Agency: A Character Deep Dive

Hey folks! Character Deep Dive is a new post series I’m starting up. Basically, this will be a series born of obsessive, pedantic interest, and no small amount of frustration.

If you’ve interacted with me for any length of time, you’ll know that I am insufferable when the topic of objective vs subjective quality comes up. When I hear a book (or an aspect of a book) described as objectively good or bad, I want to know… why? What is the justification? And to what degree is this “objective” judgement based on personal taste, experience, and circumstances?

What is Character Deep Dive?

There’s no argument that writing is a craft. Authors would not have to work so hard to improve if writing was a purely subjective artform. But to say that the line between objectivity and subjectivity is hazy would be an understatement.

So what I wanted to do was drill deeper. I wanted to dive deep into what makes a story tick, and explore which particular aspects make a story “good” or “bad” for a range of people. And I wanted to do so in a way that was open to differing opinions and different experiences — much like in my self-publishing & traditional publishing piece.

This is a huge topic, I know. One that has been tackled by cleverer and more informed people than me. But I do think there are some benefits in exploring these things from the ground up. Not least that you can introduce these topics to people who maybe haven’t thought of them before.

To make things manageable, I decided to divide things up, and start with what is often my favourite part of a book: character.

Funnily enough, “character” is quite a large topic on its own merit. I had to split it up further…

When you ask what makes a “good” character, or do a search on google, it’s often the same terms that keep coming up. You’ve probably came across most of them: personality, motivation, flaws, complexity, likeability, relatability, competence, intelligence, consistency, agency, growth, their backstory, their worldview, their likes, their fears… and a myriad of other things.

Often these are presented (particularly in list articles) as things that a good character needs. This happens enough that these are treated as literary truisms in some circles — where the absence of any of these things can be considered “bad writing”. I wanted to investigate this. Admittedly, I didn’t really have a clue where to start. So I just went with the alphabet, and thought I’d start with character agency.

Looking at Character Agency

The obvious answer we get when we ask “does a character need agency?” is “Not if they’re compelling and/or well-written”.

Which… yeah.

It’s glib, and it maybe rings true, but if we’re honest it’s a bit of a conversational roadblock. What is it about an author’s navigation of a character’s agency (or lack thereof) that actually makes it enjoyable to read for a specific reader? Why is it that agency is pushed so much as a virtue that “good” characters must possess?

These are the kind of questions I wanted to ask. Often they led to more questions rather than answers, but I still feel it’s an interesting thing to examine nonetheless.

Agency, it turns out, is one of those frustrating concepts that seems to have different definitions for different people. It’s my experience that working with fundamentally different definitions with these things is where a lot of disagreements tend to come from, and so I’d rather list those that I’ve become familiar with up front and try to keep them all in mind throughout. These include:

• The dictionary definition. “Action or intervention producing a particular effect” is the definition Google gives me, and weirdly sounds like the kind of thing someone would say during a wedding speech. This is what some people mean when they talk about a character “driving” or “creating” the story — when a character can go and make stuff happen without relying on external forces. This can tie into motivation too, where agency can be seen as a character acting on whatever drives them.
• The proactiveness of a character. Whether they are inclined to make their own moves and decisions, rather than reacting to those made by others. This can tie into a character’s personality. Some people consider reactive or passive characters to be “badly-written” or unenjoyable. Which is another thing worth examining.
• Limitations and ability. This can tie into things such as a character’s competence in certain areas, their position in society, or their identity. Some readers see the resultant (or enforced) limitations of these things as a lack of agency.
• The prejudices of the creator. This is maybe more common in discussion of visual media, though it definitely applies to novels too. Sometimes when people talk about agency, they talk about how women, POC, trans, queer, or genderqueer characters are given largely inconsequential roles that could be removed without significantly changing the story.
• A character’s ownership of the story. To what extent does a story belong to this character? How much of the story would work if this character was swapped out for someone else? How do their character traits inform and change the story?

(Note: On that last point, an author whose work I admire pointed this definition out to me in the Reddit thread that formed the meat of this post. I’d encourage anyone interested in reading it in their own words to check out that thread, which will be linked at the end of this post.)

The above isn’t exhaustive, and there’s a bit of overlap, but there’s certainly enough here to pick apart for a discussion. Going forward I’ll be using “agency” to mean a mish-mash of the above definitions, just in order to address some discussions I’ve seen on the topic in the past.

