Blurty Djinanna's Blurty

On Writing: plot -vs- character
Note: Originally posted on August 14, 2002, in my LiveJournal (HERE)

How often do you hear or say something along the lines of "There's two kinds of (fill-in-the-blank)". Personally, I like to use this "compare / contrast" method as a starting point for in-depth analysis of concepts, ideas, and even my Self. Yin/Yang, Apollonian/Dionysian, right/wrong, good/evil, chaos/order, objective/subjective ... these and many other basic concepts can only be fully understood if you examine them in comparison/contrast to their polar opposite. As long, that is, as you keep in mind that this kind of black-and-white reductionism is also simplification, and that most subjects (including all those mentioned above) really aren't black-and-white polar opposites, but instead a black-thru-shades-of-grey-to-white spectrum.

Keeping all that in mind -- I tend to divide up fiction into two broad categories, "plot-driven" and "character-driven". (Actually, it's not so much two polar opposites as it is a continuum scale...) A long time ago, I wrote an essay explaining how I defined "plot-driven" and "character-driven". I've been meaning to dust it off in order to post it, and it looks like today is the day.

I'd been toying with the concept for a long time, trying to understand why I liked some stories (meaning short stories and novels) and disliked others, what the common thread was. At first, all I knew was that it *wasn't* just "bad writing" that was the common denominator. Good writing helped, of course, but it wasn't the only factor that influenced my personal reading tastes. There were stories that, objectively speaking, were brilliantly written that I just loathed, and even a few poorly written stories that I, nonetheless, thoroughly enjoyed. (As you might imagine, this made life as an English major very difficult at times.)

NOTE // This is my (possibly controversial) opinion regarding the "badfic" argument -- poor use of easily quantifiable technical writing skills (grammar, punctuation, spelling) do NOT equal bad writing (or "badfic"), they equal an unfinished story in need of a skilled proofreader (or beta). Actual bad writing is much more difficult to objectively evaluate or correct because it involves intangibles such as voice, tone, plot, characterization, point-of-view, theme -- all subjective qualities that are much more difficult (though not impossible) to improve with the use of a beta but which can also be improved over time if the writer really wants to improve. But that's another essay for another time.

Anyway, my thoughts about "plot-driven" and "character-driven" stories coalesced while I was a member of an apa (see explanation at end of post). One of my fellow apa members had commented that one of her characters had "taken over" a story and done something that surprised her (the writer). Another member responded that she couldn't even imagine such a thing happening -- her characters were totally under her control. I don't remember the exact phrasing and I'd have to dig through piles of old files to find them, but I seem to remember that the second writer (the one with the well-behaved characters) implied that having characters that got out of control in a story was a bit crazy, in a "get the straight jacket, Harold" kinda way. So, of course, I jumped in with both feet.

I can't speak for anybody else (I wrote in response), but in my case at least, when I say something like "this character refused to do that", I don't mean that a phantasm arose from my computer screen and went on strike. I mean that, when I tried to move the character in a certain direction, the character changed unrecognizably and/or the whole story fell apart. Nothing worked or interrelated any more. Like when you take the wrong piece out of one of those tower puzzles and it all falls down. When I say "the whole story fell apart", it's a metaphor for "the integrity and coherence of the fictional structure was lost".

When I was younger (back in college), I thought that being "dictated to by the characters" was a sign of amateurism, that writers who pampered their characters and let them "take over the story" were less aware, less talented, less serious about their writing. Until I attended a lecture by Roland Greene, a very thoroughly published author who lives in the Chicago area. And he talked about a story that he and his collaborator were working on. In this story, a minor character had suddenly stepped out of the metaphorical shadows of the plot and stolen the entire book from their carefully crafted hero. And there was nothing they could do about it, short of trashing the book and starting over again (something they couldn't do as they had accepted an advance and were already behind deadline.) Since then, I've heard variations of that theme from lots of other writers. One of the regular columnists in Writer's Digest Magazine (Nancy Kress, I believe) has referred to it regularly. All these writers write character-driven fiction.

To sum this up, in character-driven fiction, the characters (metaphorically) refuse to be manipulated.

On the other hand, in plot-driven fiction, the plot (again, metaphorically) refuses to be manipulated.

In plot-driven fiction, the writer has an idea (roughly, the plot) and "writes to" that idea. Characters are created and/or selected because they will do what is needed for the sake of the plot. The characters are there to serve the idea. In a sense, the characters are moved through the plot like pawns on a chess board. That's plot-driven. Stephen King writes plot-driven fiction. Most murder mystery/detective fiction is plot-driven. Most "literary fiction" is plot-driven. Most pro-published short stories are plot-driven, especially in the aftermath of O Henry, the master of plot-driven shorts.

I can't emphasize this enough: there's nothing intrinsically superior about one form over the other. It's just a matter of taste and inclination and, maybe, sometimes, inspiration. And characterization is still extremely important to plot-driven stories, and plot is still extremely important to character-driven stories. (Yeah, even PWP and "slice of life" stories, aka "curtain fic", have a form of plot; even idea-driven allegories have a kind of characterization.)

