# Fantasy/science fiction fans: can a written story have too much characterization? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 4, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083 "2012-06-04T21:19:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/21 "2012-06-04T22:44:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Exapno** : > > If you’ve anything at all from Etruscan people, you should get in touch with a scholar immediately. I’m sure there would be a big cash reward! Silly **Exapno** , **Skald** is the _reason_ so little is known of Etruscan culture. To the OP, science fiction is defined in terms other than its characterization, and it’s one of very few genres where it’s possible to have a good story with no characterization (or occasionally, even no characters) whatsoever. But I can’t translate that into characterization, in and of itself, ever being a bad thing. Sure, bad characterization is bad, but that gets into what Ebert said about movies being “too long”: A good movie is never too long, and a bad movie is never short enough. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/22 "2012-06-04T22:47:07Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I find your mentioning _Twilight_ and _Crime & Punishment_ in the same sentence disturbing. In the future please remember that the Dope style manual recommends that any mention of Stephanie Meyer should end with the phrase “and that’s why we have capital punishment.” Well, I \*did \*read C&P in high school, and was therefore unequipped emotionally and maturityly to understand the appeal homicide could have to the unbalanced mind. Nice to see you, by the way 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/23 "2012-06-04T23:04:50Z")
Kim Stanley Robinson is a _man_? I thought she was Spider Robinson’s wife. Or maybe Spider is Kim’s wife? Hark, Skald! You were mightily missed. StG ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/24 "2012-06-04T23:11:18Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > Kim Stanley Robinson is a _man_? I thought she was Spider Robinson’s wife. Or maybe Spider is Kim’s wife? > > Hark, Skald! You were mightily missed. > > StG Spider was married to Jeanne Robinson, who died from cancer in 2010. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/25 "2012-06-04T23:13:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Silly **Exapno** , **Skald** is the _reason_ so little is known of Etruscan culture. > > To the OP, science fiction is defined in terms other than its characterization, and it’s one of very few genres where it’s possible to have a good story with no characterization (or occasionally, even no characters) whatsoever. But I can’t translate that into characterization, in and of itself, ever being a bad thing. Sure, bad characterization is bad, but that gets into what Ebert said about movies being “too long”: A good movie is never too long, and a bad movie is never short enough. Can you name a good science fiction story without characterization or characters? The Rhymer rule forbidding the asking of rhetorical question is still in affect, by the way. If I had meant "It is impossible for a good story to lack characterization and/or characters,: I would have written that. > [@StGermain](#): > > Kim Stanley Robinson is a _man_? I thought she was Spider Robinson’s wife. Or maybe Spider is Kim’s wife? > > Hark, Skald! You were mightily missed. > > StG It disturbs me that you were shooting at me, not only because you were shooting at me but because you obviously missed. It’s like I held all those gun handling classes for nothing. > [@rachelellogram](#): > > Well, I \*did \*read C&P in high school, and was therefore unequipped emotionally and maturityly to understand the appeal homicide could have to the unbalanced mind. > > Nice to see you, by the way 🙂 What did I just say about “feelings”? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/26 "2012-06-04T23:19:04Z")
Robin Hobb comes immediately to mind: she tends to have 100 pages of a rollicking good tale surrounded by 400 pages of characters angsting about their relationships past present and future or about their unwillingness to do the things they know they should do. If an editor took out every bit of internal monologue in her stories, I would adore them and would cope just fine with understanding the characters through their actions and spoken words; as it is, I muddle through the “Leigh thought back to when Biff was her husband and blah blah blah for another three pages blah blah blah” so I can get to the awesome parts. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/27 "2012-06-04T23:41:06Z")
I am thinking about Books Four and Five of \*The Song of Fire And Ice \*aka _The Game of Thrones_. This is a problem of \*too many characters \*and also _too many pages spent on characters I personally don’t care about_. I think the George Martin needs to put more plot and less character into the next couple. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/28 "2012-06-05T00:02:27Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > There is a considerable amount of characterization detail in _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Can you name a good science fiction story without characterization or characters? Most stories have characters. Many do not have characterization. Even the Etruscans knew that. I’d say that Hitchhiker is a well-known book with essentially no characterization at all, although the characters are lots of fun and the filler in between is great. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/29 "2012-06-05T00:04:27Z")
The closest I can think of is if the characterization keeps harping in the character at the expense of the plot. I recently finished a story whose main flaw was that the author spent too much time describing his friends and what they did and where they came from while the actual story sat in the background tapping its foot. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/30 "2012-06-05T00:07:16Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > I am thinking about Books Four and Five of \*The Song of Fire And Ice \*aka _The Game of Thrones_. This is a problem of \*too many characters \*and also _too many pages spent on characters I personally don’t care about_. > > I think the George Martin needs to put more plot and less character into the next couple. Oh, gods…it gets _worse_? I’m halfway through the first one and slogging. Way too many characters, and nothing’s \*happened \*'cept for the kid out the window! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/31 "2012-06-05T00:11:52Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Can you name a good science fiction story without characterization or characters? Sure. _Without characterization:_ Many of Isaac Asimov’s stories, for instance, like “The Last Question,” “Darwinian Pool Room,” or “The Feeling of Power,” Feghoots, of course. _Without either:_ “The Great Nebraska Sea” by Alan Danzig “The Star” by H. G. Wells ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/32 "2012-06-05T00:15:02Z")