Let’s jump back to that personality point for a moment. A character may be considered to have agency because they are in a position to make a choice. But if they have a passive personality then they may tend not to make their own choices. Instead, they may tend to go with the flow, or to react to the choices made by others — whether that’s an overzealous friend, a cunning antagonist, or a kindly wizard with a party of thirteen dwarves. Does the idea that well-written characters must have agency overlook several great characters just because they don’t have the “correct” personality type? Does pushing the idea that lots of agency = good characters mean that type-A personality protagonists are over-represented in the market? And if so, does this play a role in limiting the telling of other types of stories?

And what about scale and context? We might have a generally proactive protagonist who is faced with an equally proactive antagonist who constantly keeps them on the back foot — see Locke Lamora. Or a character might have a lot of agency when it comes to going about their daily lives, but have little power when it comes to things like kingdoms, wars, magic, etc. Or the opposite. Essun from N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season could tear an entire town down around her if she wanted, but given her situation and certain prejudices, she doesn’t.

That brings us onto stories which feature the limiting of agency by external factors. What about those stories where a character’s identity causes their agency to be limited by societal prejudices — such as being a woman in a very patriarchal society, a person of colour in a racist society, or other examples involving (but not limited to) sexual and gender identities? Those characters who, if given a choice, would be very proactive. Those characters who have to overcome any number of obstacles just to earn a level of agency that others have always had.

Internal limitations are possible, too. Characters may be presented with a choice, but feel unable to act because of trauma, anxiety, past experiences, or any number of other reasons. By dismissing stories with protagonists who are initially more reactive or passive, aren’t we dismissing some important stories that speak to real-life experiences?

And that “initially” is an important word here, as agency is not something that is static. A character can develop and gain more agency over the course of the story, and this usually tends to be the case. There are many cases where this is seen as a great example of character growth. Just as a thought exercise, consider the below chart:

This is just a very quick mock-up that I threw together during a discussion before writing this post. It’s very limited, and doesn’t cover all aspects and definitions of “agency”, but it has its uses. If you can imagine some of your favourite characters and try to place them on the chart, you might find that their position will vary depending on which part of their story you’re considering. A character may become more reactive when faced with a book’s inciting incident. Towards the end of a book, a character may gain more confidence and begin to impose themselves more or gain more power and responsibility.

If we use Kuzco from the Emperor’s New Groove as a very silly, accessible example… He starts off in the red quadrant. He has all the power in the world and no desire to use it for anything beyond vanity. Next thing, he’s in the green quadrant as a llama reliant on the help of others. Slowly, he moves into the yellow quadrant as he grows as a person (a llama-person?), and eventually shoots up into the blue quadrant as he takes back his throne.

However, if we step away from the chart for a moment and consider Kuzco’s agency in terms of his ownership of the story… It’s hard to imagine the story playing out the same with any other character. And it’s the same with other members of the character cast such as Kronk and Yzma. Change those characters and you’re forced to change the story, which may have a part to play in how these characters are so fondly remembered. This personalisation of a story to suit its characters is what some writers may be referring to when they give advice regarding agency. When the characters inform the story being told, and the story could not be told without those characters and their very specific personalities, quirks, flaws, fears, and experiences.

Although with that said, how does this leave room for those readers who enjoy characters that are only tangentially involved in a story’s larger conflict? Those characters who live on the sidelines of the lives of more “important” people? Think of the likes of Nick Carraway from the Great Gatsby, Duiker from Malazan, or (to a lesser extent) Croaker from The Black Company.

Also, to be fair, it’s possible that the whole “characters need agency” thing is a gross oversimplification of a more complex piece of writing advice. One that has become confused over the years as different readers and writers have worked from different definitions. Or maybe the advice is just set up to cater to certain tastes.

It’s also interesting to consider where this kind of advice may come from — to examine why competent, proactive characters are considered in some circles to be examples of objectively good writing. Doing some reading around on this didn’t take me very far, but someone more knowledgeable pointed me to an episode of the Our Opinions are Correct podcast (where Alec Nevala-Lee was interviewed) which was very enlightening. Astounding magazine editor John Campbell — who is widely recognised as holding a lot of influence over speculative fiction in the 1940s and 1950s — held very strong opinions on what that fiction had to be, which obviously had an impact on which stories he decided to publish. These opinions included very competent characters with the ability to solve problems that were tailored to their skillset. This post from Cory Doctorow for Locus Magazine gives an example of Campbell’s rigidity as an editor. A rigidity that may not have allowed room for passive/reactive characters, or those with their agency limited by internal/external factors.