Ironically enough, you won't necessarily see more "plot-twists" in plot-driven fiction than in character-driven fiction. The quality of the plot-twists may be different, though. In plot-driven fiction, plot-twists are more calculated, more finely-delineated, and often are derived from the idea/plot rather from the interior life of the story's characters. More of a "gotcha", a surprise. The O Henry-style literary short story, in particular, turns on a plot-twist at the climax. In character-driven fiction, plot-twists tend to be more organic, more defuse, and are more likely to derive from the characters' interior lives. You're more likely to "see it coming" here, because it's really not so much the plot itself that's twisting -- it's the character's life; the twist is caused by the character's personality, their strengths and flaws. (Gee, I just made a case for classic Greek tragedy to be considered character-driven. Cool!)

Over-blown character-driven fiction is an incoherent, over-emotional mess (or James Joyce's Ulysses :::snicker:::). The writer loses the distinction between the fictional characters and the writer's own self, and over-identifies with the characters -- in fanfic, this is where the worst manifestations of "Mary Sue" come from. And because the writing process is such a cathartic experience, the technical bits (grammar, punctuation, spelling) can fall by the wayside as "unimportant".

Over-done plot-driven fiction, on the other hand, is a sterile wasteland. The characters are cardboard cutouts who move, vacant-eyed and soul-less, through an elegant maze of plot. The chessboard analogy (the characters as "pawns on a chessboard") becomes less metaphorical, more literal. And because the writing process is so meticulous, there can be an over-emphasis on "correct" technical skills (grammar, punctuation, spelling), and precise, finicky and, ultimately, lifeless prose is the result.

The danger with either character-driven or plot-driven fiction is in taking it too far.

There's no rule that says "you must write only plot-driven or character-driven fiction". One style or the other might be better suited for a particular story. And there's nothing that says a person can't use both plot-driven and character-driven elements in the same story. Many stories combine both methods very effectively. As I said above, character-driven and plot-driven are not polar opposites, an either/or choice. They're a continuum, there's a spectrum scale between the two extremes.

And it seems to me that the best recipe for fiction would be to find your own perfect balance point on the spectrum scale between character-driven and plot-driven, the spot that best suits your own individual style and writerly voice.

As for myself, I haven't found that Golden Mean yet. My writing tends to be character-driven, which is fine, but I wish I was better with the plotting part. I might get more written ... or maybe I might just be more likely to complete what I've written. For those of you who've seen my list of "giant alpha plot bunnies", that might not seem to be the case, but when the plot idea is so huge to begin with, it can be hard to break it down in to the smaller bits that you (I) can actually get written. I get brain freeze, not sure quite where to start.

My personal taste in reading tends towards character-driven as well. I tend to dislike stories where the characters serve the plot, but that's a matter of taste. That's one reason why I think my taste in reading has moved from science fiction to fantasy over the years, and more recently gravitated so strongly towards fanfic. Generally speaking, SF tends towards the plot-driven end of the spectrum, while fantasy tends towards character-driven. Also generally speaking, fanfic tends towards the character-driven end of the spectrum, and even the lit-fic fan writers (who, like all lit-fic writers, tend to write to the idea) place a greater emphasis on character than do pro-published writers.

The one kind of traditionally plot-driven story that I read regularly is detective/mystery stories -- but even there, I tend towards writers of the character-strong "series detective" stories, such as Lydia Adamson, Susan Wittig Albert, Nevada Barr, Charlotte MacLeod (aka Alisa Craig), Carole Nelson Douglas, Susan Dunlop, Barbara D'Amato, Rosemary Edghill, Dorothy Gilman, Sue Grafton, Carolyn G Hart, Tony Hillerman, Karen Kijewski, Laurie R King, Martha C Lawrence, Sharyn McCrumb, Sara Paretsky, Elizabeth Peters, and Julie Smith.

(P)erhaps you are confusing "plot" with "action." The standard "plot skeleton" goes like this:
* character has problem;
* character attempts to solve problem;
* character fails, making problem worse (or creating a new problem that's worse, or discovering a new problem that's worse);
* repeat until final try which succeeds (happy ending) or fails (tragedy).
--Patricia C Wrede, fantasy author, posting on AOL

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[ Edited at 1:10pm to add -- "What the heck is an 'apa'?" An apa is, um, a cooperative collection of personal 'zines, each 'zine written and printed by each individual member at regular intervals, called "tribs" -- short for "contribution" -- which are then sent to and collated at a central location and distributed back to the membership. Actually, LiveJournal is very reminiscent, to me, of how an apa functions, except an apa is, by its snail-mail-and-print-media nature, muuuuch sloooower. -- Oh, and I've actually belonged to three different apa over the years, and was even the central organizer of the third and last. -- 'Cause I forgot it first time 'round. ]

[ Edited to add -- This essay is still a work-in-progress, so as per usual, any comments, feedback, critiques, discussion, what-have-you is welcomed and encouraged to help me refine these ideas. And if you disagree with me, that's of the good, too. -- 'Cause I forgot to put this elsewhere in the text. ]

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