Character driven versus Plot driven...

[alchemist]

As I suspected, I'm in the minority, but at least I'm not alone. I'll make sure to keep my subversive ideas to myself when trying to get published

 

[Jo Zebedee]

As I suspected, I'm in the minority, but at least I'm not alone. I'll make sure to keep my subversive ideas to myself when trying to get published

You don't need to, because as well as cracking plot, you also write very good characters.

 

[Freya Robertson]

The Resident Evil series and The Matrix series make perfect examples. The first ones delved a lot more into the characters, but the sequels just became all about the special effects and action, and people lost interest in them. Although their plot was suffering too, so I guess in their case it was a bit lacking of both. You'll notice that most of the shows that win all those awards and get critics raving on about them are character driven.

I agree with Paul's comment. If I don't care about the characters, I have trouble finishing the book/film. However didn't King say writing's about story, story, story? Obviously a good balance of both is ideal, but it's interesting that we all have varying preferences. For me it's 65/35 character/plot but then I enjoy some introspection and ferreting around inside the characters' heads

 

[Sourdust]

As I suspected, I'm in the minority, but at least I'm not alone. I'll make sure to keep my subversive ideas to myself when trying to get published

Surely both approaches are viable. Much 'classic' sf was entirely plot-driven (or idea-driven, or setting-driven). It is often remarked that Philip K. Dick's characters seem interchangeable; characterisation is not what he's remembered for.

If one looks at the history of science fiction, its early templates - Verne and Wells, say - were adventure stories, albeit augmented in Wells's case with philosophical/social speculation. Adventures and ideas have continued to be central to its make-up. This isn't to say that characters were irrelevant, but those characters were usually the active, dynamic kind who would want to go on said adventures.

In contrast, what now tends to be referred to as 'literary fiction', descending in a line from, say, Henry James and Flaubert, is much more concerned with the introspective ruminations and stream of consciousness of individual characters. In literary fiction, you can get away with a story in which 'nothing happens' in an external sense - it could be a single character sitting in a room, reflecting on past miseries (and it very often is - heh). The average sf reader (the kind who mainly or even only reads sf) will not have much of a stomach for this.

What has happened in the last few decades (since the New Wave) is that sf has learned a few lessons from the literary mainstream, and there is now often more of an emphasis on character psychology and background than previously.* However, the most 'literary' of sf (e.g. M. John Harrison) will still sell far fewer copies than the latest space marine blast-athon. So I would agree with your initial post that, when it comes to popularity at least, character is not the most important factor in sf.

* This may also have something to do with the 'bigger is better' publishing trend towards bloated books. Until the 1980s, most sf novels were in the 150-250 page range, whereas now 600+ page monsters are common, allowing for expansion - some would say dilution - of every aspect of the story. (We can argue about the pros and cons of this - I am generally of the opinion that it's a bad thing, leading in too many cases to literary redundancy and padding.)

 

[alchemist]

You don't need to, because as well as cracking plot, you also write very good characters.

Aw *blushes* Thanks!

Good points, Sourdust, and particularly apt given that M John Harrison wrote the last book I gave up on, after a mere 50 pages, due to the lack of a clear story and an overabundance of navel-gazing. I've developed a strong distaste for the sort of "literary fiction" you describe (note to other person in this thread: I am not referring to your excellent book about floppy-haired footballers) which is just about personal taste, rather than merit.

The only literary book I can remember enjoying was Life of Pi, because it had such a compelling story.

 

[Cynric]

I think it's quite interesting that very few SFF books are published these days with weak characters (cf. PKD or Asimov), whereas plenty of literary novels have weak plots (witness the howls of outrage after Stella Rimington's Booker comments).

So, I guess the premise of this thread is correct: more people consider character to be the most important element.

Assuming you consider publishers to be people

 

[Phyrebrat]

... with a hint of settings and world building.

I hear everywhere, both here and the outside world, that people want character driven stories, that characters are the most important thing, that character is where you start when writing. Yet when I went to the library yesterday and chose Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds, it wasn't the characters that stood out. It was what I read about the setting and the plot.

Sure, characters are very important. A brilliant fictional world will not compensate for an unbelievable or unconvincing character, but I don't read SFF for the characters. I read for the fantastical, the imagination, the immersion in the far-from-mundane; for tension and drama and stakes of the highest order. You can have the most amazing character you like, but if their world is humdrum and grey and, to be frank, the same as my own, there's little in it for me.

"They're all important," you will cry, but I hear much more about the primacy of character. Does anyone else feel that it isn't THE most important thing in a SFF book? Or am I a lone voice, an eccentric shouting in a vast empty warehouse who wonders why everyone else doesn't think the same way?

I understand your quandary and of course I have no answer but maybe it is genre thing, afterall. When I was reading your OP and the replies, Rendezvous with Rama and The Fountains of Paradise kept springing to mind. Both are conceptual books and so I suppose could be said to be focused on plot. To my tastes at least, both have incredibly boring characters, but I loved both books because of the plots.

I feel similarly about Ringworld. Although Niven's characters have a bit more to them than Clarke's, they're still essentially cardboard cut outs, and the POV/MC is someone I had no affinity for whatsoever. But again, I liked the idea/plot.