Given the influence of this often-called “golden age” on SFF, is it possible that these opinions have to some degree been internalised to this day? Is this apparent requirement for character agency in “good” stories informed by one person’s influence (or one group’s influence) on which stories were published during this boom period? And if even partially true, should we be looking at this with a more critical eye, given what we know of Campbell’s racist views, and role in the creation of what would become Scientology? After all, his tastes and worldview would hardly allow for stories featuring characters who face systemic prejudices, especially when he held those same prejudices himself.

I want to make clear that I am not solely attributing the idea that characters “need” agency to Campbell, but nor do I want to entirely dismiss his influence. Likewise, I don’t want to draw parallels between Campbell and those regular readers who enjoy proactive characters — Campbell’s prejudices belong entirely to himself. I just want to encourage more critical thinking on the subject of character agency and on what makes a “well-written” character, and thought that the above was a potential point of interest. I would be interested if anybody more informed than me could shed a light on how the perceptions of a “good story” changed pre-and-post-Campbell and WW2. Especially as regards to character and agency.

Regardless, there are plenty of readers who prefer those characters who are proactive, have few limitations, and have the ability to enforce change. Those tastes are perfectly valid. We all have our reading preferences. Readers may prefer the faster pace that often comes with characters who know exactly what they want and are working towards that. They may prefer that a story feels “directed”, and may not be fond of stories with moments of aimlessness. There’s also plenty to be said for simple escapism — the enjoyment of escaping into a story where a character has the ability and freedom to just go ahead and Do The Thing. Especially in 2020.

However, holding this up as an example of objectively “good” writing runs the risk of alienating readers who have differing tastes. Some readers may find certain characters too proactive. They may dislike the way in which a character will steamroll their way through a conflict, or find the constraints and/or limitations placed on a character to feel too contrived. The most well-known example of a character who attracts this kind of criticism is probably Superman. Those tastes, too, are perfectly valid.

There are a whole bunch of “howevers” here. Agency is a fluid and complex topic that evolves depending on all the other aspects of a book. There are examples of books where characters are given the illusion of agency (and this is particularly common in grimdark), where a character may seem in control of their own destiny right up until the author reveals otherwise. Would these characters be considered to have agency? Some readers may say yes and some may say no, depending on the reveal and on how they value the journey of a story as compared to its destination.

Not everyone wants to be “challenged” by a book, and it’s insulting and annoying to insist they should want that. Other readers, though, enjoy those kinds of books. A character with limited agency could be seen as either intriguing or depressing, depending on the reader.

There are so many variables and moving parts here that it’s impossible to boil it all down. And honestly, the more I read into this and the more opinions I hear… The less I think it should be boiled down. Maybe the complexity should be embraced, and we should recognise that varying levels of agency (for many definitions) allow for a wider spectrum of stories that readers can enjoy.

Finishing Notes

This is a long post with a lot of questions and very few answers. I’m far from a literary academic, so I’ve likely butchered a few templates for literary critique. But I think this stuff can be pretty interesting to consider, and in some cases be pretty important.

If you have any thoughts on the questions brought up during this essay, then please feel free to join the conversation either in the comments here, or over on my Twitter! If you have any strong preferences one way or another for character agency, I’d be grateful if you could articulate them. Particularly if they fall along lines that I haven’t covered. The purpose of this piece isn’t to attempt to give a solid conclusion, it’s to open a discussion.

These posts are pretty long and it takes me a while to research and gather opinions, so the next edition is probably likely to be a month or more away. I’m thinking that the next post will focus on character competence and intelligence, so please feel free to hit me with your opinions on those, or questions/areas you’d like to see explored!

Thank you to everyone who helped me put this together and talk it over. This goes for the people on the Fantasy Inn Discord server, everyone on Twitter, and everyone in the first draft Reddit thread. Thank you!

Further Reading

• Reddit Agency Discussion Thread
• Writing Excuses 13.2: Writing Active Characters
• Writing Excuses 14.22: Characters out of Their Depth
• Our Opinions are Correct Episode 65
• Characterization and Agency in Children of the Dead City (an author discusses their own book by examining the agency of their characters)