Example of a fictional story without any characters (the story being 1000+ words)
Guessing that there is no such example, but if there is, I'm very interested in knowing about it.
Just as a short example, just to make it clear it's possible; the example is not intended to be a work of art, but a proof of concept: "The sun set in the sky, but just beneath the ocean's surface, a volcano was slowly working it's way to the light of the next day. In the morning, waves crashed against the rising lava flows."
UPDATE:
Thanks to all who have commented, to clarify the intent of the question, it's an attempt to understand the nature of characters by removing them. My hope is that in doing so, my understanding of characters and their function will grow in some way.
Reading through your story makes me think that, in a way, the narrator has to be a character himself. The story doesn't …
7y ago
If I am understandig well, you want some story without any conscious character. I am afraid there is no other stories of …
13y ago
Unfortunately, I can't think of any stories that follow your strict requirement on excluding anything that "is able to r …
13y ago
I don't have examples of what you ask for, but in the revision: You could say that the role of "characters" is that they …
7y ago
This question really comes down to the definition of story (and, to a certain extent, of fiction). If we take story in t …
8y ago
There's certainly a fair number of science-fiction and fantasy stories that describe a world, a society, or some other c …
13y ago
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Unfortunately, I can't think of any stories that follow your strict requirement on excluding anything that "is able to reproduce".
The closest I could come is Ray Bradbury's short story, "There Will Come Soft Rains" (note: link goes to a PDF file). Unfortunately, there are some animals in it, and humans are referred to. Also, as Lynn noted regarding the sun, you could argue that the house is a character.
The question does arise, however: with absolutely no characters, or reference to living things, what story is there to tell? There would be no room for character development, and I can't imagine much conflict arising from such a story, either.
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If I am understandig well, you want some story without any conscious character. I am afraid there is no other stories of that kind excepting various descriptions of natural or artificial processes with "soulless" actors only (Big Bang, fusion bomb ignition, fertilisation, economic cycle).
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Reading through your story makes me think that, in a way, the narrator has to be a character himself. The story doesn't even have to revolve around the narrator for him to count as a character.
I'm using the rough and loose definition of a character as anything that shares the person-like quality of having a personality and of thinking. So, the rabbits in the Watership Down are characters because they all behave and think person-like. A story about a rock that wants to see whats on the other side on the hill it's resting on, has the human-like quality of thinking.
Any story you would want to tell would need to have a narrator, basically some voice through which to communicate the story with. The fact that you now have someone to observe/speak of the event, means you necessarily would need to have a character, someone or something with the ability to perceive and think and tell the story in a way that is funny, engaging, meaningful, or even boring.
Essentially, you can't have a story without a character because, without anyone to see the story unfold, there can't be a story to be told in the first place. It's like that age old adage about the tree that falls in the woods... if there is no one there to hear it (or in our case, see it), does it really fall? Do we really have a story to tell if no one is there to either see or tell of it?
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There's certainly a fair number of science-fiction and fantasy stories that describe a world, a society, or some other concept, without relying on individual characters. Talking about a people, but not about anyone in particular.
Similarly, a lot of Jorge Luis Borges stories are about describing a fantastical concept - "The Library of Babel" and "The Babylon Lottery" spring to mind immediately. I think "Library" might possibly have a narrator, but it might as well not have.
I'd say this type of story has no characters, because it has no actors, nobody individual we're focusing on. But there is a nebulous "they" - "the people," "it was decided," etc., - that moves the story forward; you can't point to any particular character, but there are people somewhere in the picture.
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This question really comes down to the definition of story (and, to a certain extent, of fiction). If we take story in the broad sense of a sequential narrative and fiction in the broad sense of any statement that is not true, then clearly there can be stories without characters.
If we take story and fiction in the narrower sense of a drama, then there can be no drama without characters, since it is the desire of a character that drives drama.
But human beings are interested in other types of stories besides dramas, so there are is certainly scope for stories without characters. But since you posit that the intent of the question is to understand character by removing them from story, then I would suggest that what character is, in terms of a drama, is desire. Characters, dramatically speaking, are expressions of desire and the willingness to act in pursuit of desire.
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I don't have examples of what you ask for, but in the revision: You could say that the role of "characters" is that they have choices and intents. The sun does not choose to rise, the volcano does not choose to erupt, and the waves do not choose to crash.
A character, be it a fish or dog on the beach or human, can choose to run or stay, and there are consequences to either choice. The author can engineer the circumstances to make those consequences large: Life or death. Abandoning your children or risking death to stay and protect them.
The effect of characters, and their ability to make choices, is an uncertainty in the consequences and outcome of the decision that readers find interesting.
I think it would be very difficult to create interest in a fictional recount of biology, geology, astronomy, and so forth that basically led from state to another state, with no real consequences for anybody or anything.
In human psychology, stories are expected to have emotional consequences, not just consequences for dead rocks and water or dead suns and asteroids. What the author writes is supposed to make a difference, however subtle, in those eventual emotional consequences: It changes the characters feelings, minds, choices, actions. The settings influence them (or are allusions to their feelings; hence the clichés of equating 'rain' with 'tears' or 'fireworks' with 'love' or 'orgasms').
The role of characters is to make the story matter to the reader.
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