Plot vs Character driven development

[Fried Egg]

Sorry, but this is just something I've been thinking a lot about lately and I want to get it off my chest and see what others think.

It is an oft levelled criticism levelled at some books that the characters act according to the neccessities of the plot and not their character. It is thought by some that to be considered good SF or fantasy (or literature in general for that matter) that the story should be so designed that the characters act as they do purely because it is well within their character's motivations to do so. If characters do things that do no appear to arise from their motivations, but instead because it is expedient to the story, then it is said to be poor literature.

I think there is a trend these days (of writers) to pay particular emphasis to the drawing of characters and their development. They must be shown to have many facets to their personality, to be complex and to be real. And then the stories that follow must be constrained by what is likely to follow from those character's motivations. Now I'm not saying that this is necessarilly a bad thing, only that it can (and often does) constrain the author's imagination and the stories become less interesting.

What is wrong with an unashamedly plot driven story? For instance "The Worm Ouroboros" by E. R. Eddison (which I am currently re-reading). Many would say one of the great fantasy epics but I have seen others criticise it precisely for this reason. The characters do not have enough depth, do what they do because the plot demands it and we don't know much else about them. But surely they miss the point? It wasn't trying to be character driven. The characters weren't supposed to be real, people that we could relate to. They were supposed to be larger than life, heroic figures who did heroic (or dastardly) things that we ourselves could never do (nor understand).

Another example (that I read recently) is "The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance. Unconstrained is Vance's imagination in these stories. Certainly not by thinking about why the characters do what they do.

Perhaps if an author takes great pains to develop their characters in detail then it matters more that their actions appear to arise from their character. When an author gets this wrong they are legitimately criticised. But if an author takes a different approach, if a story is not meant to be character driven, why should they be criticised for it?

I think it is just the current vogue. People forget that it wasn't always so. I don't think fantasy was originally predominately character driven in the way it has become now (and is what readers now expect). It may not be that way in the future either.

 

[biodroid]

I reckon that the conflict should be resolved with the character either adapting to the path taken or not. E.g. think about Star Wars - A new hope, Luke would just have stayed home with uncle Owen for the rest of his life and looked after moisture farms but coincidently they were murdered and he now had no ties or responsibilities. He took off with Obi-Wan. His character had to adapt (even though I think it's a blatant plot device to get him on his way) and he had to develop (in the long run) in the master Jedi we all know.

 

[ghostofcorwin]

Problem in fantasy, particularly, is that the over-development of character takes away from the high ritual of epic/myth from which much fantasy gets its driving force. Excessively realistic/psychological characters tend to make an epic more mundane and it loses its tone and pitch. I think the answer is not in the author spending excessive time on what the character thinks, but in drawing the character's personality and idiosyncracies through details of behavior and reaction to the plot. While not a fantasy writer of course, Tolstoy was an absolute master of this technique. The narrative moves rapidly but we get these crystalline glimpses of what make a character do 'A' rather than 'B' and usually through a visual cue/body language. I believe another master of that technique was Homer, particularly in the Odyssey. Character is explicated through action/choice.

 

[Ursa major]

The characters weren't supposed to be real, people that we could relate to. They were supposed to be larger than life, heroic figures who did heroic (or dastardly) things that we ourselves could never do (nor understand).

You seem to have answered your own question: these characters do these things because of who they are.

Perhaps - and I can't say one way or the other, because I've never read The Worm Ouroboros - the critics are complaining that they, as readers, are meant to assume these characters have these characteristics. Or perhaps the critics are complaining because sometimes these characters do things that are not the result of instincts and training adapting to circumstances but merely actions convenient to the author and his plot.




By the way, as we're all told (as aspiring authors) to "show not tell", the characters of one's characters need to be revealed by their actions (or their thoughts, where we're listening in). If they are acting solely to meet the requirements of the plot, there's no way of telling what their characters really are, is there? (Oops: ghostofcorwin has already said this, and better than I have.)

 

[Brian G Turner]

Any story should be plot driven, but the more believable the characters the more we can be drawn into their experience of how the plot impacts, and is impacted, by their actions.

I think the criticism of over-writing character is very pertinent to the genre - George R R Martin, Peter F Hamilton, and Tad Williams are immediate examples I can think of where a story can become over complicated by focus on peripheral characters which do not think need to be covered in such detail.

It's a balance issue, really, I think - Dune is a plot-driven story, but we're given enough detail about character to find them interesting, and those we know little about (ie, Duncan) remain enigmatic.

I think a number of successful modern SFF writers would have made the events in "Dune" a trilogy, though, padded with peripheral character background, events, and general world-building information!

