Character-driven vs. plot-driven

[sarsaparilla]

There are some interesting ideas discussed in here. I might even backpedal a little and admit that the difference between themes and ideas, while real, could be rather inconsequential in relation to the type of driven-ness of a story.

I also admit that a more fleshed-out Saruman would have great potential as a character who could challenge the absolute black-and-white morality of the original work, considering how Tolkien used him as an allegory for industrialization in contrast to the 'ideal' English countryside life of Shire.

But, still about the "character-driven versus plot-driven" issue....

It appears to me that we humans have a very strong expectation for a story to contain characters one can relate to, and a coherent set of events forming a narrative, or a plot. This tendency is most likely based on the way the human mind works -- as social animals we learn by observing the behavior of other members of our species, and psychological experiments with callosotomy patients demonstrate that the basic mode of operation of the mind is unconscious confabulation; the mind automatically inserts a narrative where none exists, in order to make sense of otherwise random and unrelated events. This doesn't differ from the inherent tendency of humans to interpret anything roughly round with some spots in a certain configuration as a face, and is utilized, e.g., in the Rorschach test.

Thus, if 'driven-ness' is conceptually separated from focus by implying a process, an evolution of facts, then the question becomes, what is it that's advancing or being advanced. From a simplistic point of view, in a character-driven story, it is the subjective, internal state of the mind of one or several characters; in a plot-driven story it is the objective, external reality modified by a sequence of events that are somehow related to each other, in contrast to a 'random events plot'. However, almost all 'character-driven' works also contain external events, so that a variation of the work where character development is removed would be considered plot-driven; and conversely, almost all 'plot-driven' works contain characters, so that a variation with more compelling characters would be considered character-driven.

Thus, there would appear to be, as suspected, an inherent asymmetry. What is called 'plot-driven' really signifies 'not-character-driven', by assuming that all stories have a plot by default, even if only some stories have compelling characters as well. A character-driven work, with more plot inserted, is then still a character-driven work, only this time with more plot -- that might distract from more than benefit the story.

Since the expectation of the presence of characters and narrative is so strong, any work that can't be considered either character-driven or plot-driven must be somewhat experimental in nature, as the mere presence of related events already justifies the label 'plot-driven'.

Although I cannot cite any particular example, I can easily envision a piece of work that cannot be either character-driven, because there aren't any characters, or plot-driven, because there isn't anything happening. An imaginary example of such a work would be a disembodied examination of a crime scene or some other setting posing an inherent intellectual challenge in figuring out what happened, going from one static detail to another until all the pieces fit together. In such a work, the only thing that advances as the scene unfolds is the reader's understanding and interpretation of the presented facts, and how they relate to each other. I have a vague feeling that this particular device of indirect storytelling has been used in one of the CSI series, but I couldn't possibly spot the occasion.

For a more 'mainstream' -- if one can say that -- example of a work that doesn't fit into the character/plot-driven model, how about "The Decalogue" by Krzysztof Kieslowski? It is a TV drama consisting of ten vignettes, each reflecting on one of the ten commandments in a modern society. While each vignette has its own characters and a relatively cohesive series of events, the only thing that advances through the work as a whole is the list of commandments. To me, this looks like a purely idea-driven work. The Decalogue also shows the difference between an idea and a theme, the idea being one of a modern equivalent of medieval Christian art, illustrating religious teachings, but the recurrent theme is the life of people in a contemporary society and the moral choices they make.

On the whole, Kieslowski is a great example of a director whose works operate mostly on the level of themes and ideas, and treating them as 'just' character-driven drama misses their essential qualities. Trying to analyze "Three Colors: Blue" -- in my opinion one of the most emotionally and thematically poignant movies ever made -- in the framework of driven-ness is like appraising the quality of clothing by counting the number of zippers.

