Worldbuilding is fun and all but you need to establish characters that live in the world or no one will care about your fictional mountain ranges or tax policies
Funny enough, your choice to demonstrate this via James Cameron's Titanic still proves the point you're making, but in the exact opposite way for me. See, I hate that movie. I thought it was garbage when it was released, and I still think it's garbage today, an opinion that has little to do with the acting and nothing at all the quality of the filmmaking or the sets and costumes or any of that.
It has *everything* to do with me not caring in the slightest about Jack or Rose.
There is nothing about either of them, nothing in their lives, that I have ever given a single fuck about. At best, they managed to grate on me like nails on a chalkboard, and the reason I place that distinction as "at best" is because at least they're making me feel something there. The rest of the time, they bored me. I didn't care about their personalities. I didn't care about their lives. I didn't care about their troubles. I didn't care about their relationships, and certainly not about their relationship with each other, though I'll admit the boobs were a welcome surprise.
And the result of this failure to connect? I didn't care what happened to anyone else in the movie, either. Everything in this story came off as an overwrought slog for me, all because there wasn't a single thing about Jack or Rose that I connected with. I am one of those cases in which James Cameron failed to make me care about his characters, which dominoes into me not caring about the rest of the movie no matter how objectively good it is.
I will also say that I despise almost every rendition of "My Heart Will Go On," with an exception made for Matt Mulholland's recorder version because that shit is hilarious 😂
LOL we are all individuals with individual tastes, and that’s ok! I actually really didn’t like DiCaprio at the time and all my girlfriends were obsessed, and I just didn’t get it. Now, when LOTR came out, and they were all obsessed with Orlando Bloom, I was like.... nah, thanks but no thanks. (I was an Aragorn girl lmao)
See, that kind of discerning taste is why we get along lol. (My wife also prefers Aragorn.) But yes, it goes to show that while the success or failure of this particular point does rely in part on the personal tastes of whoever's engaging with the media, the importance of the characters tends to remain very high.
I'll tell you a secret. I was up, unable to sleep, and I thought about the movie which i haven’t done in years, and I just started writing this on my phone lmao. The movie choice isn’t so much the point. If I were to pick another Cameron flick, Terminator 1 is another good example.
I believe that in all three points you mention. This example can be highlighted in the positive or negative with just about any piece of fiction. Titanic just happened to be a popular example where I could point to.the opposite side of why it's important
I think one of the big barriers between science fiction and the mainstream for decades was the choosing of worldbuilding over characters. This has changed the last couple decades, but going back to read a lot of old scifi works (Rendevous with RAMA is a genre classic I can't stand.) is like reading textbook.
I imagine part of the reason why Dune became so famous is it had good characters.
Scifi has been called "a genre of ideas" and yeah, some authors I don’t care to read because of the almost lack of emphasis on character. But many SF authors do have good character work. Probably why I like the New Wave SF era. I also like authors like Gene Wolfe and CJ Cherryh, etc.
I love this article. Thank you so much for your candid advice on writing characters first. Lucky for me, I have always been obsessed with the forest and the water, so it was easy to shape a world around the characters I built, based on my daughters' dueling personalities.
As a fellow character-first writer, I dig what you're laying down. There are so many "great novels" that I can't stand because the worldbuilding is there but the characters are not (looking at you, Sanderson).
I also find that a degree of shoddy or lazy worldbuilding can be forgiven if I care enough about the characters. You know I count myself as A Song of Ice & Fire fan, which I openly admit has a lot of lazy worldbuilding but I enjoy GRRM's characters well enough so that's fine.
I think people care about these characters because they are embedded in the myth of the Titanic. These characters aren't people. They are components of a myth. People don't care about my story about going to the grocery store to get cream. They care about people involved in mythic level stories.
Liza, I was browsing and I came across this, and it blew my mind. I've been trying forever to find someone who thinks this way. This post sounds like you are describing the kind of book I've been trying to write for years. I'd hate to turn this into a pitch. I'm resisting the urge, hard but... I just want you to know, the kind of story you're describing here... It's EXACTLY what I think the world needs more of.
Sure ‘helps if the particular ‘world (aka ‘Setting) actually exists - & is actually Three Worlds - of Land / Sky / & the Waters. Even better if one has ‘reference imagery - photos, even motion picture footage of those ‘Worlds & the Creatures that inhabit them (including humans !) 🦎🏴☠️🎬
I loved your point about how character should affect plot primarily. I find it really difficult to write a compelling story when the opposite is true.
