The Driver’s Seat

Icon by Peg Ihinger

Since before the Internet began, it seems, there’s been an ongoing argument about “plot-driven” stories vs. “character-driven” stories. By this time, there are a metric ton of how-to-write articles arguing that one is “better” than the other. And all those scare quotes are there because everybody in this discussion seems to have very clear ideas about what each of those terms mean, but if one looks a bit closer, the definitions often don’t agree with each other. This makes the whole discussion highly suspect to begin with. Even the growing chorus of people pointing out that plot vs. character is a false dichotomy leaves out key factors (which I’ll get to in a minute, but first let me rant a bit).

In its simplest form, plot is usually described as “what happens in the external world,” though it’s not quite that simple. Plot events are generally related in some way. “A bicycle was stolen. A journalist caught a criminal. A dam broke and flooded a town. An asteroid hit the moon. A tiger ate a herd of goats” is not a plot; it’s a string of unrelated events. Parts of it could be made into a plot (the criminal stole the bicycle in order to sabotage the dam, which broke and flooded the town, driving the town goats to higher ground where the tiger ate them. Eventually the journalist figures all this out and catches the criminal. The asteroid…I got nothin’.)

Plot events are usually related by cause-and-effect (sabotage breaks dam; broken dam floods town; flood drives goats into tiger’s territory), through the actions of characters (saboteur steals bicycle and sabotages dam; journalist’s curiosity leads them to investigate and catch criminal), or through the effect of the events on characters (the people living in the town have to rebuild; the goats get eaten; the tigers get a good meal; the journalist wins a Pulitzer for investigative reporting). Sometimes plot events can be caused by either a character (the saboteur who causes the dam to fail) or by a natural event (a monsoon overfilling the dam, an earthquake destroying part of it).

Character development is “what happens inside the characters,” though that, too, isn’t as simple as it sounds. Often, the emphasis in discussions is on the development part of character development, i.e., the character growing and changing. But “growth and change” can be blatant or exceedingly subtle, and resisting temptation (i.e., choosing not to change in a negative way) can also be a major event, or even the whole focus of a character’s story. Furthermore, people—especially including characters—generally grow and change because something happens. Happy people happily sitting around being happy have no reason to grow or change (which is one reason why there are so few really interesting utopian stories…and so many fascinating dystopian ones).

The real problem with setting plot against character is that they almost always depend on each other. “What happens in the external world” isn’t nearly as interesting if it isn’t happening to somebody (i.e., a character). “What happens inside the characters” isn’t particularly interesting if the character is in an unchallenged steady-state—if they aren’t either changing or resisting changing. “Inner change” (i.e., character growth) usually happens for exterior reasons—the character is physically growing up, dealing with new roles and social expectations and figuring out who they are; the character meets the love of their life, or loses a person close to them; the character faces betrayal or unexpected loyalty; and on and on.

The three classic plot patterns—Boy Meets Girl, The Little Tailor, and Man Learns Lesson—are also, at bottom, the three three things that prompt people to grow and change: through working out personal relationships, in facing a challenge that seems too much for them, and through a challenge to their beliefs and assumptions that forces them to reevaluate. The external plot events provide the required opportunity for character growth and development; the two are inextricably intertwined.

I find that when people talk about “plot-driven” stories, they’re usually talking about either 1) the process that they think the writer went through to come up with the story (i.e., whether the writer started by laying out external events and then figured out how the characters would grow/change as a result, or whether the writer started with flawed characters and then figured out what external events would get them to change the way the writer wanted them to) or 2) the primary focus of the story (i.e., whether the writer spends most of the word-count on external events, paying little or no attention to the effect on the characters’ internal landscapes; or whether they spend most of the word-count on the characters’ internal reactions, growth, change, etc.).

Process is practically impossible to determine by looking solely at the finished product (you can make a lucky guess, or the writer can tell you, though). Focus is an attribute of the finished story, but knowing that a story is plot-focused or character-focused doesn’t tell you why the writer made that choice. (Sometimes character changes are so obvious to the writer that they don’t put them down on the page; sometimes the writer is so absorbed in the character’s internal monolog that the external events get confused and blurry; sometimes the writer prefers one focus over the other, or doesn’t feel confident of their skills at one or the other.)

For my money, the most effective and memorable stories tend to be the ones that deal in both plot and characters, rather than focusing in tightly on one or the other. External events feel more significant if they have changed the characters as well as the country; internal development feels more real when it’s a response to changes or challenges in the character’s world.