, create hope in us.
So, when talking about ‘passive, what I see from the books used as examples is that they are largely interior dialogue and heavy in making sense of and processing their circumstances. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is another. “I am an invisible man,” he says in his prologue. “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination–indeed, everything and anything except me.” It is the self-knowledge that is compelling. Each interaction reveals to the character more about human nature, and moves him toward a stronger sense of invisibility which in its own way changes how he perceives himself. It’s the honesty of his perceptions that is the hope of the story, not the story itself.
My question is: Are passive characters inherently more introspective and self-aware, thereby negating the need for a happy or resolved ending? Is that what draws and keeps us in a story where the outcome is known (The Fault in Our Stars) because we are seeking a way to understand ourselves, and do “passive” characters have more of an edge? Or am I missing the essence of what brings hope?
Thanks, Don. You’ve opened up my thoughts and added to my TBR list.
“My question is: Are passive characters inherently more introspective and self-aware…”
Yes, that anyway is what I see when “passive” protagonists capture me.
“…thereby negating the need for a happy or resolved ending?”
Well, no, I wouldn’t say that. Happy? Not necessarily. Resolved? Yes.
“Is that what draws and keeps us in a story where the outcome is known (The Fault in Our Stars) because we are seeking a way to understand ourselves?”
You said it nicely. We are also seeking to come to terms with what troubles us, to find reasons to live admit a world of death, to find purpose in our suffering and meaning in our existence. May novels do that. Some even do it entertainingly!
Thanks so much, Don, for this post. It provides the label for me that the wife of my main protagonist in my novel Imperfect Burials is a star of the passive variety.
She is depressed, struggling with long buried PTSD, and I always have seen her as the true hero of the story. Her bravery dealing with discovering how stuck she is and why drives all the characters around her. Ostensibly the story is an international political thriller and yet, some astute readers have pointed out the real thrill of this book is the relationship of marriage that undergirds all the mystery.
In the end her “action” is to discover and speak the buried truth that has destroyed so many lives around what are the stakes of the novel.
It is wonderful to learn about one’s work after all the crying and shouting of creating is done. Hats off to you and Kelsey
I think it shrewd of you to include that character, the wife of your main protagonist, who can be not only one who overcomes her griefs but who becomes the voice of truth.
I thank every first Wednesday of the month for your insight. I sorely miss the Surrey International Writers Conference.
I’m writing a middle-grade story, the ‘memoir of a child ghost with amnesia’. She’s alone, behind the eight ball to begin with, but she dreams her way into the truths that were too difficult to face. She’s not always valiant. She doesn’t march aggressively into the only memory she still has, but she persists in her way:
[In the endless meantime, I’m resolved to accept, as best I can, being consigned to a lost childhood, trapped for eternity in an empty shell of a dying building. Which begs the question. Who will forgive me if I can’t forgive myself? And how can I forgive myself if I don’t remember doing anything wrong?]
I love that line! “How can I forgive myself if I don’t remember doing anything wrong?” A character isn’t wholly passive when she can pose a probing question like that!
The SIWC conference is happening in a few weeks, albeit online. I’m teaching a master class and two other workshops later in the weekend. Hope to “see” you there!
Funny you should mention Odysseus:
ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη…
Sing in me of the man, Muse, the complicated one, who was very thoroughly battered around…
First verb he gets, and it’s in the passive voice! Poor guy.
But my favorite example of a passive protagonist is Bagoas from Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy. He is brought up in a noble family, then captured, castrated, and sold as a child sex slave. He goes on to become the lover of Darius III, and, later, Alexander the Great. Alexander’s campaigns unfold through his eyes.
This could have easily been a dull choice (Come ON! Give me Alexander!), but Renault uses his position and life experiences to generate discomfort. On the one hand, he clearly takes charge of the details of his life that are under his control; on the other, he has a powerful need for some sort of master to serve. He casts it as a Persian cultural trait, but from what we see of the other Persian characters, like Nabarzanes, I’m not so sure. What does agency even look like, to him?
It’s something I took forward into my own WIP, about a tax accountant in Bronze Age Greece. At a time when physical prowess is valued above all else, he’s disabled, and while everyone boasts of the deeds of their ancestors, he is a foster child, albeit one raised by a noble family.
