The Storytelling Graph

I’ve heard a lot about character-driven novels vs. plot-driven novels, character-driven novels being the more literary, and reflective examinations of humanity and plot-driven novels focusing more on events. I general they’re easier and a little more fun to read. Authors usually develop one over the other depending upon what genre they’re writing or what literary movement they’re from. I don’t mean a writer always develops one at the expense of the other. For example, science fiction usually demands more from the plot than the characters. A few authors strike a good balance between the two and I think these authors are among the best.

Both of these are important components of storytelling, even if I believe character is a little more important than plot in most cases. A story can take feature survival on the high seas, sacrifice on a desert battlefield, or the break-down of a relationship in a seedy hotel, but if I’m not invested in the characters, I won’t care when something happens to them. The characters don’t necessarily have to be sympathetic or even likable, but they have to have dimension. I have to feel their anger when they are cheated, their sorrow when they lose, their sense of triumph when they overcome. On the other hand, some novels (particularly from early Modernism) focus almost exclusively on the characters and let the plot take a back seat. This can work sometimes but the characters better be pretty damn interesting. A story isn’t much of a story without conflict.

Since I’m a pretty visual person in how I solve problems, I tried charting out a graph plotting famous authors between “character” and “plot” but decided to add a third component to make it more interesting: style - which would include voice, the organization of the novel, and diction. Many authors are known for their style whether it’s the sharp punctuating words of Norman Mailer, the free association and play on words of the Beats, or Victor Hugo’s dense sentences with word counts surpassing the hundreds, but for some writers, the style outweighs the substance. There are some novels seem solely about the impressive, poetic language but when I finish a chapter, I have no idea what actually happened to the main character or whoever that is (I’m looking at you, Thomas Pynchon). Style is certainly something to be proud of, even encouraged, but an author cannot let it overtake his writing or the plot and character will be completely eclipsed.

This graph is a work in progress. It contains only authors I’ve read (some not in quite a while), but if you see an author that should be on here or if you Baldwin is in the wrong place, please feel free to make suggestions.

Look! I made one for film, too! I know the director shares credit with the actors, producers, and especially the writers of the screenplay, but surely you can see some trends with the movies certain directors take on and how they choose to make them.

The Zephyr

My college town of Galesburg, IL was at the intersection of several major railways. The trains were a constant presence and a constant annoyance: we would hear them at all hours of the day and night and they would block the roads for about 15 minutes on our way to the grocery store until we learned to follow the locals who knew all the tunnels and bridges over and around the tracks and the times of every train. The school was a few blocks from the Amtrak station and I thought it would be a great way to get to and from school. It turned out to be a nightmare. The train was always late, the food was way overpriced and of terrible quality, and one time a train was cancelled because the tracks had been washed away in a mudslide in California and nobody had bothered to tell us until 10 minutes before the train was due to arrive.

This poem is nothing special, but it relates a lot of memories I have of riding the train. It's mostly description and I'm not too attached to it, but some constructive criticism would be very helpful.

Zephyr

I.

The engine draws a graphite line

Across Nebraska’s wintering page.

It slices through the partnership

Of white earth and hue-less sky:

One lying asleep as the other looks on,

“I’ll be there should you wake, my friend.”

Eight silver cars are towed along

A vector drawn from past to future,

Past country roads and farmhouses,

Through tints of yellow and gray.

Ice remains from last night’s storm.

Sheets of it coat shrubs and prairie grasses,

Destroying and preserving

Beneath a glaze of frigid glass.

An elm groans,

Its branches crackling from the weight.

Icicles, the length of a child, roost on a bridge

And are snapped with a crunch and a clatter

As the Zephyr passes through.

Two inches thick on the tracks

Will spell delays all around.

II. 

Passengers nestle within their bundles

And sip their coffee, three dollars overpriced.

They listlessly gaze at a landscape of sugar,

Envying a truck that passes them by.

An old woman knits a stocking cap,

A young woman eats pretzels and

Waits for Denver and her husband.

A fellow in sweat pants and a Vikings shirt

Finishes off Tom Clancy’s latest as his son

Tinkers with a Game Boy

And kicks the seat ahead.

A few discuss stocks and politics,

Their talk interrupted by doors 

sliding shut between cars:

A rude friend chiming in.

Most sleep.

Rocked by a mechanical mother’s hand, 

Their limbs, their coats, their blankets unfold

Like a cotton bud opening itself onto the seat.

III.

Conductors tiptoe through a bramble of feet,

Stray hands, backpacks, and toys,

Pinning cards for Chicago on the 

Chipped luggage rails.

“NPV” for Naperville,

“OMA” for Omaha.

Mt. Pleasant to Winnemucca,

Osceola, Emeryville.

The little towns twinkle in the distance

Like rows of lanterns casting

The yellow of street lights and

The a hundred fastened windows.

Covered are the cars and houses,

The cemeteries and factories

And graffitied water towers,

All in a drapery of snow.

Sharp corners are rounded and

The familiar becomes foreign.

The Zephyr races by

Sounding its tired trumpet

Churning on into the night.