Not to mention Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains.” Hell, that one hardly has plot, just description of a scene. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/33 "2012-06-05T00:21:51Z")
SF is first and foremost a literature of ideas – the writer should never lose sight of the idea the story is about and never let characterization, or even plotting, overwhelm it. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/34 "2012-06-05T00:24:31Z")
The only way I can think of to have too much characterization is a case in which an author consistently produces characters you find unlikable, and which only grow more so the more you learn about them. Take _The Wheel of Time_, one of the few series I’ve ever actually given up on. I waded through five books, during which a seemingly endless horde of characters were introduced, and I would be hard-pressed to name _one_ that I didn’t detest to some degree. Perhaps if the author had left more of the characters as ciphers, or allowed their motives and backgrounds to remain teasingly mysterious, I would not have come to regard his world as a hell for justifiably damned souls, the destruction of which I found eminently desirable. I’m not saying that less characterization would necessarily have redeemed the series in my eyes, only that it might have reduced the level of froth in my frothing hatred. > [@Chronos](#): > > Silly **Exapno** , **Skald** is the _reason_ so little is known of Etruscan culture. And thus have you avenged my theft of your “Gentlemen, be seated” thunder. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/35 "2012-06-05T16:11:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > SF is first and foremost a literature of ideas – the writer should never lose sight of the idea the story is about and never let characterization, or even plotting, overwhelm it. Unless–and this is an important exception–they want me to enjoy the book. Sure, old-school SF is all about the ideas uber alles (try finding an interesting character in **Foundation** , I dare you). But plenty of great modern SF authors, including Mme Le Guin, are perfectly comfortable with characters and plot. SF can do many things well. The field is big enough for everything. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/36 "2012-06-05T16:14:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > SF is first and foremost a literature of ideas – the writer should never lose sight of the idea the story is about and never let characterization, or even plotting, overwhelm it. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Unless–and this is an important exception–they want me to enjoy the book. What **LHoD** said. As Marion Zimmer Bradley once told me while explaining my incompetence as a writer, “Stories aren’t about ideas, they’re about people.” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/37 "2012-06-05T16:32:47Z")
The “literature of ideas” concept was really just a defensive maneuver in the 40s and 50s against the criticism that SF wasn’t literature. While there are many examples where the idea is the thing, they usually only apply to short stories (and SF was a primarily short story medium into the 1960s). Once you start to create a novel, you need more than just an idea. Nowadays, it’s very rare to find an SF story that pure idea, mostly because it’s hard to make the pure presentation of an idea work. It’s the characters and plots that make the ideas memorable. At the same time, you can write a damn good book or story using a well-worn SF idea; Connie Willis has won a couple of Nebulas using the same concept of time travel in both (“Fire Watch” and **Blackout/All Clear** are both about time travelers in World War II). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/38 "2012-06-05T16:38:40Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > What **LHoD** said. As Marion Zimmer Bradley once told me while explaining my incompetence as a writer, “Stories aren’t about ideas, they’re about people.” And Le Guin told me that her stories always start with a character. Took me a long time to understand that doing so means far more than throwing a name onto the page; a character starts walking around and interacting with others in ways that are unique to that character and force the plot and action to conform, not the other way around. That’s not enough, certainly. The situations and complexities and interactions also have to be of interest. It works both ways. Characterization without story is at most a vignette. Story without characterization is a popcorn read. Characterization with story is literature. Literature can be high or low and it offers a variety of rewards to the variety of readers out there. I won’t read something just because it’s literature. But when everything clicks, it can’t be beat. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/39 "2012-06-05T19:34:52Z")
Thanks, **RealityChuck** and **Maggie**. I knew I remembered the _existence_ of SF stories without characters, but I couldn’t come up with any specifics. “There Will Come Soft Rains” is an excellent example. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083/40 "2012-06-05T19:42:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > And Le Guin told me that her stories always start with a character. Took me a long time to understand that doing so means far more than throwing a name onto the page; a character starts walking around and interacting with others in ways that are unique to that character and force the plot and action to conform, not the other way around. Who would be the character at the start of “Those Who walk Away From Omelas,” I wonder. Or would she not classify that as a “story”, precisely? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-science-fiction-fans-can-a-written-story-have-too-much-characterization/624083.md?page=3)