Comparing that to some pulpy horror such as Richard Laymon's awful Beast series, the characters are sketched at best, so I don't care what happens to them when they're mutilated/raped etc. The idea could have been explored well if the characters were likeable or fleshed out, but they weren't so it all becomes a trashy mess. (I hope I don't go to Writer's Hell for mentioning Laymon in the same post as Clarke and Niven.)

I can't really comment on the traditional fantasy genre as I really do not enjoy reading it. When I say traditional fantasy I mean stories with elves and orcs and faeries etc, which I fully appreciate is not the alpha and omega of fantasy as a genre, but I hope you get my point.

But there you go. I'm happy to prioritise plot over character if the plot is more conceptual so I think that lends itself to sci-fi more readily. This is true for me of movies, too. If you've seen the relatively hard sci-fi film, Primer, you'll know what I mean.

pH

 

[Gumboot]

What exactly is a "plot-driven" story?

 

[Bakerman]

I reckon all stories need to be 'character-driven' to the extent that the plot actually makes sense. Unless, of course, the story doesn't actually include characters... which is possible, I guess. So if your design process is to lay out the plot first, you've got your work cut out in coming up with characters who can follow through with that plot in a way that makes sense to the reader.

 

[alchemist]

What exactly is a "plot-driven" story?

For me, where there is greater emphasis on what's happening in the story, compared to a character's reaction, development etc. Both happen, of course, and we need both, but I'm asking do you prefer one over the other, in reading and writing.

 

[ctg]

Can you have a character without a plot and a plot without a character?

 

[alchemist]

No, but as you've seen, people have preferences about which they're more interested in.

 

[Sourdust]

Can you have a character without a plot and a plot without a character?

At the extremes, perhaps. Rambling disembodied monologues, or chunks of text where no narrative voice is identifiable (stretches of Joyce's Finnegans Wake, or Beckett's later prose, or William Burrough's cut-ups) could be said to be variously plotless or characterless. (Such modernist experiment had a very limited influence on sf, though, unless we're talking New Worlds under Michael Moorcock's editorship.)

It also depends on how you define both terms. For instance, let us make up a one-sentence story:

'A fly crawled across the window pane.'

Few people would find this terribly exciting, and yet it arguably fulfils both criteria, however minimally: there is a character (a fly) and a plot (the act of crawling).

Then one can write another micro-story with the same grammar, but more obviously sf content:

'Captain Johnson ran towards the airlock.'

We know nothing about Captain Johnson - he is no more fleshed out than the fly - and yet most readers would still find him a more satisfying character, based on their familiarity with other stories about space captains. It's a plot-driven story, though, since the characterisation couldn't be any more minimal. Such archetypes were the stock in trade of 'golden age' sf: they didn't need any mental or emotional life, only a wrench or a laser pistol.

 

[glutton]

In my case, the characters often make the plot. Like if you put a different character in the MC's place, the story would go incredibly different.

 

[Galacticdefender]

I have more fun world building than character creating. I start with the world and an idea of the plot, then a character sort of develops as the story goes on. And to the OP, yeah Alastair Reynolds focusses on world building a lot, and has a ton of infodumps, but I like that kind of thing. If Al Reynolds posted some of his stuff to the critique board here, he would get picked apart I think lol. A shame, because the awesome worldbuilding and effort he put into his universe is almost tolkeinesque, and I really enjoy the infodumps, even more than the characters at times. Reading Redemption Ark right now, and there was one instance where two entire pages were taken up to describe a space station and it's history. I enjoyed every word of it

 

[Gumboot]

For me, where there is greater emphasis on what's happening in the story, compared to a character's reaction, development etc. Both happen, of course, and we need both, but I'm asking do you prefer one over the other, in reading and writing.

That sounds like a "plot-focused" story. "Plot-driven" implies the plot advances the story. I can't see how that's even possible.

 

[Gumboot]

Can you have a character without a plot and a plot without a character?

Yes, but if you only have one, you don't have a story. Story is defined as character + plot.

Having character but no plot is relatively easy - any sort of character exploration piece might be like that - but having a plot without characters is a little harder as people will project character onto whatever is available. Since something has to be happening for it to be plot, and since the events have to be interconnected to be a plot, that means there has to be some sort of common element, and that common element, whatever it is, can become the "character" (for example your plot might be a series of events on an asteroid's journey through space - the asteroid will essentially become the main character).

 

[Triceratops]

I think it very much depends upon which genre you're writing. For my SF, I'm very plot-driven centric, since my scenes are built from the ground up and I have a lot of action and movement in my storyline. The plot is meant to unfold and grab the reader from the onset, but it still mean that I have to build some good characterization during the exploration of the plot. My characters, hopefully grow as the plot or circumstances demand more and more of them. The better my plot--the more challenged the characters. You can have both, I'm sure, or an equal balance. But I must admit that I'm totally plot driven in just about all the genres I write in.

It's funny, but I've always associated character-driven stories as literary or contemporary in nature. And that truly scared me off a bit.

chris

 

[Galacticdefender]

My sci-fi stories almost read like realistic fiction at times, I've spent so much time on my settings. For each individual planet in my universe I've probably spent an hour or two thinking about, and I sort of store those ideas in my head until an opportunity to use the setting presents itself. Each city, each planet, and every other setting in my universe has a backstory, though it doesn't necessarily come out in the writing; occasionally it is just hinted at.