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Academy Board / Re: Writers' Corner
« Last post by Keep Looking on Today at 08:34:41 AM »I think it's an interesting story type if done correctly, because it reflects a lot of real-life experiences where you don't exactly choose for something to happen, but life stuff happens and suddenly you are having to react to and deal with events you did not want or anticipate.
I feel like there are a lot of criticisms of "story where the protagonist just reacts to events and doesn't actively choose them", but like - people make choices in their reactions. Reactions of necessity to adverse events can tell you a lot about someone's character. There's something compelling about a narrative of survival.
Stories where the protagonist actively chooses to go into their situation often give the reader a kind of hero fantasy - "imagine if you had this power/agency, or made these choices, or were able to enact change in this way". I feel that stories where the protagonist reacts to adverse events prompt the reader to ask different questions of themselves, such as "what would I do if I was in their situation".
It's interesting, at any rate. Potentially the pushback against this type of story is something cultural - in western culture particularly I feel that we have ideas of individualism and particularly the power of individual choice and agency and enacting change. You have to have a character enacting agency over the story. Narratives of necessity give the individual less power over the circumstances they find themself in. Not necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion.
I feel like there are a lot of criticisms of "story where the protagonist just reacts to events and doesn't actively choose them", but like - people make choices in their reactions. Reactions of necessity to adverse events can tell you a lot about someone's character. There's something compelling about a narrative of survival.
Stories where the protagonist actively chooses to go into their situation often give the reader a kind of hero fantasy - "imagine if you had this power/agency, or made these choices, or were able to enact change in this way". I feel that stories where the protagonist reacts to adverse events prompt the reader to ask different questions of themselves, such as "what would I do if I was in their situation".
It's interesting, at any rate. Potentially the pushback against this type of story is something cultural - in western culture particularly I feel that we have ideas of individualism and particularly the power of individual choice and agency and enacting change. You have to have a character enacting agency over the story. Narratives of necessity give the individual less power over the circumstances they find themself in. Not necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion.
