Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#1
I've written a story (or at least, parts of the story), but now I'm wondering, perhaps I'm so unique that there won't be an audience for my story?

See, I basically do NOT care about action or "character" at all. As long as the MC is not an idiot like Luffy or Naruto or pathetic like that guy from Accel World, I'm totally fine with anything else, no matter how plain, how cliche, how one dimensional the MC is.

Similarly, I care about action even less. In fact, I always just skip through the action scenes to see the result. I don't care about action, I just want to see the story progress.

My story has like less than 5% action, and, my characters suck mostly because I have no idea how to write characters/action, and I don't really care for it myself.

My focus is on world building, and also progression of the story. Like in games, rather than challenging the toughest mode, I prefer to play on easy and hoard hoard hoard. Earn as much gold as the game allows before integer overflow. Create as many troops as the game allows. And so on. 

And that's what I write about. Is there an audience for these types of stories?

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#2
As Tanaka Tomoyuki pointed out, there's an audience for everything. Just look at "the internet", or "the web" or whatever term you cool kids use nowadays. You can literally find anything on there, and people interested in it.

There are even fans of history books. People who enjoy plenty of time spent on world building and walls of text, rather than sharing through dialogue. People who just want to know the mechanics of the world, or the magic, and find that interesting. The Silmarillion has a following after all.

While I myself do like to read characters with interesting personalities or quirks, I've also read a handful of LitRPGs and stories with OP main characters who were pretty "vanilla" otherwise, and still enjoyed them. I mean, if a character is OP, usually the point of the story is all the "stuff" they do and have done to them, and not necessarily a struggle of character.

Will your audience be huge? Who knows! Share the story and find out!

I also want to second Tanaka Tomoyuki's last bit of advice - write a story that you're proud of. Whether it gains a following or not, you'll have written it, and walk away content.
https://i.imgur.com/JBLglrm.jpg

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#4
Well then, if I understand you correctly, you're looking to write something more like a treatise, history, or research paper (albeit one based on a fictional world), than a story about a particular character or characters. Is that at all correct?

I myself was a history minor in college. I love world building. I've read plenty of research papers. I ALSO really enjoy characters - but don't require them in a research paper.

Without knowing precisely what kind of "story" you're talking about, I'm personally finding it hard to really grasp the meaning behind your question (and that is entirely my shortcoming, I admit). Do you have something you could link to, a story of your own or one similar to what you're asking about?

You say you like Progression Of Story. What does that mean, without a focus on characters? Progression doesn't have to have combat - plenty of novels I enjoy have no fighting whatsoever. But what kind of progression do you refer to? Just looking for a bit more clarity, I suppose, so I can determine if I'd like the kind of story you're asking about.
https://i.imgur.com/JBLglrm.jpg

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#5
Hmm. Very good questions. Thanks for the food for thought.

What I'm saying is definitely not like a history paper; it's just a story that lacks action/character development, mostly because I don't know how to write those. Like, the characters are not described very well (for example, nothing about how they look), and they are pretty one dimensional, sometimes inconsistent, even. The action scenes are simple, and kind of silly, turn-based attacks that end after a couple hundred words, max.

Most of the story is about how the world works, and why the hero needs to do what he's doing, and the results from that (i.e a power-up? Did he make a lot of money? Or after accidentally making a lot of money, he somehow screws up and loses it all, etc).


Basically, it's not so much that it's not focused on character, but rather, the characters are not the strong point of the story.

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#6
Haha, I feel very out of place in this thread because I'm heavily a fan of characters and action, (but not the kind of action that goes on forever without matter and becomes boring). If a fight can end in one move, then it should, otherwise there better be a clear reason it wasn't (and that reason can be the characters themselves and their reasonable decisions, which is fine. Epic fight scene between equals? Cool! I'll watch it~).

If you(as the author) flesh out a world before you figure out a story for that world, then the creation of the story would probably come WAY easier opposed to the opposite... but if you tell me(a reader) about a world: it's lore, its land, people, structures, food... I wouldn't care unless it was relevant to the current situation in the story. The idea could be unique and cool, but who really cares unless the characters in the story interact with it? (You can't include everything)

Story progression should happen in every chapter, if there is no progression, then I wouldn't call it a 'chapter', but instead 'filler'.

I can understand why some readers would be interested in how things work, especially with futuristic or magical technology, but unless the perspective character is a mechanic or someone relevant in the story experiments and/or understands that kind of stuff, the readers shouldn't really need to learn about it.

The most important thing to me though is conflict. If there is no conflict, then it's probably a REALLY boring story. Without conflict, there is no story at all really, which is the main reason why I am heavily a character fan over world-building.

