Concepts vs. People

I very rarely write stories about people.  There are enough of them out there.  And as interesting as people can be, they don't hold my interest as much as concepts.

Some quick definitions: A story about people covers an individual or small collection of people and their inner thoughts and feelings and how they affect their lives.  A story about concepts is more about the world and society that people live in.

What if a nuclear holocaust resulted in two sets of people: those who live in a safe underground city, and those who are survivors of the attack on the surface?  What problems would each one have?  How do they both survive? What would happen if they discovered each other?  Those are the questions I come up with to write a story about a concept.  The people in them are incidental, mere tools with which to show my concept.

What if a person was so fascinated by solving puzzles that he learned how to pick locks just for the challenge?  What if he started picking house locks and did it while people were sleeping in them just for the extra challenge? What kind of personality would compel a person to act like that?  With that personality, what else would they be compelled to do?  Those are the questions asked of a story about a person.

Both of these are valid (and mine).  The difference between the two ends up being minimal.  Both need people in them.  People always drive a story.  It is simply a matter of how much we end up caring about the people and how much we end up caring about the world they're in.  But that decision isn't always up to us.  The readers decide to focus on the foreground or the background.  And since the foreground is people, it is easier to care about them.

Regardless of the focus you chose, you will need both people and a place for them to be.  Make them both interesting.  No matter how cool your fantasy world may be, if it is inhabited by stiff, poorly-speaking clones of each other (in that they all speak and act the same exact ways), nobody will care about it.