Passive Characters: Good If Thematic
This post contains semi-obscured spoilers for Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas.
On the websites of literary agents, I sometimes notice a specification that novel characters must be “active”. It is true that passive characters can kill a book’s drive resolutely. When things “just happen” to a character, we as readers often don’t feel as though the character is as real to us. We also feel like something has misfired in the crafting of that story. The presence of agency, by and large, creates both character and plot.
But there are times when a passive character in particular can help to tell a masterful story. Last month I read Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas, a “dark academia” supernatural mystery which had a protagonist that many readers argue is very passive. This is partly owing to the themes of the book: the character is pretty plainly dealing with depression, which contributes to several plot-important story elements, like why it takes her three years to solve the mystery and why she’s been recruited by Catherine House in the first place. Ines’s inaction is, arguably, the only reason the mystery exists: a pluckier protagonist might have solved the book in a quarter of the pages.
This may be why there are a lot of complaints about the book, but I argue that a lot of books could be a quarter of the length if the destination mattered more than the journey.
Ines’s passivity being integral to the construction of the plot made me think of another old favourite, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day. Our protagonist Stephens is arguably also passive here, if only by dint of the fact that he keeps choosing inaction.
This inaction or passivity is similarly integral to the plot of Remains of the Day, which… won the Booker prize.
If Ines’s passivity is a problem for her story, why not Stephens’?
I, for the record, really liked Catherine House and didn’t find her passivity a problem at all, but it may be that intentionally passive characters may be given the short shrift. Another distinction could be made between these two protagonists if passivity and the intentional election for inaction are treated differently. Stephens faces several choices in his own recounting of his life, and each time elects to uphold the status quo: he could stop the deportation of Jewish maids back to Germany in the 1930s, but doesn’t; he could answer the political questions posed to him by a lord who means to make a fool of him, but doesn’t; he could speak his mind to Miss Kenton, but doesn’t. It seems obvious that choosing to uphold the status quo is a choice—but it is also, in respects, deeply passive.
Whether or not Stephens truly had a choice in these matters, given the reality of the English class system and the way poverty is noted throughout as the deeply unenviable alternative to service, is the central theme of the book. Was he passive? Did he truly have a choice?
Did Ines, in the throes of depression and forced by her university to endure three years between its walls with no contact from the outside world as her only shot at getting ahead, not have passivity and inaction forced onto her in kind?
When inaction and passivity are baked into the themes of novels, I argue that seemingly passive characters are excellent inclusions and are capable of developing novels in directions the always-plucky YA protagonist might not manage. The action that finally has Stephens giving his accounting of his life in the first place—of getting in the car to see an old friend—is as minuscule as Ines’s choice to steal her boyfriend’s key card just to break into a lab that finally allows her to crack the mystery. Ines does it primarily out of restlessness and a lack of self-regard, while Stephens has to be talked into taking the car to see Miss Kenton at all by his employer.
Ines, like Stephens, spends the entirety of Catherine House working up the nerve to finally make a choice for herself. As a result, she bursts through the element that’s forcing her to be inactive and emerges on the other side.
Stephens, on the other side of youth, is faced with no choice but to return to his life of comparative regret. The final choice of both characters has consequences for them, but for Stephens it’s a realization that he’s too late, while for Ines, it’s the realization that she isn’t.
Passive characters are railed against, but they have a place in the literary oeuvre—as long as they’re approached with intention.
The beauty of writing is that you can pretend you meant to do it all along. Horrified to realize you have a passive protagonist? Surprise! Your book is about depression / class relations / other constraining outside force now.
As always, the only real writing rule is to know what you’re doing—and to do it on purpose.
June totals
An abysmal month for word count between personal ailments, book production, and burnout. I spent a solid two weeks editing and I know how hard I worked, so I’m not fussed. I’m not quite at 250k halfway through the year, but I’m well within catching-up range.
- I wrote 17,142 words across three projects in June and released a novel under my self-pub pseud
- 239,751 words on the year (10.2k short of year-to-date target)
Some additional halfway-point stats:
So far this year I have finished and self-published:
- one interactive horror game (20k)
- one romance novelette (14.5k)
- one romance novel (93k)
- six short stories (including one fic, ~27k)
Furthermore:
- 131,132 words have gone toward romance fiction (86k on now-completed novel(ette)s, 20k on now-completed short stories)
- 31,595 words have gone toward speculative fiction (19k toward now-completed works)
- 28,017 words were written on fic, but only one story was finished and posted (7.7k)
In these six months, I have also written 46k of copy such as this newsletter, process/meta articles, essays, and marketing. (This doesn’t add up to 239k, but there are some anomalies that defy categorization.)
For the rest of the year, I hope to publish another 200k (34k/month) distributed thus:
- Another interactive game (novel-length—estimated yet to write 70k)
- Two more romance novels (estimated yet to write 90k total)
- One romance novella (estimated yet to write 30k)
- 3-4 more short stories (at least 10k total)
Continuing to write copy at the pace I already have would get me to 480k on the year without too much sweat. My goals are lofty, but doable, as long as my current burnout doesn’t last too long. Haha!
I read 7 books in June (and 33 so far this year). Here are my favourites:
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Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse—I read this book in two halves several months apart, but the ending convinced me of how great this world is. It’s not really a standalone book, and there’s some prequel energy here, but I’m well invested in two of the characters in particular and can’t wait to see how the world progresses. Four stars.
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Monday’s Not Coming, Tiffany D. Jackson—I don’t read YA as a rule but I read this in one sitting. Complicated teen relationships and an unreliable narrator make this exceptional. Four stars.
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In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado—I’ve been reading memoirs all year and feeling disappointed, but this one did not disappoint. Experimental but excellently crafted, the author reflects on her abusive relationship and how queerness and memory complicate her story. Five stars.
Thanks for reading Out of Character! Let’s put something on the page.