On writing and randomness

I've been told a lot that good writers don't do anything randomly, and that characters' traits should be precisely chosen for a specific purpose. Lately, I've been deliberately violating that rule in two ways.

1: I've been varying the races and nationalities of my characters—two Mexicans here, an African-American there . . . I'm not writing any plots that are race- or culture-specific, but I like the idea of having some of my characters happen not to be white, since plenty of people happen not to be white.

2: I've been naming my characters partly at random. This hits a bit closer to home for me, since my real name is traditionally used for comic-relief characters—I was overjoyed to read a book in which it was assigned to a badass werewolf. This also ties into point 1, since some of my characters have their ethnicities derived from their names. (Of course, this means that some of my characters have names that are slightly unusual, but I'm American—I meet plenty of people with names like Leila or Maram.)

Have I hit on something, or is this a mistake?

Choosing things for a reason instead of at random is mostly a holdover of Conservation of Detail. If your setting allows for random character traits, go for it.

I don't see any problem with what you're bringing up. That hardly sounds random, so long as the setting justifies it. If your setting is America, then it totally makes sense to have a pot full of nationalities. And names shouldn't be much of a problem. It depends on the setting once again, but you know, people in the real world have crazy names that may or may not really suit them.

Personally I wouldn't say those are the types of things people are talking about when they say don't put random things in your story, so I say go for it. besides, the rule actually less like "don't put random things in your story" and more like "think about it before you put random things in your story and examine the ramifications and consequences." For instance you can have no particular reason for making one female character Mexican-American, but once you make that character a Mexican-American you might choose to handle her a bit differently, such as her religious leanings (a lot of Latin populations are intensely Catholic) of her past history or culture with her family (even if she grew up completely as an American she may have grandparents who keep a lot of mexican culture which she would no about or maybe practice). Also if you put in something 'just because its freaking cool' just think about it again to make sure.

I could not care less about the Law of Conservation of Detail, so I'd say go for it.

If you make a random selection in creation, and then make something of it useful in the story, it's not truly random anymore. If you select randomly because it does not matter to the overall story, then it just doesn't matter. (Hopefully.)

That bit doesn't sound right to me. I mean, you shouldn't have a whole slew of Big Lipped Alligator Moments by the time you finish editing, but that doesn't mean some random idea didn't get floated in the rough draft and was justified/modified later until it wasn't random. It's when a detail is so extraneous or incongruous that you can't really justify it, that it gets cut.

Besides, if that was true, it would completely invalidate everything I do while Writing by the Seat of Your Pants.

Conservation of Detail is important. Otherwise, people will complain about your pacing, no matter what feel you want to give off.

Unfortunately.

Almost every decision I make starts out completely random and unconnected. Usually, I don't figure out some way for said decision to lead back inwards until at least a few days later, in a rather Fridge Brilliance / Horror / Logic-like manner.

^^^

Maybe I should specify that the person who was loudest about this was a high school English teacher, who believed that since the books she assigned us were written by "good authors," anything and everything in them was a symbol (typically with a single precise meaning, which we were expected to agree with her about.) She wasn't the only person I've heard some variation of it from, though.

I have had characters' races play a minor part in the story, so it sounds like I'm okay here. (For instance, the two Mexican-American characters talk to each other in Spanish when they don't want others to understand them.)

edited 30th Nov '11 4:34:39 PM by feotakahari

...I hated teachers like that so much.

I highly suspect most of this symbolism lit and English teachers claim is in books is made up bullshit. No one has the attention span to purposefully put that sort of thing in every other sentence. It might be in there because of subconscious influence on the writer, but on purpose? No, that I doubt.

I strongly disagree with the idea that writers must cram meaning, symbolism and portent into every last detail of the book. I find works where the author has done so to come across as terribly "contrived". Oh, yeah, his surname is Watt and he happens to be a very good engineer and his wife is called Deirdre and she's always sad and their son is called Patrick and look, he grew up to be a postman... it just gets a bit much and I begin to think the author's either being terribly unoriginal or is trying to seem clever and well-read.

