Sat 29 May 2010
Character vs. Plot in Detective Fiction, by Bill Pronzini.
Posted by Steve under General[13] Comments
by Bill Pronzini.
A character-driven detective novel is one in which the plot develops entirely from the people who inhabit it, protagonists and secondary characters both — their psychological makeup, strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, etc. The plot is not created first and the characters inserted to fit the prearranged storyline.
Whodunit, howdunit, detection are all less important than what happens to the people themselves; the impact on them of the crime(s) in which they’re involved; how they and/or the world they live in are altered by these crimes and by other external events, some within their control, some beyond it.
In a character-driven series, the protagonists and those close to them have personal as well as professional lives. And they do not remain the same from book to book; they evolve, change, make mistakes, better their lives, screw up their lives, love, marry, grieve, suffer, rejoice, you name it, the same as everybody else.
A plot-driven detective novel is just the opposite. Characters are subordinate to plot; the mystery, the gathering and interpretation of clues, the solving of the puzzle are of primary focus and importance. If the detectives have personal lives, they’re generally mentioned only in passing and treated as irrelevent.
This is not to suggest that this type is inferior to the character-driven variety; far from it. I’m a great admirer of the Golden Age writers — Carr (particularly), Queen, Christie, Stout — but their books mostly fall into the plot-first category.
The puzzle, the game is everything. Sir Henry Merrivale, Dr. Fell, EQ, Poirot, Nero Wolfe are all superb and memorable creations, but each remains essentially the same from first book to last. There is no evolution, no significant change. The crimes they solve have no real effect on them, or in other than a superficial fashion on the people good and bad whom they encounter.
One reads their adventures mainly for the cleverness of the gimmicks and the brilliance of the deductions (and in the cases of Wolfe and Archie for the witty byplay, and of H-M for the broad and farcical humor). With the exception of Wolfe and Archie, we never really get to know any of them all that well; and even with that inimitable pair, there are no significant changes in their lives or their relationship with each other.
The private eye fiction of Hammett and Chandler is likewise plot-driven (remember Chandler’s oft-quoted remark that when he was stuck for something to happen, he brought in a man with a gun?). The mystery is dominant. As memorable as Sam Spade and the Continental Op and Philip Marlowe are, they’re larger-than-life heroes who remain pretty much the same over the course of their careers.
This is true even in The Long Goodbye, which many consider to be Chandler’s magnum opus (I don’t, but that’s another story); Marlowe’s complex relationship with Terry Lennox and its results, while a powerful motivating force, has no lasting or altering effect on Marlowe’s life.
Ross Macdonald’s novels, on the other hand, are character-driven to the extent that the convoluted storylines devolve directly from the actions past and present of the large casts of characters; but Lew Archer is merely an “I” camera recording events. His life and career remain unaltered by the crimes he solves or any other influences. We hardly know him; he hardly seems real.
Contemporary private eye fiction tends to be primarily character-driven, in the sense that I used the term above. The cases undertaken by Thomas B. Dewey’s Mac, for instance, evolve from the complexities and eccentricities of the individuals he encounters; crime and violence have a profound effect on him as well as on those individuals, in subtle as well as obvious ways.
The same is true of Hitchens’ Long Beach private eye Jim Sader in Sleep with Slander, a book I’ve called “the best traditional male private eye novel written by a woman.” And of Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder. And of Marcia’s Sharon McCone (see Wolf in the Shadows, her Shamus-nominated Vanishing Point). And of my “Nameless” series (Shackles, Mourners). All, for better or worse, character-driven and character-oriented. Which is why our readers continue to read us.
Editorial Comment: This essay by Bill is a repost. It first appeared here on this blog on 07 Aug 2007. It has belatedly dawned on me that it fits right in with the ongoing discussion that’s developed here on this blog about author Jane Haddam’s comments on hers about a review of one of her books I wrote and posted on mine about a year ago.
Whew! If this sounds complicated, it is, but if you go here and follow the links and read the comments, some 24 of them at the moment, all will be explained.
[UPDATE] About 15 minutes later. Synchronicity strikes again. I took a few minutes out to see what the the other crime-fiction bloggers have been talking about today, only to discover Ed Gorman reporting on a movie version of Boobytrap in the works, a suspense-filled standalone novel by Mr. Pronzini.
Congratulations, Bill! (And what took them so long?)
[UPDATE #2] 30 May 2010. It was either late last night or my mind suffered a small brain glitch. I really did know better. Here’s Bill’s email to me, received earlier today:
“Thanks for the posted congrats on the Boobytrap film deal. The irony is that it’s a Nameless novel and the first thing the Informant Media people did was to dump him and the rest of the series characters; their only interest was in the basic story, which they’ve also revamped from the novel version.
