PLOT OR CHARACTER
G'day folks,
I bet you have met some interesting characters in your life, ones who have plotted, or planned to plot, devious things. Well, here is a guest post from K. M. Weiland - PLOT OR CHARACTER.
"“Plot vs.
character”—we hear it all the time, as if the two were mutually exclusive.
Either your book is plot-driven or character-driven. Can’t possibly be both,
right?
And
anytime we run afoul of an either/or conundrum, you gotta know people are going
to start believing one or the other is not only the best way, but
even the only way to write a book.
Let’s
consider this a little more microscopically. What would it take to make one or
the other of these combatants “more important” than the other?
Why Plot Is More Important
Plot is
story. It frames the conflict and thus the action. It generates high-concept
premises. Speculative fiction, with its solid basis in high concepts, is firmly
rooted in the tradition of plot-driven stories.
Where
would Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of
the Wind, and Brent Weeks’s The Way of Shadows be without their
killer plots? Awesome characters who sit around poking each other on Facebook,
instead of duking it out with magic in high-stakes, winner-takes-all plots,
just won’t cut it.
Plot is
structure. The classic three-act structure (which I discuss, in depth, in my
book Structuring Your
Novel: Essential Keys to Writing an Outstanding Story) is what creates and guides a
strong plot. No structure, no plot, no story—or at least no story worth
reading.
Why Character Is More Important
Character
is also story. More than that, character is the heart of story. What
good is a killer plot without the actors who bring it to life? Stakes only
matter insofar as there are people to gain or suffer by them.
Readers
relate to stories through the characters. Cool magic systems and world-ending
conflict may be interesting on a surface level. But they’re only worth reading
about because of the worth of the characters who use the magic and live through
the conflict.
Turns out
that character (specifically character arc) is also structure.
Characters and their conflicting inner and outer goals create the thematic
questions that frame our stories. We can come up with a perfectly structured
plot, but if we haven’t also created a structured character arc, our stories
are likely to turn out drier than a matzo cracker.
Why Plot and Character Are Equally Important
Plot and
character don’t exist in a vacuum. We could make several arguments for why one
or the other is slightly more important. But, honestly, whatever answer we may
come up with (and we’re likely to each come up with different answers) is
academic.
Here’s
the truth: to create a powerful story, we can’t afford to neglect either plot
or character. Instead of having them wage war against one another, we need them
to work together.
A
perfectly structured plot will never live up to its potential without an
equally solid character arc.
A
compelling character arc will never be able to hold up its own weight without a
properly structured plot.
More than
that, the various aspects of structure and character arc must be built one upon
the other. The First Act (in which we set up the plot by introducing
characters, settings, and stakes) is also where we will be introducing the
beginning stages of the character arc (the character’s overall goal, his
greatest need, and the lie he believes which is holding him back from achieving
that need). They all mesh together! How cool is that?
No need
to pick one over the other. When we understand how plot and character can (and should)
work in perfect harmony, we get the best of both worlds. And so do our readers."
Clancy's comment: Many thanks to K. M. Weiland. I'd have probably said it much simpler. KISS - keep it simple stupid. Write for your reader, not yourself, and make your readers fall in or out of love with your characters. Take your readers on a journey they will be glad they took, and make your characters believable. Then, when it starts to become a tad boring, send in some sharks to liven things up.
I'm ...
Think about this!
No comments:
Post a Comment