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#7
Thanks for your input. I really appreciate opinions from people who are not into what I'm describing and only interested in character development and so on as well. I want to get an idea of just how the average reader thinks, and what people want in the story.

I guess to explain it even more, it's not that my story doesn't have "development" or that it describes things in detail (it doesn't do that either; I have no idea how to describe things either LOL I guess I'm just a noob at writing :P). What I'm trying to say is that the characters are not the strength of the story, the story is.

Like, the characters don't have any particularly noticeable or relatable quality or personality. They're just there to make sure the story continues on. You can replace Bob with Jack and Amy with Jennie and it doesn't change anything in the story at all, if you get what I mean.

But there's conflict, there's story progression. Most of the story is just explaining things though. For example

"Bob is doing this and that, because he wants to achieve something. He could try this other thing, but then there's a risk involved in doing it that way, so he chooses to do it this way instead."

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#8
'maziapprentice' pid='832533' dateline='1518059201' Wrote: What I'm saying is definitely not like a history paper; it's just a story that lacks action/character development, mostly because I don't know how to write those. Like, the characters are not described very well (for example, nothing about how they look), and they are pretty one dimensional, sometimes inconsistent, even.
So, in short, you don't feel you can write action and characters well, and want to know if your story can succeed despite that pretty fundamental limitation. 

Boy, do I have good news for you. It's perfectly possible. You "only" need to turn your weakness into a strength. 

But how? you are surely wondering now, and I'll tell you how. If your forte is describing the rules of the world and how action depends on them, DESCRIBE THE SHIT OUT OF the rules of the world and how action depends on them. Leave the reader as thoroughly informed of the rules of the world as they could conceivably want, and then some. Add the action in there in swift strokes, almost as an afterthought. 

"When Xonan descended in Tharnia he found out his usual 'punch everything' approach wouldn't work here. First of all, (... fifty pages detailing how Tharnia looks, how it works, how magic can be acquired and used, the dangers of becoming a magician, the troubles a warrior can face, the different classes of weapons and battles, the history of the Palace, and so on and so on and so on ...), and that's why when he finally reached the Green Fborb and tried to pierce it with his Big Effing Sword, he was pushed back to the Purple Void where Kyle MacLachlan had been waiting for him for more than twenty years. (... fifty more pages describing the Purple Void, the White Lodge, the Black Lodge, and how the Twin Peaks universe and your story's universe are really one and the same, and what happens when you enter the Red Room, and what happens when you exit, and what will happen to Xonan specifically and how people from his planet will have difficulty rescuing him because the magic waves in their world are orthogonal to those in the town of Twin Peaks.) A month later he came out of the Lodge covered in blood and holding Laura Palmer's head in his left hand."

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#9
What you're saying is true, I suck at writing character/action. However, I don't necessarily think I'm asking if stories can succeed despite its shortcomings; I mean take for example, someone who doesn't know how to write romance and thus chooses to avoid romance for the most part. Is that a fundamental flaw?

I described in my first post that when I read a story, I literally skip through the action scenes and only look at the result. Who won? Did they get anything (experience, drops, knowledge, whatever) from winning? What happened to the loser? Etc. Similarly, I don't care whether a character is arrogant, whether they're insecure, whether they have blue eyes or black; I care about the story, what happens as a result of the battle, what happens as a result of a person's action, rather than the person's personality or the action itself.

I was wondering, is anyone else the same way?


To give another example, I look at stories as a chain of events. A causes B, which causes C, and so on.

With my stories, it's like this. Take a scenario where Bob could choose to maybe kill some goblins, revolt against the lord ruling the land, or do nothing and go to sleep.

And then, I'd describe the pros and cons of each of these actions, and why Bob ended up choosing the one he did.

Then I'd basically skip over the actual details of the fight or the revolt or the nap, and then go on to explain what happened as a result of his choice. Did he win the battle? Or did he have to flee from the land because his revolt failed? And then, what consequences did that have? Was there anything he could have done to reduce the potential damage caused by his failure?

And now that he has failed, what choices does he have? And then go on and explain the pros and cons of these choices, and why Bob choose the choice he did. And then gloss over the details of that choice, and proceed to explain the ramifications of that choice, and what choices he has now. And so on and so forth.

But these "choices" are not based on personality or "character", they're based on logic (or at least logic of the story).

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#10
maziapprentice - this example seems to me like it actually is about a character's personality: that of an very logical thinker. Someone who takes the time to plan and make informed decisions, then carry out their chosen task.

That's a pretty strong character definer, in my opinion. If EVERY character in your story does the same thing, that then may become awkward for me as a reader. If, however, it's just your main character in one particular story? Well, to me then, I would look at that character as a dry, logical thinker type -- and see where the story takes me.

