Other drivers

Graphic by Peg Ihinger

The character-driven story currently seems to be most people’s Platonic Ideal for fiction, especially when compared to the plot-driven story…and those are the only two options most writing advice and/or classes present to writers. It’s taken for granted that one of these things–characterization or plot–must inevitably take a back seat to the other. Everything else is, apparently, window dressing. And even when talking about a supposedly plot-driven story, writers are often strongly advised to “remember that characters move the story forward” (how is that different from being character-driven?).

One of the better versions refers to stories that focus on character development vs. plot development, which I think fits better, but there was still a focus on character choices, motivation, and backstory as the main way of moving the story along. The chief difference, according to that writer, was that in a plot-driven story, the characters didn’t have time to think. They had to make decisions quickly, and the author had to keep remembering that they should think at least a little, rather than simply reacting. In a character-driven story, the author had to be reminded that characters needed to do something every so often, besides sit around and ponder life, the universe, and everything.

Fiction-writing advice has been stuck in this dichotomy for a long while now, possibly since Aristotle decided he was sick of plots driven by fate or the gods. Fiction writers, however, have a lot more choices for story-drivers than character or plot (though a lot of writing-advice-and-analysis books and websites tend to shoehorn everything into plot-vs-characters regardless).

But the definition of a story-driver is “what moves the story forward,” and a lot of things can do that. Forcing them all to fit under either “characters” or “plot” is possible, but limiting. I’m not sure Stanislaw Lem’s Last and First Men fits comfortably under either category, for instance, nor John Brunner’s The Crucible of Time. Both stories cover a grand sweep of history over thousands of years, meaning that none of the characters stick around for long enough to “drive the plot forward” more than a single step. There also isn’t much that looks like a traditional plot in either story–the successes and failures are those of different groups and species, not individuals.

Stories can move forward due to a lot of things, including a theme, ideas, events, fate/destiny, conflict, change, desire, decisions, discovery, impending catastrophe, deliberate manipulation by gods or other powerful beings, and probably a lot of other things I haven’t thought of. Some of them (conflict, events, catastrophe) usually push plot forward harder than character development; others (change, desire, discovery) usually slant more toward character development than plot.

Any of them, however, can drive either plot or character development (or both at once), depending on the writer’s choices.

Speaking for myself, I don’t tend to think much about story drivers except at the very beginning of my story development…or, very occasionally, when I’m having trouble with plot or characters in the middle of the first draft. I can often identify one in retrospect–for instance, Daughter of Witches started with a theme–but I seldom if ever think about my stories that way in the moment when I’m actually starting or working on them.

However, when I’m having trouble in the middle of a first draft and having trouble, I find that ignoring the “plot problems” or “character problems” in favor of thinking about all the other things that actually drive the story forward can be very useful.

Thinking “this plot-driven story isn’t moving because something is wrong with the plot” is recursive and unhelpful. Thinking about the things that have been driving the plot–events in the character’s world, what’s changing, who’s been manipulating things and why, good and bad decisions by the protagonist and other characters, repeating patterns (themes, ideas) that I can either repeat or break, etc–gives me more places to start looking for a solution.

The same is true of a character-driven story–“This character isn’t working” or “…is off somehow” gives me too broad a starting place. The character has stopped driving the plot…yeah, I knew that, but I still don’t know what to do about it.

But if I look at the character’s recent and upcoming decisions, plausible mistakes, past and current desires, changes I’ve been wanting them to make (or they’ve been wanting to make), events they’ll have to react to, what other characters want or expect from them…eventually, I hit on the thing I haven’t been seeing.

Sometimes the problem is that the thing that has mainly been driving the story forward has reached the eye of the hurricane–the plot or character development doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, even though there’s a huge whorl of story-stuff just out of reach. Usually, this means that it’s time for a different driver to give the story a shove back into the winds.

If the story so far has been driven mainly by events the protagonist can’t control, maybe it’s time for them to make a meaningful decision about something they can. Or maybe it’s time for something to reprise the story’s main theme, or for the sidekick to get sick of being pushed around by fate or their boss. If the character has been pondering different decisions and changes and not getting anywhere, maybe it’s time for an earthquake or ninjas jumping through the window, or for the character to discover some bit of information that forces a complete paradigm shift.

After all, variety is the spice of stories, and one doesn’t have to use the same thing to shove the plot and/or characters forward every single time. Not even in the same story.