He overcomes, and doesn’t. The book starts when he’s brought face to face with his distorted view of his own agency, and ends when he’s developed a more realistic one.
Because that, to me, was what felt like truth.
What a deep idea for a story. May it soar.
A tax accountant in Bronze Age Greece? Got my attention with that one! And no surprise, then, that you mention the great Mary Renault. I haven’t read The Persian Boy but will definitely do so now!
Don, fun to read this and think again on the teaching and discussion at the WFWA retreat on this subject. I think I gravitate toward seeking protagonists (which is such a nicer way of thinking of it than passive). I like reading them, I definitely tend toward writing them. And thinking of them in terms of seeking is really helpful when it comes to formulating the story.
I also love stories where the protagonist is seeking one thing, doesn’t get it, but instead gets something he/she didn’t even realize they were truly looking for. That’s what’s going on in my current WIP. As I head into a final revision, this is a great thing to keep in mind.
P.S. – I loved seeing my friend Alison’s book mentioned in this post! :)
Erin,
“I also love stories where the protagonist is seeking one thing, doesn’t get it, but instead gets something he/she didn’t even realize they were truly looking for. That’s what’s going on in my current WIP.”
I love this kind of twist, as well. Kind of an anti-hero flavor. Looking forward to seeing how yours comes out.
Erin, great seeing you at the WFWA retreat, thank you once again for bringing me there, such an amazing group of women writers, all so intelligent and dedicated. I felt myself coming alive again after a long pandemic coma!
I don’t think you were the only one! :)
Erin, I also love not giving what they think they want, but something even better: what they need.
Oh, I am so happy you weighed in on this, Don. I value your insight so much and was so curious about your take.
In my WIP, my characters are coming to terms with how to use the gifts/talents they have. Belladonna, the fortune teller, is the one trying the most to find answers.
If you are born with a talent, (you are gifted), do you have a responsibility to use it? If so, how? Is it good enough to do no harm with it? Must you hone it and use it to do more than that? Are you a failure if you don’t? How exactly, if you’re a fortuneteller, do you convince anyone of a coming disaster? Would it change anything if you did? If not, wouldn’t it be better to keep it to yourself? And wow, what if, after all that, you suspect your parents lied to you and you might not be so gifted at all? What do you do when you doubt your talent?
Cochi, the musician, has found his answer in a cycle of writing songs, recording, touring – again and again, no questions asked. Is he stuck or is he a hero for his dedication to the music? Every day he sacrifices a “normal life” for his gift. Must he change? Is it enough for him, the stranger, to come to town, play a song and kiss the girl? I guess that’s not enough. He still needs, at least, to learn how to do his part to make the relationship strong enough to last a Happy Ever After.
Lots of questions, lol! But I’m enjoying the writing of this to find the answers.
A fortune teller and a musician grappling with questions and searching for purpose…I’ve read portions of this unique manuscript and love to hear that it’s still got you strongly in its grip.
Hey Don,
I’m forwarding this column to a friend whose WIP has a passive protagonist. It’s spot-on advice for her story.
What I’m curious about is: How does the passive protagonist achieve the Big Transformation? A passive protagonist *being* active isn’t the same as a passive protagonist *becoming* active? Or what about an active protagonist who learns the art of passivity?
Is a story with a passive antagonist even possible? I suspect it must be, but no example comes to mind. Even if the antagonist is dead, in hiding, societal, nature / weather, etc., there’s always still at least some initial action taken against the protagonist? Hm.
My active protagonist is on track to land in your inbox before year-end.
My thanks, as always,
Marcie
Yikes! You are hitting me with some fabulous questions. I sense future WU posts formulating, but for now I’ll say this: “passive” protagonists may start out seeming frozen but I notice in such novels that they generally do not stay immobile.
Just how they get moving and what they do is a topic for another day. Today we’re talking about how we meet them and the signals the author sends that make “passive” okay.
