Character-Driven vs. Plot-Driven Stories
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As you know, I am ending my Story Guy Newsletter on Beehiiv and now sending it on Substack. This is the first newsletter from Substack with a brand new article about an important writing topic.
Thank you for continuing to read The Story Guy Newsletter of tips, reviews, and articles about fiction writing.
Scott McConnell, the story guy
Character-Driven vs. Plot-Driven Stories?
Writers often state “I write character-driven stories.” While other writers proclaim “I write plot-driven stories.” Who’s right? Getting this right can be crucial to how resonant and marketable your story can be.
A Big Problem With Many Scripts
One of the biggest problems I find in the scripts I assess is that their stories are driven by the author, not by the characters in the story, especially the protagonist. Such stories stagger along as a series of contrived happenings created haphazardly by the writer: This event happens. Then this event is thrown in. Oh, lets now have this surprising or bigger happening! The writer soon struggles to know where to move the story to next. This vomiting of events approach usually crashes when some big, out-of-the-blue problem gets thrown at a character. Or when a myriad of new characters suddenly appear just to create conflict. An unbelievable miasma of events, which readers quickly abandon.
The fundamental reason for this disaster is that the story doesn’t have a protagonist with free will or agency. That is, the lead character does not make big choices and choose big goals which he fails to act on with passion and determination against other strongly motivated characters. Instead, the passive/reactive character relies on the author god to make things happen. A compelling story cannot be written this way.
Further, a story at its core is not a series of chronological events stitched together. It is a logical, escalating story line of character-driven conflicts and events. These characters, especially the two leading opponents, have free will. They both choose big goals, enact these against other free-willed opponents with opposing big goals. They will conflict back and forth in actions, driving towards a climax where (generally) one wins and one loses. A compelling story can be created this way.
Let’s now investigate a little more the natures of so called character-driven and plot-driven stories.
Character-Driven Stories
Too often those writers who claim they write character-driven stories are just writing characters who mostly talk and emote. A character is revealed and becomes interesting only through action. Characters who only talk and emote are not a story. They are ghosts. You must show and reveal your characters in action, in events. Interesting and exciting events. In a plot.
Which brings us to the alleged opposite of character-driven stories.
Plot-Driven Stories
Too often those writers who claim they write plot-driven stories write events and then stitch in shallow characters who supposedly cause these events. Hence the events are contrived and often meaningless, that is, valueless. Big explosions, car chases, and contrived twists as if dropped from the gods soon bore. Audiences want to see humans in action not plot puppets.
Integrating Character and Plot
There is not nor should there be a dichotomy between character and plot. Characters act and conflict and in action that becomes the plot. You can’t have a plot without characters. That is just some mindless, unhuman, valueless happenings. A machine or robot in action. Nor can you have characters without a plot. A character with only motives and personality who does nothing is a sketch. An abstraction. A start.
My main point here?
Character and plot must integrate. Plot and character are the same thing, just from different angles. Characters who choose to act on their beliefs, pursue their goals, and then struggle to attain them in action against other equally driven individuals—this is the basic nature and structure of story. That is, motivation, choices, conflict, events.
Actionable Creative Takeaway
Motivate your characters. You must work out their beliefs/premises, values, main story goal, and their sequence goals. You must work out your characters’ motivations all the way down to their explicit scene objectives.
Then make these characters clash with other characters who have strong, motivating beliefs, values, and goals. This is especially mandatory for the protagonist and antagonist who must clash back and forth in an escalating long-term struggle. Once you have two lead characters conflicting over their motives and goals, they can cause the action, the events of the story. Motivate your plot!
Die Hard Example of the Integration of Character and Plot
In Die Hard, for example, John McClane loves his wife; this lonely man wants her back into his life. His happiness depends on that. His consequent main goal is to save his marriage. Now the action plot against the personal values and goal of this main character kick in. McClane’s wife is taken hostage by terrorists. To regain his wife, McClane must combat Hans Gruber and his terrorists who are acting against him to attain their main goal of robbing the vault. This protagonist and antagonist clash until one of them wins. The story’s main events flow logically from these character motivations and conflicts.
As another example, in Casablanca the protagonist Rick Blaine has several conflicting core beliefs, values, and goals: He wants to bury himself away from his failed love affair with Ilsa and remain neutral in the war. Yet he still desperately loves and needs her while secretly loathing the Nazis and supporting freedom. The plot of Casablanca flows directly from these conflicting values and goals as Rick clashes with all the forces opposed to him—especially Ilsa and himself.
Moving Forward
Both sides of this coin of Character vs. Plot are wrong. This is a false dichotomy. A story is the seamless fusion of character and plot. Try to always think of them both as fundamental and necessary -- and as the same thing. Just from different angles. Then you will write better stories that are character and plot-driven. Character-driven plots! That will help you create a more resonant and marketable script.
Story Note
When developing your story, be sure to work out clearly the key motivations of your characters and then to make these cause the plot.