“Okay with me; I still retain all film rights to Nameless, not that there’s any likelihood he’ll ever appear on a big or little screen. But I suspect that I’m not going to like the film version much. Action films loaded with special effects, explosions, blood and gore leave me cold. But maybe it’ll surprise me.”
May 30th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Steve
Thanks for reprinting this. It’s a clear and concise definition of the main branches of the genre, and at the very least sets out the broad outlines of the previous argument.
I like both character and plot driven books, depending on the mood, the writer, and my expectations.
Some argue that all plot develops from character to some extent, but in genre fiction I think it is clear that there are two fairly distinct kinds of plot and some variations within that framework that depend on the talent and ability of the writer.
Still, even in the character driven plot I think it does matter if the sleuth is a detective that in general he should detect and not merely observe. I don’t mean Holmesian deductions, but merely something more proactive than watching.
Even Maigret, who is notable observer and patient watcher of events, pursues active police work and employs intuitive deductions. He doesn’t just observe what is happening.
But it may come down to as subjective a choice as who likes what, and you can never argue that. It’s like broccoli, there is nothing inherently superior about those who like it or those who hate it. It’s just a matter of personal taste. For those who hate it (like me) all the cheese in the world won’t change the fact it is broccoli and for those who love it, no cheese is needed.
May 30th, 2010 at 9:31 am
Although it is partly driven by the development of the writer, Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion develops over time. He believably changes from the zany, wisecracking adventurer of the early 30s books, to the greyer, more serious, married man and father of the last stories.
For myself, I’ve never been bothered whether the detective develops over time or not. If the book is well written, it will stand by itself. If it is badly written, then no amount of soap opera will alter the fact. Whilst the increase in the emotional content of the detective novel is not to be despised, I would be against the genre losing sight of the puzzle solving element.
I have friends who, despite various personal traumas, appear not to have changed in decades. I wonder whether they’re plot or character driven? 😉
May 30th, 2010 at 11:05 am
I’ve a few plot driven friends and family members myself. And I agree some largely plot driven characters do mature and grow over time, but in general I agree with Bill’s definitions.
The Saint’s adventures are character driven in that they all develop from his personality and yet despite the changes in his style over the years I don’t think even the greatest Charteris fan would argue the Saint is a great deal different at the end than the beginning, and while I agree with you about Campion I think some would argue that he doesn’t so much change as go from being merely a pose to actually being a character (this happened with Ellery Queen too, who went from being a pose to a character, but over time and not so much from book to book).
Bill uses the example of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, and I suspect would agree (in fact says) that while the plots and suspects in all those books are largely secondary, and we read them to spend time with Wolfe and Archie, they are plot driven because fundamentally Wolfe and Archie are the same at the end of any given book as at the end. Campion grows quite a bit over the run of the series, but not from book to book, which is what I think we are talking about in this context.
Rex Stout had a term he called ‘created characters’ by which he meant characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, and Archie Goodwin, and argued that there wasn’t room for more than one or two such characters in any book, so that if your sleuth is a ‘created character’ then none of your suspects or secondary characters can be that finely drawn.
That’s a problem for series writers. Ross Macdonald tried to get around it by not making Lew Archer a ‘created character’ but as a result Archer almost disappears as anything but a voice.
Of course we can all come up with exceptions to any rule. For the most part plot driven writers tend to create characters who are essentially the same at the beginning of each and every book and for the most part, despite life changing events in any given book in a series, tend to darken or lighten a little bit but eventually return to who they were when we met them.
A good example of a writer trying to avoid this dilemma was Donald Westlake writing as Tucker Coe. He created a character who changed a great deal over the course of each book — and by the end of the series ran into the problem that there was no real motivation for him to continue once he had resolved the things that motivated him as a character.
The danger of character driven plot is trying to write them in such a way that the protagonist hasn’t so resolved his problems by the end of the book or a series of books that he no longer has a reason to be the protagonist of a series. That’s why even the best series characters tend to be archetypes to some extent.
Even the best drawn series character needs to be basically the same at the end of the series as at the start though you can build some leeway into that if you are clever enough. The best writers learn how to walk that tightrope so that it seems as if the characters have changed in significant ways when in truth it’s mostly been a bit of slight of hand to disguise the fact they generally end up back where they were when we met them.
May 30th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
I’ll make a case for Bill’s own Nameless PI character as one who’s changed along the way. Sometimes only a little from book to book, sometimes quite a bit.
You can look back at the beginning of the series and see he was the same person as he is now, and yet not. He’s older, wiser in a lot of ways, and the cases he’s solved have changed he way he looks at things as well, sometimes in big ways, others only subtly.
