mark roth-whitworth, (c) 2023
As I’ve been developing as a writer, and submitting stories, I read and hear a lot about character-driven stories vs. plot-driven these days. Most novels seem to me to still are “plot-driven”, while a lot of shorter fiction that gets published in magazines is character-driven, or primarily thus, and I have issues with this.
Many years ago, in a long letter to my just-teenage children, speaking of people and relationships, I said that barring some life-changing event, whoever someone is at eighteen is who they will remain, only growing to be more of that. The result of that is that thinking someone is perfect, except for one little thing that you can fix… well, you can’t. In a story, the same is necessarily true.
If you disagree, please point me to someone in real life who has made that change without some life-changing event. Certainly, I can point to pretty much anyone on the opposite side of the political spectrum here in the US, and have yet to see any of them change their viewpoint upon hearing any other opinions or facts.
Therefore, if the story is character-driven, without a plot point to change someone, it is looking at who someone is at eighteen, or examines how that person’s existing character grows deeper. It is, in effect, a character study, and what makes that a compelling story if they don’t demonstrate that character through actions in the world – that is, a plot? If that’s not the story, but the change itself is the climax, then you have a shallow plot point to change the character. I suggest to you that this is effectively one with a culturally “Christian” message, like those of someone who spends their whole life doing wrong, robbing, cheating, killing, and then, on their deathbed, suddenly repents, asking forgiveness of God, and is thus saved.
Never, please note, ever asking forgiveness of their victims, nor making any effort at restitution.
In what way is that a good story, one worth reading?
Let me change my focus here. When I got into sf and fandom, long ago, the criticism from the literary community of genre fiction in general, and science fiction and fantasy in particular, was that there was no character development or growth, that they characters were all shallow, and there were no repercussions to the actions. In came the New Wave, which was, in my opinion, partly a response to those criticism.
Over the last several decades however, I’ve gotten the impression that any plot driving the story is less than literary, with overtones of looking down at plot-driven. As an example, I recently took a writing course, and the instructor at one point made a comment to me that “that’s okay, if you’re writing plot-driven stories”, and that did not come across to me as a positive statement. In fact, it sounded to me like the criticism of mid/later last century from the literary community.
This is not my idea of a valid criticism. In fact, it is not a good thing, given that according to statistics, according to a report from February, 2023, literary fiction isn’t even visible in the most popular fiction genres.[1]
Let me now step back and look at the larger picture. From the “Oxford Learners Dictionary”, a story is “a description of events and people….” How is a character-driven story one that meets that definition? To go further, the more I look, the more I get the sense that “plot-driven” stories are effectively defined as being the stories from the pulps of the thirties and forties. Formulaic, a plot that moves the characters around to fit, and the character of the characters is irrelevant.
This is obviously biased and inaccurate. Just as a first take, feel free to point to a Hugo winner in the last forty years that was written like that, that had nothing of character, and everything of plot.
I expect a story to have a reason for me to want to be interested in this character. A character without a world taking place around them is a static datapoint, frozen in time within their own mind, without interactions nor reason to change. A plot, on the other hand, can bring about change in the character, including growth beyond what they had imagined. Without both, you don’t have a good story. To suggest that one is somehow better than the other is denying that you require both. For a good story, you need to balance plot and character, and with too much of either, the story slouches towards failure, that is, lack of interest to the reader.
Until the seventeenth century, a diamond was just a shiny rock, of no special value. Then jewelers learned to facet it, to give it edges, and only then did it become of great value. Without a plot, a character is just there, with a plot, they can gain agency, and become far more… and worth knowing about.
1. Most Popular Fiction Genres (note that every one has plots that are significant to the story)
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Fantasy.
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Science Fiction.
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Dystopian.
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Adventure.
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Romance.
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Detective & Mystery.
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Horror.
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Thriller.
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LGBTQ+.
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Historical Fiction.
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Young Adult (YA).
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Children’s Fiction.
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