From a writing point of view, plot is perhaps best regarded as a framework that characters will clothe and adapt to their own ends. Some directions are inevitable, some events are absolutely fixed, but sometimes during the writing process characters can surprise even the author.

 

[Fried Egg]

I freely admit that the characters in "The Worm Ourorobos" have no depth (particularly good guys), nor do we learn much about them from the things they say and do. We find nothing about their pasts, they are not well rounded. I simply contend that it doesn't always matter.

Any story should be plot driven, but the more believable the characters the more we can be drawn into their experience of how the plot impacts, and is impacted, by their actions.

But I don't think this was a device traditionally used all that often. It certainly isn't in "The Worm Ouroboros". We aren't meant, as the reader, to relate to the characters nor find them believable. But this is certainly something that some modern readers expect when they read books like this and are consequently disappointed.

 

[Ursa major]

As it is with "writing rules", rules can help one understand why something isn't working. Where something is working (in this case as determined by you, the reader), the rules are beside the point.

 

[Hypnos164]

Isn't the modern trend in high "literature" to avoid plot altogether (and to deride genre fiction for its reliance on plot)?

You know the stuff many aspiring writers (and readers) will have studied at university - so it may not be surprising to find plot centric novels under fire from the current generation.

 

[rai]

I see your point, someone like Thomas Covenant was in a story, yet he did little of what the story would want him to do, he wanted to be left alone and not interact with the story arc that he was a part of against his will literally.

However later on, it would seem as if he goes along with the plot or else it would have been a very short book..

"Thomas Covenant comes to the land, he doesn't t believe so he doesn't interact with the story.

The End."

The point is, there has to be some 'plot driven' elements.

I guss off the top of my head a story that was very character driven was "The Catcher in the Rye" and mainly because that didn't have much of a plot. I twas more about looking at Holden Caulfield.

 

[ghostofcorwin]

As it is with "writing rules", rules can help one understand why something isn't working. Where something is working (in this case as determined by you, the reader), the rules are beside the point.

Well said. To me the cardinal rule is: do I care about the prinicipal characters enough to be moved in some fashion by what happens to them. If a character moves through the plot like an automoton without any hooks into who that character is and why we should bother, I tend to put the book down or get bored. Plot alone almost never keeps a book going unless we can at least identify with the protagonist. However, the writer accomplishes that is part of the art form.... no one way to do it.

 

[Fried Egg]

Well said. To me the cardinal rule is: do I care about the prinicipal characters enough to be moved in some fashion by what happens to them. If a character moves through the plot like an automoton without any hooks into who that character is and why we should bother, I tend to put the book down or get bored. Plot alone almost never keeps a book going unless we can at least identify with the protagonist. However, the writer accomplishes that is part of the art form.... no one way to do it.

But then in "The Worm Ouroboros", one does not identify with the characters in any way. But then one is not meant to. It is far from boring however. What the characters say and do holds the reader's interest without requiring any form of identification.

I would say that "The Broken Sword" by Poul Anderson is another book in this vein.

 

[Jon Sprunk]

Ah, the old character-versus-plot debate!

I would humbly submit that they are one and the same. Character is the story, and the plot is characterization. We don't care whether the evil interstellar empire is brought down, per se; we want to see how the characters accomplish it. It's that combination of character and plot that hooks us and keeps us reading. Go too far toward either end of the spectrum and you start to lose readers.

 

[Ursa major]

Well said.

I believe I am merely passing on (possibly inadequately) something I read elsewhere on the Chrons, written by Teresa Edgerton.

 

[thepaladin]

It is a rare book that can actually exist without a strong plot. It may not stand out in front of the text and wave a flag, but with little plot you really have little book. A few books do manage to have such enthralling or beautiful prose as to hold readers sans much plot , Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell comes to mind. It had a plot, but it very deeply buried. Characters and characterization are important but if you have characters totally without plot well, that is by definition without story.

Look a Roger Zelazny, his characters grow within the plot and are far less detailed than many modern fantasy writers who can't turn out a single volume short of 800 pages. the same is true of Michael Moorcock. Not one of hos Elric books runs near the length of something by Margaret Weis. I sometimes shudder at the lack of respect the "so called" plot driven book gets.

 

[Montero]

Lois McMaster Bujold said of her books that she thought of the worst possible thing she could do to a character, then did it.

So that is both character and plot driven I think. As in what the worst possible thing is, must vary with the character, but having it happen to the character at that particular moment may well not arise from anything the character has done up to that point, it is an act of author.