It’s like looking back at your own life. You’ve learned many things, forgotten others, you react differently to the same provocations, you see the world with different eyes, some things matter to you more, others less.
Some authors made conscious attempts to age their detectives and to make other changes in their characters over the years, but only a few of the most well-known series characters seem to have ever succeeded.
I’ve not read enough of the later Campion stories to say that I agree that he changed and grew as a person, but from what I’ve read about the stories, other than Bill’s Nameless books, Margery Allingham did a better job at it than any others I can think of.
— Steve
May 30th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I remember an editorial by Richard Valley in the magazine SCARLET STREET, where he praised Rex Stout for keeping his characters and their surroundings completely unchanged over several decades. He made comparison to the original STAR TREK movies, where they killed off Spock, and then had to tie themselves in knots to return to where they had started over the course of the next few movies.
It seems to me that if you have a continuing character, and intend to keep them going over more than a few books, you are entering the field of genre fiction rather than literary fiction. Lit Fic is about why and how characters change (or why they don’t). Genre is about how they respond to a particular plot, which will leave them unchanged at the end. Stout realised that Wolfe and Archie were popular as they were, and didn’t need to change. The Star Trek production team, on the other hand, were making half-hearted attempts to appear serious and literary, rather then embracing their ‘genre’ heritage.
May 30th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Nameless has developed a good deal over the years, yet by Bill’s own definition is probably still plot driven. Characters do grow over the course of a series without really being character driven specifically, though I would lean toward calling the Nameless books more character driven as the series has progressed.
John Creasey’s the Toff was considerably different by the end of that long series than at the beginning, and yet I don’t think by any stretch of imagination could we call that a character driven series. Even Travis McGee matures a great deal over the course of his adventures, but still remains primarily the same by the time THE LONELY SILVER RAIN comes along though he has mellowed a bit. Even the events of THE GREEN RIPPER, the darkest of the books, don’t change McGee’s essential character.
Character driven series are fairly rare. Just off hand I can’t think of many, Jerome Charyn’s Issac Sidel, a few more, but by and large most series are plot driven — which doesn’t mean the characters don’t grow — even Wolfe and Archie change some over the course of the years, Campion and Ellery Queen are considerably different by the end of their series, some characters even grow older in a semblance of real time.
Plot driven doesn’t have to be as clear cut as golden age detective fiction nor character driven rule out complex plots. Character driven stories tend to evolve from the relationships of the characters and out of their lives rather than from cases they are assigned or hired for. You can usually tell a character driven book by the changes in a character from the beginning to the end of the book, the resolution of the plot directly reflected by the changes in the character (or in a tragedy his failure to change).
Making those kind of changes in a character from book to book over a series of books and over time is no easy trick. Even some of the most notable creations in the genre are still plot driven for just that reason from Philip Marlowe to George Smiley.
May 31st, 2010 at 5:58 am
The Saint was mentioned earlier, and I think that it’s fair to say that the character does change a little from the zany, eccentric, anarchistic fellow of the first stories, to the calmer, slightly sadder man of Charteris’ final bits of fiction. In one of the intro’s to the later anthologies, Leslie Charteris claimed that his opinions on certain subjects had changed quite radically over time. Since Templar was always a sort of distorting mirror version of the author, it’s probably true to say that The Saint changed as his author did.
The Toff certainly changed, as David says. This may have been partially due to the fact that the character was initially designed to be a sort of second-string Simon Templar. As he moved away from The Thriller magazine, Creasey was no longer forced to conform to this constricting formula. It’s also true that Creasey kept up his huge output by doing what was almost ‘automatic writing’–allowing his unconscious to determine how his characters would behave. The Toff was as much an extension of his creator as The Saint.
So it’s probably true to say that characters can change in both plot and character driven fiction. However, in character driven, they change in response to the things that happen to them in the book. Plot driven characters change in response to things happening in the real world.
Phew!
May 31st, 2010 at 11:14 am
A pair of comments left by Jane Haddam on an earlier post ought to be repeated here, I think:
“Okay. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing here, but–my response to why write mysteries and not mainstream fiction, given what I like to read and write, is number four in today’s post here
http://blog.janehaddam.com/2010/05/31/whine-country/
“Oh, and one more thing–there’s also a thing on there about why I think Bill Pronzini’s categories do NOT fit either what I do or what somebody like, say, P.D. James or Frances Fyfield does. I think that’s number two, but I’m not sure.”
I’ll also repeat my thanks to Jane for her part in the very interesting discussion and exchange that’s been going on between our blogs these past few days.
