Agency · 10:47pm Oct 16th, 2015
Invisible Ink
Conflict of Interest: Agency
I was thinking that I really needed to talk about this now, but as I considered what was worth saying about it, I realised just how much of a clever – and insufferably smug – bastard I am.
So no, I don’t need to talk about agency because it turns out I’ve explained it already in other ways. I’m not smart half as often as I’d like to be, so when I get something right… well, you’re going to have to put up with my smugness!
It all starts with my predilection (one might even say pathological fixation) on reducing concepts to their most basic forms. This was never really pertinent to learning grammar as it’s mostly actual rules which are arbitrary in and of themselves, but when it came to storytelling concepts writing theory, I could deploy that predilection very effectively: take any concept and just keep asking why until I can go no further. Invisible Ink is my way of forwarding what I’ve learned, for whatever that’s worth to the reader.
The idea is that if you boil things down to underlying principles, you can use them more freely, intuitively, and in more places than if you are working from a bunch of more focused minutiae. In this case, I’ve been reducing various aspects of writing down to parallels with conflicts to show that conflict really is the underpinnings of all stories. I started with a hypothetical base unit of conflict and then used that to as a frame of reference to talk about settings, storytelling devices, and deepening characterisation. I was going to add agency to that list when I realised that I already have.
Agency is basically characters doing stuff – active rather than passive.
Active. As in taking actions. Doing stuff.
Goal: The character wants something.
Motivation: Why the character wants the goal.
Obstacle: Something resisting attainment of the goal.
Action: What the character does to achieve the goal.
Result: What is the net effect of the character’s action.
Fallout: How the result of the action affect the character.
Remember this?
Conflict is storytelling. Actions are part of structuring conflict (when it comes to characters, at least). So characters who are being acted upon (passive) aren’t as interesting as characters who are driving the plot (active). So agency is just making sure you have your characters’ conflicts properly structured. If they don’t have goals, motivations, obstacles, and take actions to overcome those obstacles – thus experiencing fallout – those character might not be as interesting as you want them to be.
This is why I deal in principles: understand those and you can answer questions that haven’t even been asked yet. This is why I’m more smug than usual. But it’s probably worth going into a little extra detail about a couple of things, both or which are more general than than character agency, but certainly apply to that case.
Your characters’ motivations are the language through which your story speaks – they are the lubricant that keeps the never-ending engine of conflict turning. —Me
Motivations create action. Action drives the plot, and tells us what a character does with those motivations. That’s the bit that shows us agency (both in the narrative and philosophical sense). If two characters both want the same thing and one of them rushes off to achieve his goal while the other just waits and hopes it’ll come to him, then one is demonstrating agency and the other is not. It is not, however, proof that the other does not have agency; it’s just that he isn’t showing any, and what is shown is what makes your story function. Perhaps you have a character that could totally do a whole bunch of stuff, but all we see of him is blowing his friends off to lounge around all day. Somewhere during the story it might be revealed that he has very specific reasons for not going off with his friends that completely change the context of that story, but if readers gets bored and stops reading before that happens because all they see is inaction, then your story doesn’t work.
That’s a situation where abstract conflicts might carry the weight. Drop a few hints about there being some unmentioned context and you might hook a reader with enough mystery to make them hang around. Exactly what conflict holds your audience’s attention isn’t really the point.
Equally, a character doesn’t necessarily have to be physically active to demonstrate agency. A character could show great agency by doing exactly zero when some action is expected of him. If he’s making the plot bend to his will, he’s active. It’s only if he’s letting the plot have his way with him that it’s a problem.
Even a character doing precisely as they are told can show agency, because motivations matter – although this does mean that the narrative would probably need to make those motivations fairly clear. Plot entities may be telling them what to do, but how they respond to that can be as interesting and nuanced as a more pro-active character.
Everything else aside, pro-active characters who are doing something for their own sake resonate more powerfully in general; a character who actively responds to a plot event slightly less so. The character that chooses not to act isn’t showing any agency, while a character who just can’t be bothered doesn’t really have any at all.
The guy that sees a flyer for a competition and dedicates himself to winning has good agency, but it's the guy throws the flyer away and goes hang-gliding that is the king of it.
I’m pretty sure you can figure the rest out from there.
-Scott ‘Inquisitor’ Mence
Thanks again for another interesting article! They've really helped solidify some very important ideas for me.
Isn't agency defined roughly as "the ability to act" rather than actually "taking action"? It's an important distinction: in your example, both of these characters have agency by that definition, as they both make choices on how to act, and choose to act in different ways. It says a lot about both of them, but the one we're typically interested in right away is the one who chooses to act in a way that advances the story.
3475567 Yes, but that's why I specifically say demonstrating agency, rather than having agency. A reader only knows what you tell them, and if you don't show why a character actually does have agency, then they essentially don't.
3476242 Good point. Hopefully a writer would show the reasons for their character's agency in some way, otherwise it's just puppetry when they act.