 

[Fried Egg]

It is a rare book that can actually exist without a strong plot. It may not stand out in front of the text and wave a flag, but with little plot you really have little book. A few books do manage to have such enthralling or beautiful prose as to hold readers sans much plot , Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell comes to mind. It had a plot, but it very deeply buried. Characters and characterization are important but if you have characters totally without plot well, that is by definition without story.

Indeed, stories with minimal (or non-existant) plot are more common in the short story form and work quite well if properly done. Some of Clark Ashton Smith's stories or even Thomas Ligotti's. And I wouldn't say they were character driven either, rather atmosphere and mood driven.

Look a Roger Zelazny, his characters grow within the plot and are far less detailed than many modern fantasy writers who can't turn out a single volume short of 800 pages. the same is true of Michael Moorcock. Not one of hos Elric books runs near the length of something by Margaret Weis. I sometimes shudder at the lack of respect the "so called" plot driven book gets.

I completely agree. Moorcock is one again who often comes under fire for lack of in depth characterisation but again I think, they miss the point.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But the plot is what the characters do and say. It isn't something that exists apart from them.

I admit that characters who are sketched in lightly are a great boon to the plot-driven story. They can do what the author has planned for them, and most of the time nobody wonders why. The Worm is a great example. The main characters can do any stupid, selfish, irritating, heroic thing and the reader never asks why, because it's all in keeping with the little we know about them. If we spent five minutes really inside their heads at any of these junctures it would almost certainly be impossible to accept their reasoning (which is essentially deranged, by any common standards), but Eddison doesn't clutter up the story with that sort of thing, so that we can forget about believable motivation and enjoy the book on its own terms. (Simultaneously longing to see the Lords of Demonland weltering in their own blood and rooting for them to succeed.) This only works, of course, if everything else about a book is satisfying, if the book "on its own terms"*has so many excellent attributes as The Worm has to recommend it. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is just dross.

What I dislike above all is books where the characters' inner thoughts and motivations are described in detail and the author nevertheless jerks them around in accordance with a pre-conceived plot. While affecting a (to me) spurious air of realism the writer heaps improbability upon improbability. The characters as described could not possibly do those things. The end result, in my estimation, is soap opera with fantasy trappings. The only difference between some of these books and afternoon drama is the costumes and the addition of liberal amounts of blood and gore. The reason why books of this sort are more distasteful to me than books that are merely bad with no real attempt at characterization, is that they give character-driven stories a bad name (even though I consider them to be nothing more than plot-driven stories under disguise).

On the other hand, stories with well-written characters of sufficient depth placed in interesting situations have never, in my experience as a reader, failed to deliver a wonderful plot. More than that, plots that arise naturally in this way engage me emotionally in the way that a book like The Worm Ouroboros never can. If there is also a remarkable imagination at work, and the kind of prose that I love to linger over and savor -- and there is no reason why a character-driven story can't display those same qualities as well as one that is plot-driven -- then I think it is a superior book. I may admire a book by a writer like Eddison, there may be aspects of such a book that I adore, but I can never entirely get past the sense that there is something missing at the core, a hollow place where there should be, if not something so utterly mundane and disreputable as a heart, at least something capable of touching mine.

 

[chrispenycate]

The problem is, if the plot is important (frequently the case, even with character driven works) and you develop the characters, they don't do what you need them to. It's got to the point where I have to write the funeral first, and then do the death scene, so they can't back out without being buried alive, or else they read a couple of pages a head and it's "Oh, no! A heroic death, perhaps, but I look stupid falling into that ambush, getting wounded, being too proud to get treatment and dying of blood poisoning." Trouble is, people do die of pride and stupidity (particularly the sort that react like that; we can't all face dreadful odds, and be pulled down just as the last of your companions escapes.

*mutters a little "Icebound characters. Didn't need all this reality in the fifties."*

So you keep having to modify the plot to accommodate their foibles…

 

[thepaladin]

Plot and character, I suppose one thing I should have said was all one, sort of "holistic". That seems to be what everyone is expressing.

 

[Connavar]

It depends on the story and the writer. If its a talent,imaginative level of Vance type i dont even care about plots. Its about the prose,world,detail,depth,themes etc

If its a heroic fantasy it needs plot more than characters. I usually let interesting characters save me from a boring plot at times. But in the end its like Teresa says good characters become good plot. Its what the character do and say.


I dislike certain subgenres that tend to write characters every thought,detail everything. Thats a huge weakness.

The greatest writers i have read can put great story,depth,characters,plot in few pages like short story,novella. Sometimes you go how in the world did they do that in so short space.

The opposite i cant stand....