There's only so many times I can read of heroes called Armstrong or Turnbull who just happen to be really really strong before I start to get pissed off. (Especially since in real life I know a guy whose surname is Turnbull and, frankly, he'd have difficulty with a rather sick calf. The bloke called Armstrong I went to school with was hardly Charles Atlas, either). When said heroes have equally aptly-named companions as well, it starts getting old, fast.

I very occasionally might throw in a "Meaningful Name" - such as a Christian with a surname of Bede - just for a little personal joke (and it'd be the only such one in the book), but for the most part the characters' names are quite random (often just one I heard and liked the sound of or a surname chosen at random from the phone book). Sometimes the names might suggest a culture (like an obviously Maori surname) other times I'll think "Fuck it" and give the character any culture or race that's not obviously impossible.

Far more important, I feel, is interesting and believable characterisation. Sometimes just grabbing something at random aids in creating an interesting character as I explore what is suggested by the random detail.

That's not to say the story has to be filled with BLAM. Telling the reader that a character is Maori or Mexican or Finnish without that fact being at all relevant to the plot as a whole is not necessarily a "waste of detail" - you learn something about them, you may not particularly give a fuck and it's not of earth-shattering (or even plot-affecting) importance, but it makes the character a little more than a collection of lines and actions.

As to the name - that's an important detail for many characters, regardless of whether or not it was chosen randomly.

edited 2nd Dec '11 3:48:22 AM by Wolf1066

While I've traditionally had little respect for the Meaningful Name, I'm not sure exactly what that has to do with the discussion.

It depends on what you're writing and how far in detail you're going.

If you're writing an allegory like Animal Farm, you've got more leeway to make every single thing a symbol. If you're writing something else, you've can spend a bit more to make the characters more three dimensional and human rather than plot devices.

If you mention someone having black skin, then that isn't bad either. Because people in general have got to have a skin colour of some sort, and people aren't white by default. But if you go into a ten pages rant on the hardships and prejudice over black people, and this never gets mentioned again, it can be a bit of a pacing problem. A similar thing goes for names.

edited 2nd Dec '11 12:26:47 PM by MangaManiac

I know some people assume that too meaningful of a name (Wow, you became a moon goddess! Good thing your mother named you Luna, eh?) is a sign of poor writing. Or something.

Most things depend on the execution. E.g. I've seen works that deliberately cut off plotlines abruptly, either to emphasise the change in a work's premise, or to make a character's death all the more tragic.

With Meaningful Names, it's probably best to make it so that the meaning of the name only comes up a few seconds after you think about it, and doesn't seem too out of place. If you're setting something in a real world-type thing, how many people really have the name Luna?

edited 2nd Dec '11 1:16:34 PM by MangaManiac

A name is a name - it gives you something to call the character. I personally see no reason the hero can't be called "Egbert" but many see the need to give the hero a "heroic-sounding" name. To the point that if someone says the story is about three friends called Terence, Bruce and Conan, you need no further information to deduce which is the hero of the piece.

Likewise, in a lot of pieces (especially most movies out of Hollywood) if the protagonist is dark-skinned and in a mixed marriage, expect much of the plot to revolve around racial issues due to an overdeveloped worship of Conservation of Detail.

Whereas in real life, I know quite a number of people in mixed relationships or of mixed parentage and frankly that fact has nothing at all to do with most of their lives. I see no reason why noting that a woman has a partner of a different race should be anything more than a background detail that has no bearing on the plot and doesn't derail the story with a lengthy diatribe on racial equality.

I don't believe in derailing the story with completely random Big Lipped Alligator Moments or throwing in a multitude of random details that do nothing to advance the plot or reveal something about the characters, but I certainly think there is scope to, as the OP says, make some of the revealed details "random" - like what the character's race or culture is.

If you want a religious person who believes that a higher power helps him, all well and good - but if it doesn't really matter if he's Hindu, Jewish, Moslem, Catholic, Protestant or Wiccan, then there's scope for your choice to be "random". The important aspect of the character is still covered (faith) no matter what religion you decide to make him.