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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25050
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25050
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Sci Fi and Fantasy are perhaps the genres least concerned with character. Worldbuilding (so called) is often the central obsession of authors in those genres. (Historical can just the same sometimes, with many authors, and readers, obsessed about getting the buttons right.)

Characters in these genres often exist merely to animate the world that has been built. It is little to be wondered that they sometimes fall flat and loose interest. That incidental characters will sometimes turn out to be more interesting is hardly surprising.

And if a story is not driven by a compelling character arc, but by the desire to explore all the features of the world that has been built (to have the character spring all the traps the author has planted or use all the gadgets they have dreamed up), then, again, interest is likely to flag.

One of the curiosities of human beings is that real story never grows stale no matter how often we hear it. But all the gee gaws of world building will grow stale, and even the most original and inventive world building will cease to move us after a while. The human moral arc, as familiar as it might be, is the one thing that holds our attention indefinitely, presumably because we are inexorably caught up in it in or real lives.

This is not to say that you can't have character-driven sci-fi or fantasy with a strong moral arc. You certainly can. But these genres are often dominated by other concerns. It may be that you have simply sucked all the juice out of the speculative part of speculative fiction. It certainly happened to me over time. It may be time to try more story-focused/character-focused genres.

It is worth noting that readers often grow out of sci fi and fantasy as they age, whereas devoted readers of romance or mystery seem to keep reading them for life. This is not to say that that there is anything wrong with the pleasures the sci fi and fantasy give, simply that they seem to be exhaustible pleasures for many readers, whereas more character-driven genres seem to give less exhaustible pleasure. This mirrors our experience with food, where, in most people, certain tastes are diminished over time, while others persist for life.

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