In that way sure, I'd be open to reading the story. But if every character does that same thing, then I personally would find myself removed from the story, wondering why there are even multiple characters to begin with, if there are no differences between them. That's just me, though.

I'm getting a better understanding of your question, so thank you for that last post.
https://i.imgur.com/JBLglrm.jpg

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#11
'maziapprentice' pid='832540' dateline='1518065474' Wrote: What you're saying is true, I suck at writing character/action. However, I don't necessarily think I'm asking if stories can succeed despite its shortcomings; I mean take for example, someone who doesn't know how to write romance and thus chooses to avoid romance for the most part. Is that a fundamental flaw?
I think we're more or less saying the same thing. Maximize what you care about, minimize what you don't. Make the reader feel it was worth it.

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#12
Funny you should say that. actually, I'm ~150-160k words into my story, and I'm having a huge headache right now because I have 4 characters, but I'm like, why do I have 4 characters? Might as well have 1... but I don't wanna go back and erase everything I wrote to change it to a single protagonist.

But for the 2nd story I started to write (cuz of that headache for the first one plus I'm stuck on a battle scene. God I hate battle scenes), I definitely switched to only 1 main character with a few supporting characters that might as well be tools or weapons (cuz all they do is basically help the main character do things like kill monsters).

But hmm. I guess I can see what you mean, but for me, I guess I don't really consider it "character" because it's mostly describing and explaining the choices, the history that led up to the choices, and the laws of the world (like say, what type of magic is strong, what types of monsters are strong, so the guy has to choose another option) and things like that. The actual.... decision that the character makes is very short (maybe a few sentences per chapter)? And there's very little description about how he feels when he made the choice and things like that (again, I suck at describing things too).

But yeah, there's some character/character development, but it's just not a very major part of the story. It's mostly describing how the world works, and thus why he chooses the choices he did.

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#13
I suck at describing things as well. Since English is not my first language, I lack the fluidity to describe how people move around things, what they do with their body, and so on, so every time I try to describe how someone walked around a desktop, sat up, or started running, it reads like a robot. So I minimize all physical motion and try to concentrate on the reactions to what happens. It's hard to explain, but if you read any chapter of my fiction, you'll understand. ¯\_(?)_/¯

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#16
there are people who do like lots of worldbuilding, but eventually, you get to a point where you've written a setting, not a story. action is fine. Look at Asimov's Foundation. No action. Every possible action scene happens "off camera" and gets discussed after it happens.

But characters... characters are what make a story a STORY. Perhaps your setting itself is a character, but only if you treat it like one. The main draw of a story is plot, change, and that requires characters. otherwise, build all the world you want, people are going to get bored.

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#17
Thanks guys. By having this discussion, I'm beginning to understand more exactly what I'm thinking of myself. All I knew before, was that I didn't care about action, and I didn't particularly care about character development. So what does that mean? I figured it must mean that I'm into world building. But after thinking about it, that's not really true.

I guess what I'm really trying to say can best be described as "non-character driven plot". What I mean is, the plot is not driven by the particular character/personality of the protagonists, but driven by the situation or external factors.

For example, a lot of events in famous stories like One Piece or Naruto happened because the protagonist was an idiot and did something he clearly shouldn't have done.

But I like stories that aren't necessarily driven by the particular quirks of the protagonists. Or rather, I don't really care. What matters is plot progression, or character strength progression (i.e getting stronger, getting more money, getting famous, etc) rather than character personality progression.

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#19
Yup, I loved hachet, but not for the character development, I liked how he managed to slowly build up from having almost nothing, and knowing almost nothing, to being able to survive and even do pretty well. But like, I treat that kind of like a game character leveling up and getting stronger, or earning more money and getting better gear. That's not really "character development". Like, you can replace the main character with any other person or personality, and it wouldn't change anything for me. The character is simply a vehicle for which accumulation of resources/skills happens.

RE: Does anyone else not care about action/characters?

#20
'maziapprentice' pid='832770' dateline='1518756435' Wrote: Yup, I loved hachet, but not for the character development, I liked how he managed to slowly build up from having almost nothing, and knowing almost nothing, to being able to survive and even do pretty well. But like, I treat that kind of like a game character leveling up and getting stronger, or earning more money and getting better gear. That's not really "character development". Like, you can replace the main character with any other person or personality, and it wouldn't change anything for me. The character is simply a vehicle for which accumulation of resources/skills happens.

...

in an mmo or video game, any main character can build these things up.  but in real life, you can't.  most people would be dead in his situation. Learning to deal with things, with his own emotions, with the environment. that is absolutley character development!  by the time he gets rescued, he is a new person, and not just because of the accumulation of skills.