[Muphrid]

Arakawa:  I think you've hit on the importance of setting the audience's expectations.  This ties into your efforts to write a blurb (which is an arcane art that I myself have only a vague idea how to go about divining).  In the context of your story, I think part of what misled me about it is that the very first scene involves the old man, and so it gives the impression that the old man and the journal are really important whereas, in fact, they are merely tools to help draw Simon into that world.  I might suggest starting off with Simon in some way; he finds this notebook, which doesn't seem too extraordinary, but he finds he can't get rid of it.  Introduce the old man later, and you can place his importance to the tale accordingly.

Believe me, I've had my share of utterly failing at meeting the audience's expectations.

But again, this is why I say that it doesn't really matter if the story is plot-driven or character-driven, so long as you're doing what you set out to do and the audience knows that that is the direction the story is going to take.

Ergoemos:  that's interesting. Is there a theme that you think Saturn's Children had?  I definitely agree that it's not enough for an idea merely to be present to also be a theme.  I was always taught that a theme is not merely some abstract concept but a message about that concept.  "Love" can't be a theme, but "you should love someone while you still have the privilege of being on this earth" could be a theme.  Thus, this stuff about abstract ideas, like the butterfly effect, strikes me as something that definitely can't be a theme, though something like "you should be careful about messing around somewhere (or sometime) willy-nilly" could be a theme.

Again, that's the way I was taught, though, and I realize that this subtle distinction between what can and cannot be a theme might've been some teacher just making stuff up.

sars:

There are some interesting ideas discussed in here. I might even backpedal a little and admit that the difference between themes and ideas, while real, could be rather inconsequential in relation to the type of driven-ness of a story.

Right, it's something I'm debating making a separate thread about, just to help pin down this relationship between ideas and theme that is still something I don't completely understand.


I think you've hit the nail on the head asking what is actually advancing, and in pinning down the asymmetry that has bothered me over the course of the discussion.  I would point out, though, that it is entirely conceivable to have a character-driven work with no external events, and everything that happens is the result of some character interaction.  I think part of the issue is that even this would be considered a plot (but not "plot-driven"), and so maybe the problem is with the term "plot-driven".  Perhaps there should be some other word that captures the idea of something external to the characters, something bigger or larger than them.  Maybe it's as simple as saying internal vs. external.

Although I cannot cite any particular example, I can easily envision a piece of work that cannot be either character-driven, because there aren't any characters, or plot-driven, because there isn't anything happening. An imaginary example of such a work would be a disembodied examination of a crime scene or some other setting posing an inherent intellectual challenge in figuring out what happened, going from one static detail to another until all the pieces fit together. In such a work, the only thing that advances as the scene unfolds is the reader's understanding and interpretation of the presented facts, and how they relate to each other. I have a vague feeling that this particular device of indirect storytelling has been used in one of the CSI series, but I couldn't possibly spot the occasion.

For a more 'mainstream' -- if one can say that -- example of a work that doesn't fit into the character/plot-driven model, how about "The Decalogue" by Krzysztof Kieslowski? It is a TV drama consisting of ten vignettes, each reflecting on one of the ten commandments in a modern society. While each vignette has its own characters and a relatively cohesive series of events, the only thing that advances through the work as a whole is the list of commandments. To me, this looks like a purely idea-driven work. The Decalogue also shows the difference between an idea and a theme, the idea being one of a modern equivalent of medieval Christian art, illustrating religious teachings, but the recurrent theme is the life of people in a contemporary society and the moral choices they make.

On the whole, Kieslowski is a great example of a director whose works operate mostly on the level of themes and ideas, and treating them as 'just' character-driven drama misses their essential qualities. Trying to analyze "Three Colors: Blue" -- in my opinion one of the most emotionally and thematically poignant movies ever made -- in the framework of driven-ness is like appraising the quality of clothing by counting the number of zippers.

I think this discussion has pointed out that there's a wide world of fiction, and some of the elements we consider essential or intrinsic to fiction-writing can easily be cast aside to fit the needs of a particular story or scene.  Stories without plot or without characters seem pretty exotic, but we've seen that they can be necessary, even required, to tell a story that is concerned most with something other than the events that happen or the relations of characters.

