Do characters work personalities shape a story?

[sknox]

My favorite example of complaining isn't so much complaining as it is sarcasm: In Robert Heinlein's Glory Road the narrator refers to three (I think it was three) divisions of the Army: the Fairy Godmother department, the Surprise Party department, and a Practical Joke department. The second two handle most of the work, as the staff for the Fairy Godmother department one elderly female clerk who is usually out on sick leave.

That has always struck me as a specifically military sense of ironic humor, right up there with Catch-22 or Sad Sack or Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe.

 

[Alan Aspie]

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How important is a character's work situation when it comes to shaping an overall impression of a character.

Let's start with something else.

"What I am to me without biases that have a connection to some group of people" = Essence of me. It is what I am to me if I see myself almost clearly. My self.

"What I am as a part of some group to people who see me as a representative part of that group" = Identity.

We all have one self and a bunch of identities.

We are what we are.

We show our identities. We rarely show our essence. And when we do, other people use to get confused.

Some people and social groups show more of their self, others not at all. Showing self to no-shower feels like a threat to no-shower. Not showing it at all feels like sick narcissism to shower.

We use identities as cloths.

The balance between essence/self and identities is different with different people. And impression of a character is very much connected to how he balances his essence vs. identities and identities vs. other identities.

A teen. Get's a job as a assistant of a photographer-blogger-artist. Her father helped her to get a job.

1. Much essence, less identity. Identity work focuses on inner world:
Work does not shape overall impression of character.

2. Much essence, much identity. Identity work focuses to passions and idols: Work does shape ovarall impression of character quite a lot.

3. Fractured and empty essence, excessive identity work: Work, lingo & status symbols start very fast to replace earlier identities that have lesser value in persons imagination and moral orders.

It is not just work.

It is not just relationship to work.

It is inner relationships of essence and identities connected to relationship to work.

And after that comes social space and its moral and social orders connected to stuff I have been babbling about.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Coming late to the discussion here, but I'd just like to point out that in the case of Jo's second and third Abendau books the jobs of the characters in question were, in essence, the story, not just something they happened to do to make ends meet while carrying on with otherwise living their lives. For a lot of people, their jobs don't define them. Some jobs are just jobs. Others, more demanding, require total commitment as well as adapting oneself in order to fulfill the role well (which can be a big challenge in terms of personal relationships). If a character's job comes into a story in an important way, then obviously this is something the writer needs to know and to demonstrate to readers. If the job is just part of the character's background that may or may not be necessary.

Also, in an epic spanning many years or decades, it's important to show how the characters have matured over time (or not matured, and if so, why not?).

 

[Robert Zwilling]

I can now see numerous ways to have jobs shape the character's lives. One way it can be done is by a character's ability to interact with anonymous strangers much better than with people they personally know. Or an ordinary person sees too much and becomes numb. The exact opposite can happen when it can be easier for a person to over ride another person's efforts when they are strangers and the connection is only by phone or internet. By any of these means, a character's persona on the job can become an overwhelming part of their lives. For others, the job is just a place to wait around until the bell rings and they are free to pursue whatever is most important to them in whatever mode of competency they possess, something they never use while on the job.

As long as I look at the science fiction job as being the key component of the story I can stay on track. The science fiction aspect has the ability to enlarge a character's job to enormous proportions. The science fiction aspect can also put an ordinary job in an extreme situation, which seems like ordinary drama. I don't read every kind of story there is, but it seems like mystery stories usually show the character through the lens of their profession. I guess other story genres can be built the same way. With science fiction, a lot of the time it is the job that the story focuses on but it can be any kind of job. Instead of focusing on the job, is it possible that science fiction stories are focusing on the fact that something is being done that no one can be doing at this point in time. The job is unusual because of the job or the location. Seems like it is taking people out of real life context, letting the character's persona keep it real.

What happens if somewhere in real time, say a genetic engineering operation goes awry, monsters are created, people die, people regain control of the situation. Since it happened, are stories that are based on that incident considered to be plain fiction, or can you have stories based on actual events still be considered science fiction. Using existing methods, can stories of people traveling to the moon in simple capsules and walking around, collecting stuff, even just playing around, then returning to Earth, be called science fiction, when only the characters names are the fictional part. Is it now an adventure story. Does another component have to be added to the story, like a virus is brought back that kills or enlightens people, to be able to call it science fiction?

I am reading read Michael Crichton's Prey. I'm trying to find something that is happening at the borderline between fact and fiction that has visible repercussions. Last year, people were trying to manipulate insect populations by interacting them with modified insects. If a modified virus is a nano machine, then we are already putting nano machines into insects, giving the nano machines mobility.