I didn’t realize it, because I’m rubbish at story analysis, but I guess my first two books have a passive antagonist (same character in both, as it’s a series.) My current wip doesn’t, so I’m wondering if it’s because the current book is in a different genre (mystery) and so has a loose structure I’m following. I also wonder how self-reflective I have to be on WHY, when I’m left to create a plot out of my own head, the protagonist has life happen to her (after reading Kelsey Allagood’s post.) Is it because I’m female? Is it because I generally have a sense that life kind of happens and I respond? Or is it because the plot lines just lend themselves to a passive antagonist?
In the first book, Hazel’s life is turned upside down and then she spends the rest of the book trying to adjust while searching for her previously unknown little sister. Admittedly, there was a lot of going from one place to another and I worried that it was boring, but used subplots to kind of fill in some tension/conflict. The second book, Hazel is an unknown pawn in a political game between the fairies and the pixies, so again, she is responding – but that was kind of the theme of the story (personal responsibility in the face of bad leadership.) Hazel, herself, is not passive. She definitely meets each challenge and saves herself.
So, I’m going to go with the plot lines call for a passive protagonist. :)
“Hazel’s life is turned upside down and then she spends the rest of the book trying to adjust while searching for her previously unknown little sister…”
There you go, “passive” protagonists don’t stay still, not if you want readers to stay with them for the length of a whole novel!
I adored reading your post. I am always analyzing why I love books without clearly defined goals. The Storied Life of AJ Fikry is another one where life just keeps happening to the protag. He’s not actively going for something in particular. Thanks for bringing up Amor Towles’s book. As my friend says, it’s the best book ever written that goes nowhere. Somehow, the protag’s passivity works brilliantly. Between Kelsey’s article and your addendum, I feel like I’m starting to grasp it. What a wonderful topic.
“For fiction writers, a passive protagonist doesn’t have a commanding position in the story world but does have an inner light that says that this character is alive, aware, unbroken, strong inside and seeing. A passive protagonist might be helpless but is not hopeless. A passive protagonist may not be marching toward battle but nevertheless is on a journey to someplace better.”
This.
Thank you for the great examples and elaborating more on Kelsey’s post. It has stayed with me because I’m working on a story where the MC has very little agency. She’s a mere child. But she does what she can do with what meagre resources she has and it makes a difference. Little things mean a lot. Even when things go from bad to worse to deplorable, there is hope for the future because she is willing to risk the stability she craves for the freedom of being a girl again (truth), not an object to be used.
I used to feel less than others who enjoy good health (classic compare and despair). I still can’t do many things, but I can pray. It seems like a passive activity but is the most powerful thing I do. I’m a prayer warrior, the rosary my weapon of choice :) God bless you and yours and this community.
A prayer warrior is a warrior.
Want to read a novel with a protagonist who spends the entire length of the story laid up in bed? Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, the last novel she wrote before her death and voted many times one of the top 100 mystery novels.
Thanks for the book recommendation, Don. I will read it. I happened upon The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey at my library sale and what a gem! It’s an account of the time Ms. Bailey was bedridden. She had a potted plant to keep her company along with a woodland snail. “It was not of much interest, and if it was alive, the responsibility–especially for a snail, something so uncalled for–was overwhelming.” But she watched the snail explore its new environment. She discovered it liked to eat paper. It made square holes in it. She gave it some withered flowers. “I watched, transfixed, as over the course of an hour the snail meticulously ate an entire purple petal for dinner. The tiny, intimate sound of the snail’s eating gave me a distinct feeling of companionship and shared space…” And later, “But the snail…the snail kept my spirit from evaporating. Between the two of us, we were a society all our own, and that kept isolation at bay.” Her observations and comparison to her own state wrap us in the mystery of life. I keep it near my own bedside.
Awesome post, and you’ve given me new insights into character arcs and how we can vary the interchanges that real human beings use on a daily basis. Who hasn’t been in an argumentative mood and encounters the other who just won’t bite? But there are always reasons and secrets for being passive. I am currently reading My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. The writing is awesome, often poetic, but there are moments when I want to shake the narrator. But that’s the point. As readers, we engage, we are pulled in, when someone IS being passive. Thanks.
That is on my to-read list. You’ve persuaded me to bump it up the queue!
I meant to add one more example of a wonderful passive protagonist: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. What could be more passive than sleeping for an entire year?!
Whoa! Haven’t run across that one, will check it out, thanks.