No doubt this discussion on what drives a story has little bearing on the actual quality of a piece.  As I said to Arakawa earlier, you can pursue any route you choose.  At the risk of realizing I had no idea what I was confused about initially, perhaps it's best to frame this discussion in the context of understanding audience expectations.  Why are people paying money to read (or not paying money, in the case of fanfiction)?  For an exciting sequence of events?  For character psychology and interaction?  For an intriguing idea whose consequences must be explored?  For a world whose every detail must be uncovered and checked for consistency?  Something else?

I'm sure there is an audience for all of these, but understanding what conventions and techniques each audience is accustomed to is a useful, perhaps even necessary, exercise.

For my part, I think I'm satisfied to realize that there are more dimensions than just "plot-driven" and "character-driven", even if the terms themselves are somewhat imprecise.

[Jason_Miao]

With Lost Twins I tried to do something similar with the Prologue, which is about twice as detailed as it needs to be; but on some level that might have backfired, since I still got comments that seemed to consider the story as being paced around Old Frost's scheme with the notebooks, as opposed to being paced around Simon's attempt to get oriented in an unfamiliar setting. (e.g. a comment that it was odd to dwell so much on the genie; well, this is a concrete example of plot-driven versus something else. Here the something else is that it would make sense for Simon to question how a being that existed mostly to grant other people's wishes would think, and how much of his assumptions about something that looks and acts human are actually valid in this case. So, in that sense, it would be both character- and worldbuilding- driven, since on the one hand it makes perfect sense for Simon to stop and focus on this detail even if a plot-driven book wouldn't, and it serves to establish how he interacts with Powell as she tries to explain everything to him; on the other hand, the bulk of the interaction then boils down to questions and exposition.)

Some writers effectively treat prologues as chapter 1.  It may be that your problem is that readers have become accustomed to that practice.  In that light, one potential cause is that while the while the point of view changes between the prologue and the first chapter, it might be missed since the old man's dialogue keeps referring to himself "I, I, I" - of course, it's not the same "I", but the difference may be too subtle if a reader is not paying attention.

Changing the prologue point of view to something even more differentiated is one option, but a fairly drastic one.   Another approach might be to try changing the title of the prologue to something along the lines of "Short Story: A typical day in New York", and titling your actual chapters "Chapter 1: [Title]".  You can still use "Short Story" as a prologue, but at least the title may separate it from the actual story.

Oddly, the comparison that comes to mind that would set a more adequate set of expectations, is something like Alice in Wonderland, only in New York; a lot of strange things pop up that don't bear on the main plot progression, but they aren't complete random nonsense either, since they tie back to the real world in odd ways (e.g. genies and modern architecture or bureaucracy).

Alice in Wonderland is Fantasy as the genre used to be considered - the domain of the "fantastic".  The Lovecraft Mythos is similar; there are no elves in HP Lovecraft's work, and the only magic forces that exist, no mortal could hope to understand while remaining sane.  But neither are what immediately spring to mind when people think Fantasy. 

You may be working against the inertia of years of writing in the genre, and how decades of stories in both Swords and Sorcery and High Fantasy have set user expectations of how a story about magic is supposed to work.  I'm not sure if that's fixable other than being very ham-handed about a seemingly-random statement turn out to be relevant in chapter 1.

Thus, there would appear to be, as suspected, an inherent asymmetry. What is called 'plot-driven' really signifies 'not-character-driven', by assuming that all stories have a plot by default, even if only some stories have compelling characters as well. A character-driven work, with more plot inserted, is then still a character-driven work, only this time with more plot -- that might distract from more than benefit the story.

Trying to analyze "Three Colors: Blue" -- in my opinion one of the most emotionally and thematically poignant movies ever made -- in the framework of driven-ness is like appraising the quality of clothing by counting the number of zippers.

Pretty much.  It's just a classification, and doesn't really mean too much more than that.  There are some people who spent enormous amounts of time on classification, and I'm sure keeping this sort of distinction straight is very important to them, but it's not really something I think most people who write ought to care about as more than a general approach for writing their story.

By analogy, my left-or-right handedness doesn't impact my intelligence, my ambition, or most any other quality by which one judges a person.  It doesn't even dictate whether I use my offhand.  One can classify me, and everyone, by their handedness, but at the end of the day, it is what it is, and is not much more than that.