Funny enough, your choice to demonstrate this via James Cameron's Titanic still proves the point you're making, but in the exact opposite way for me. See, I hate that movie. I thought it was garbage when it was released, and I still think it's garbage today, an opinion that has little to do with the acting and nothing at all the quality of the filmmaking or the sets and costumes or any of that.
It has *everything* to do with me not caring in the slightest about Jack or Rose.
There is nothing about either of them, nothing in their lives, that I have ever given a single fuck about. At best, they managed to grate on me like nails on a chalkboard, and the reason I place that distinction as "at best" is because at least they're making me feel something there. The rest of the time, they bored me. I didn't care about their personalities. I didn't care about their lives. I didn't care about their troubles. I didn't care about their relationships, and certainly not about their relationship with each other, though I'll admit the boobs were a welcome surprise.
And the result of this failure to connect? I didn't care what happened to anyone else in the movie, either. Everything in this story came off as an overwrought slog for me, all because there wasn't a single thing about Jack or Rose that I connected with. I am one of those cases in which James Cameron failed to make me care about his characters, which dominoes into me not caring about the rest of the movie no matter how objectively good it is.
I will also say that I despise almost every rendition of "My Heart Will Go On," with an exception made for Matt Mulholland's recorder version because that shit is hilarious 😂
LOL we are all individuals with individual tastes, and that’s ok! I actually really didn’t like DiCaprio at the time and all my girlfriends were obsessed, and I just didn’t get it. Now, when LOTR came out, and they were all obsessed with Orlando Bloom, I was like.... nah, thanks but no thanks. (I was an Aragorn girl lmao)
See, that kind of discerning taste is why we get along lol. (My wife also prefers Aragorn.) But yes, it goes to show that while the success or failure of this particular point does rely in part on the personal tastes of whoever's engaging with the media, the importance of the characters tends to remain very high.
I'll tell you a secret. I was up, unable to sleep, and I thought about the movie which i haven’t done in years, and I just started writing this on my phone lmao. The movie choice isn’t so much the point. If I were to pick another Cameron flick, Terminator 1 is another good example.
I believe that in all three points you mention. This example can be highlighted in the positive or negative with just about any piece of fiction. Titanic just happened to be a popular example where I could point to.the opposite side of why it's important
I think one of the big barriers between science fiction and the mainstream for decades was the choosing of worldbuilding over characters. This has changed the last couple decades, but going back to read a lot of old scifi works (Rendevous with RAMA is a genre classic I can't stand.) is like reading textbook.
I imagine part of the reason why Dune became so famous is it had good characters.
Scifi has been called "a genre of ideas" and yeah, some authors I don’t care to read because of the almost lack of emphasis on character. But many SF authors do have good character work. Probably why I like the New Wave SF era. I also like authors like Gene Wolfe and CJ Cherryh, etc.
I love this article. Thank you so much for your candid advice on writing characters first. Lucky for me, I have always been obsessed with the forest and the water, so it was easy to shape a world around the characters I built, based on my daughters' dueling personalities.
Worldbuilding is setting fetishised.
As a fellow character-first writer, I dig what you're laying down. There are so many "great novels" that I can't stand because the worldbuilding is there but the characters are not (looking at you, Sanderson).
I also find that a degree of shoddy or lazy worldbuilding can be forgiven if I care enough about the characters. You know I count myself as A Song of Ice & Fire fan, which I openly admit has a lot of lazy worldbuilding but I enjoy GRRM's characters well enough so that's fine.
A lot can be gotten away with if the characters are compelling!
I agree 129.5%!!!!!
I think people care about these characters because they are embedded in the myth of the Titanic. These characters aren't people. They are components of a myth. People don't care about my story about going to the grocery store to get cream. They care about people involved in mythic level stories.
Liza, I was browsing and I came across this, and it blew my mind. I've been trying forever to find someone who thinks this way. This post sounds like you are describing the kind of book I've been trying to write for years. I'd hate to turn this into a pitch. I'm resisting the urge, hard but... I just want you to know, the kind of story you're describing here... It's EXACTLY what I think the world needs more of.
Sure ‘helps if the particular ‘world (aka ‘Setting) actually exists - & is actually Three Worlds - of Land / Sky / & the Waters. Even better if one has ‘reference imagery - photos, even motion picture footage of those ‘Worlds & the Creatures that inhabit them (including humans !) 🦎🏴☠️🎬