You can mix both and create something akin to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
My personal belief is that stronger writing requires that the characters do a lot of the invention and creation themselves - not because you ask them to, but because they demand it of you.
However, looking around at some fiction published these days, there is such a thing as leaving your characters to do too much of the work. Some writers end up seeming to write character for characters sake, and fail to reign in their characters to a clearer overall structure. It ends up as a form of "over-writing", where the failure to cut down on irrelevant scenes and focus important character elements leads to a diluted story.
In the introduction to the unabridged print of "The Stand", Stephen King complains that a story needs substance and uses the example of Hansel of Gretel in his argument. But the story of Hansel and Gretel is ultimately about their getting lost in the forest, meeting adversity, then returning home and settling the root cause there.
Unfortunately, some authors get distracted into writing huge swathes on incidental characters that actually add little - or nothing - to the immediate story.
Robert Jordan might write about the power struggle in the local village - then the next one - then the next one - then the next one... - - - while George R R Martin could brilliantly write scenes from the perspective of the Hansel and Gretel family - their fears and motivations - as well as Hansel and Gretel's dad's best friend Dave...and his wife, the local miller and his dog Sam... - - - while Peter F Hamilton could spend the entire first novel just getting Hansel and Gretel getting kicked out of the house, before meeting the handsome young man in the forest who has spent half the book shagging beautiful rich young women.
Great plot should be intricate and built upon the myriad of actions of the characters themselves, and any book can attempt different levels of plot complexity.
But at the end of the day, a story is not about people doing ordinary things - it's about people facing the extraordinary, with the core of the story being on how they face and overcome (if possible) their adversity. Ideally, main characters should be few so as to keep the story neatly centralised - too many characters endangers a story to poor focus.
Story requires some form of blueprint - a direction in which to channel liquid creativity. But the dynamic of great writing also demands that the characters grow in their own way around the initial blueprint, and add to it.
2 opinion c.