Back to discussing drive, I'm not even sure if adding plot to character-driven works, or the other way around, is mutually exclusive with quality.  A really good bildungsroman does both, and the better adventure stories not only make you care about disasters are happening, but the characters who actually have to live through them.

[Ergoemos]

Ergoemos:  that's interesting. Is there a theme that you think Saturn's Children had?  I definitely agree that it's not enough for an idea merely to be present to also be a theme.  I was always taught that a theme is not merely some abstract concept but a message about that concept.  "Love" can't be a theme, but "you should love someone while you still have the privilege of being on this earth" could be a theme.  Thus, this stuff about abstract ideas, like the butterfly effect, strikes me as something that definitely can't be a theme, though something like "you should be careful about messing around somewhere (or sometime) willy-nilly" could be a theme.

Again, that's the way I was taught, though, and I realize that this subtle distinction between what can and cannot be a theme might've been some teacher just making stuff up.

I think I could justify one, as I have done so for teachers because they wanted an answer, but I don't think I would be honest about it. There are many... notes? Hints of a message? Theme-lets? I remember the main character describing a well kept and beautiful street part of a sprawling city, hosted on Mercury, a planet no human ever got the chance to land on. There is a little bit of an ongoing theme in lost majesty or misguided legacy, where colonizing the entire solar system becomes a monument of human achievement, just like the statue of Ozymandias. 

I could write ten pages on it, if I wanted, but I don't know what the defining "thesis statement" would be. Its not so much a "theme" in the sense that the author is trying to tell the audience something like, "Look at what humans could become" in as much as it just a tone, a backdrop, part of the setting.

I am also several years out of my prime English paper days, so I stopped looking so hard since. I might be missing something obvious, as I am relatively rusty.

[Muphrid]

Right, I think it is useful to distinguish between a recurring element (the lost majesty and misguided legacy you speak of) and a statement or position about that element.  KLSymph was saying just the same thing in IRC yesterday, calling the former theme and the latter thesis, and while I'm interested to see if these concepts are present in the wider literary analysis field, for our purposes they make perfect sense to me.

I think on the whole, though, the narrative's attitude toward a theme often betrays some kind of thesis.  Most likely, in your example, that humans have all this stuff they could've accomplished but didn't, and it's sad that they didn't.  This seems rather obvious on the one hand, but I could imagine a piece with the same theme (all the accomplishments mankind could've achieved) but that takes a different attitude, like saying it's good mankind didn't stretch itself out too much, or that it's better not to do things just for the sake of achieving them.

[Jason_Miao]

This seems rather obvious on the one hand, but I could imagine a piece with the same theme (all the accomplishments mankind could've achieved) but that takes a different attitude, like saying it's good mankind didn't stretch itself out too much, or that it's better not to do things just for the sake of achieving them.

I think that a story does not have to have a thesis.   It's pretty hard to pull that off as a writer, but some stories account for the fact that the reader will be viewing the story through the lens of his or her own preconceptions.  The two examples that pop into my mind are Antigone, and Life With Father by Clarance Day.

The former story is the Greek play that everyone probably had to read for High School.  Although society today favors Antigone and considers Creon to be the antagonist, I've heard that the Greeks considered Creon to be the sympathetic character who was caught between his role as a king and the will of the Gods.  People across different historical eras can relate to it, despite our different perspectives.

The later story was published sometime in the 30s-40s, and was about author's home life, and his squabbling (but still loving) parents.  He wrote an anecdote in one of his other books where he was concerned that Life with Father may have cast one parent or the other in an unfair light.  Since he didn't want to alienate either of his parents, he asked them to read over the manuscript and tell him what they thought.  It became the subject of new squabbles.  The Father, upon reading a chapter, would tell the Mother "See, your foolishness is in black and white, right here." whereas the Mother would read the same chapter and say to him "This just shows that if you'd only been reasonable..."  So both parents liked it, since it proved him/herself right, and how silly the other parent had acted.