— Steve
May 31st, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Plot driven doesn’t mean characters are shallow or don’t develop, only that the main characters (such as a series sleuths) tend to end the book much as he began it. Sometimes as in James THE BLACK TOWER a book will begin with the hero (Adam Dalgliesh here) in a crisis and making changes in his life, but tend to end (as this one does) with him more or less back where he began. A neat way to get around the fact the hero doesn’t really grow or change. Ian Fleming used that on with James Bond in his first outing and then several times over the series.
While James has grown as a writer though, I can’t say Dalgliesh strikes me as a great deal different now than he was then — any growth has been superficial and hasn’t substantially changed him from the first book.
As Bradstreet points out in character driven fiction the plot derives from the character and changes him (or — again — in tragedy, does not). Fyfleid I would call somewhat more character driven, but still basically a plot driven writer. Rendell’s Wexford books are plot driven, but much of her other fiction is character driven while Highsmith’s Tom Ripley books are all character driven in that the plots tend to grow out of Ripley’s character more than happen to him.
In plot driven fiction the hero may change the outcome of the action, but it would exist whether he was present or not, where in character driven fiction (the Ripley books) the plot would not exist without the actions and presence of the protagonist.
Character driven fiction is not essentially literary, but literary fiction tends to be more character driven, just as genre fiction, by its nature, tends to be plot driven.
May 31st, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Re that last update, at least Bill has the right idea — take the money and run. A shame Nameless has never been considered for a series. He’d be a natural and several of Bill’s suspense novels would be great film sources.
But then if they were that original we wouldn’t get remakes of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and the latest installment of SEX IN THE CITY.
The miracle is that so much good stuff does get made.
June 1st, 2010 at 1:49 am
So is Sex in the City plot-driven or character-driven? 😉
Reading Barbara Vine’s The Minotaur (2005) now. Certainly there’s interest in character, but there’s also interest in who will do what to whom? It’s a character-driven mystery in the manner of the old Victorian sensation novel (obviously Rendell’s deliberate intent in the Vine books). I don’t know how much interest these characters would have, absent the air of dreadful mystery. There would be some, but would it be enough to keep me reading? I don’t know. The characters aren’t comparable to Dickens, certainly, or even Collins, but those are high standards to meet.
Personally, I think Campion receded as a character. He’s certainly different in the later books, but to me grayer and duller–not a gain!
Having Campion, Alleyn, Wimsey fall in live, marry, have children, was an attempt by their creators to give them growth. Wimsey fans contend that by Gaudy Night Lord Peter is much changed from his earliest silly ass incarnations (Julian Symons was not so impressed).
I was interested to see Bill’s comments on Marlowe as plot driven. Despite Chandler’s much lauded attacks on the classical English detective story, his Marlowe is as archetypal a Great Detective as his English mates. He’s brilliant, but still an artificial construct. And it is striking how plot-driven most of the books are, given the frequent claim that plots do not matter in Chandler.
I personally find it odd that so many people divide Golden Age English and American detective fiction (by the latter they usually mean hardboiled) into to these heavily armed, so to speak, opposing camps. I greatly enjoy both, finding the highly stylized constructions in them hugely enjoyable.
June 2nd, 2010 at 1:07 pm
I have been following the Plot vs. Character comments. I thought the distinction I was trying to make was pretty clear, but maybe not. Can’t satisfy everybody in any case. Especially not Jane Haddam; I think she’s being picky in calling herself a “suspect-driven” writer.
You could say that the novels of Ross Macdonald fall into such a category, in that his main focus was in developing the people with whom Lew Archer came in contact, rather than Archer himself.
You can also make a case that the Macdonald novels are plot-driven. There’s no hard and fast rule that says any given mystery novel can’t be both.
But if if you were to break one such mystery down to its essential components, you’d find that one or the other dominates, and in the Macdonalds it’s the characters from whose intricacies each storyline derives.
By my definition, the central figure(s) in a character-driven novel doesn’t necessarily have to be the detective; it can be any number of the other characters, or suspects if you prefer.
Suspect-driven, therefore, is just another term for character-driven.
June 2nd, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Whenever I read your essay, Bill, I think the distinctions between character- vs. plot-oriented detective stories are clear cut and altogether settled.
That’s the theory. Then there’s practice.
The problem comes when you pick a particular book or author, and it’s hard to tell which side of the fence it falls.
It’s like sorting green apples from red apples. It’s the In-Betweeners that cause all the problems.
Or in other words, there’s a wide continuous spectrum stretching from one category to the other.
Usually one dominates, as you say, but some readers lean one way as to what they prefer, and others the other — and this only goes to influencing their judgment.
It is only natural.