Round vs Flat Characters

Post at Kill Zone Blog: Characters: Round and Flat

Which pleases me by using iconic characters to represent “flat,” rather than declaring that flat characters are by definition inferior.

The post doesn’t use the term “iconic,” which I do like in this context. In fact, I mostly use the term flat to mean flat in a bad way, and iconic to mean flat in a way that works. Jack Reacher — flat, mostly. Mark Watney — utterly flat. I mean iconic here.

But! What I really love about this post is the quote from Bradbury that finishes it off. I’ve never seen this quote before, as far as I remember. I really like it:

“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”—Ray Bradbury

Image from Pixabay

I really like this idea. Plot isn’t central for me … usually … fine, plot was totally central to me in TASMAKAT … or no, actually, it wasn’t. Plot was a way of creating and showing character arcs. You know what, I’m not sure the two can necessarily be pulled apart. The plot was inextricable from the characters in RIHASI. And MARAG.

I am so character-centered, honestly. I’m back to just agreeing with Branbury that plot is the trail of footprints left in the snow. By, yes, memorable characters on their way to incredible destinations. I’ll have to try to remember this line.

Ray Bradbury:

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further, what did Time look like? Time look like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, 100 billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded. And tonight — Tomas shoved a hand into the wind outside the truck — tonight you could almost taste time.”
― Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

I should definitely add something by Bradbury to my TBR pile.

Here’s my favorite snow-print ever. I took this picture early in the morning, walking dogs on a road through the utterly pristine snowy woods.

Quite a plot could be implied by this trail of wingbeats.

There were about eight in a row as the bird, I suspect a blue jay, worked to get airborn after coming down in snow softer and deeper than it probably expected.

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