Hi, Don:
Boy, I couldn’t have asked for a better set-up for my post this Friday if I’d gotten on my knees and begged.
I too took note of this from your post: “A passive protagonist may not be marching toward battle but nevertheless is on a journey to someplace better.”
What if that “someplace better” is obscured by profound suffering? What if that suffering is deliberate and made in pursuit of purification or penance with no clear idea what the resulting purity or forgiveness might look like–or if it’s even real? There’s a tragic element to this centered on the imperfection of human knowledge and the “fear and trembling” we experience when confronting the abyss. Even if the abyss is us. Especially then.
See ya Friday (he says hopefully).
This is so validating. I posted above that it fits my MC perfectly (though I’m interested in how to carry that through a novel). It is also true of life. I’m tired of everyone cheering on women to be a badass. Sure, I can often fire that up when the stars are aligned, but it’s exhausting and entirely unrealistic to be one at all times. Such a relief to know that my MC and I are just fine – thank you.
Great minds?
Now I can’t wait for Friday. Is your post about the great existential novels? Martyrs as protagonists? Those condemned to die? Or–? Aw, come on, give us a hint!
Okay, okay, I’ll wait. Enjoy the writing of it!
My thanks to Don and all WU commenters for contributing to such a lively exchange! My own take is that “passive” characters often experience a great deal of interior activity — learning to forgive, for example, or discovering inner strength — that is as least as interesting and gripping as any exterior action. I’ve just started Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, and it seems to me that while the protagonists don’t “do” a whole lot for the first 50 pages or so, their growth in self-awareness as they reaction to situations is fascinating and eye-opening. Franzen has such keen insight into human nature that the slightest exchange between characters is jam-packed with revelation and character development.
I just ordered the new Jonathan Franzen, sounds like it may be his best yet. I was the age of his teen characters in the year the novel is set, 1971. First of a trilogy, too, I see.
“The middles of novels about passive protagonists—the different ways in which they get moving, the crisis, the task-plan-scheme-gamble-quest, their complications and enemies—is a whole topic unto itself, and one for another post.”
Can you get on this ASAP, Don? I’m asking for a friend. (Many thanks for this heartening post!)
Asking for a friend, eh? Well, sure. Anything for a friend.
Don, what a fantastic post! Hope your blood pressure is okay ;) Maybe my next WU post should be about ‘how lose friends and annoy people with the perfect clickbait headline’…
I’m so glad (and frankly honored) you took the time to explore and prod into these examples of passive protagonists seeking something better. I love what you say about the difference between strong-passive and weak-passive having everything to do with the character’s spirit–that’s probably why passive characters resonate with me, as someone who has endured Some Shit while feeling helpless (honestly, who among us hasn’t felt that way at times?). I’m glad to be part of the WU community with folks like you!
Blood pressure is fine, thank you!
And thanks for kicking off an important discussion here at WU. Greatly appreciate that.
Wow. What an honor. Thank you so much for reading and including a sample of Little Pieces of Me!
I really enjoyed your workshops in ABQ. Inspiring and motivating as always. Thank you for all you do!
Thanks for giving me a copy! It was right to hand when I needed it. Great to hang with you at WFWA retreat as well, learned a lot from you too.
Thanks so much for writing this. I am knee-deep in my first draft of a novel about a woman you could call passive, in that she has been stifled from seeking what she really needs – love and connection in her life – due to an unhappy childhood and giving up a baby at birth. Her journey is an inner one toward reconciliation with her traumatic past, and forgiveness of others’ roles in creating it. I am very much looking forward to your next post about moving such a plot forward. By the way, I also wanted to write to say that your book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction, is by far the most useful and inspiring book on writing that I have ever read, and I have read many. My entire copy is full of notes and stickies and after I complete my first draft, in which I am focusing on tone and plot, I plan to go back through the whole thing, with your book in hand, to enhance it. Thank you for that!
Seeking and Suffering could be the title of my new novel, releasing in October. He’s always leaving and always searching after burning every bridge around! After a near death assault on his life he flees the country and again is seeking and suffering on the path to finding his reason for being. Siddhartha, The Odyssey, The Midnight Library, On the Road and All the Pretty Horses are comparable titles in one way or another. Thank you for always posting what I need!