You may have heard the terms character driven and plot driven and assumed you knew what they meant, but this concept is harder to grasp than it seems. I originally thought I wrote character driven fantasies, but I’ve recently been rethinking that statement. While I believe my stories are very focused on character development, I’ve realized that I might be more on the plot driven side of the scale. Let me share with you my findings in case you too feel a little uncertain about these terms.
Character Driven Stories
Character driven stories are about following a character through his daily life and discovering who he is and who he will become. The plots in these stories are there solely to help develop the character. There is nothing special about the story lines. A man has an affair. A teenager is trying to survive high school. Neither plot is thrilling in itself, but it’s the characters that make it interesting. No external events are dictating his life, but instead his own decisions drive the story forward. The readers aren’t reading the book to see how the big conflict is resolved but to see what kind of transformation the character experiences. They are invested in who the character is and who he will become.
Examples
Stories that are character driven tend to be in literary fiction, romance, and coming of age books. There are always exceptions, but typically these genres focus on how characters live their everyday lives. Where the Crawdads Sing would not be the same story if we followed any girl who grew up in the south. Persuasion would not exist without Anne and Captain Wentworth. Anne of Green Gables wouldn’t have left such an impression on readers if the feisty redhead hadn’t been the protagonist. These stories aren’t about any external plot but about how these specific characters made decisions and how those choices affected their lives.
Plot Driven Stories
Plot driven stories follow a character to see how he responds to external events that shape his life. The character is used as a way to view the plot, and, if you replaced the character with another, the plot would stay mostly the same. Another character may go about the tasks differently, but the same external events would happen to the character.
Readers will want to finish these stories to see how the main conflict is resolved. The character should also go through a transformation, but plot driven stories must have an external resolution as well as an internal one (but the internal story line will be second to the main external plot line). The important thing to remember for plot driven books is that there is a clear external goal the character chases. These stories are often more fast-paced since there is less time spent on internal processing and more emergency scenarios thrown at the protagonist.
Examples
Genres that tend to be more plot driven include: mystery, thriller, science fiction, and fantasy. Exceptions are always present, but generally these genres are chasing an external plot goal. In The Lord of the Rings, anyone could have taken the ring to Mount Doom. I know that statement probably upset some of you, but it’s true. Frodo could have been anyone, and the plot would still be the same: evil must be defeated by destroying the ring. Ender’s Game is the same. Though supposedly Ender was the only one who could stop the invasion, if you replaced him with another character, the invasion would still be a threat and someone would have to figure out how to stop it.
Mysteries and thrillers are made for interchangeable characters. In a mystery, someone commits a crime and it has to be solved. It can be Miss Marple or Sherlock, but either way it will be solved. In thrillers, the whole point is that something bad happens to a random person who has to deal with it. American Assassin could follow any spy trying to stop a war, and The Bourne Identity could be about any assassin with amnesia. These are all fabulous stories with characters we love, but the plots could happen to anyone.
Final Thoughts
It’s important to remember that all stories must have good characters and plot. Writing a character driven story doesn’t mean you can write a story with no plot arc, and vice versa. You still need well developed characters and plot, but only one has to drive your story. The important thing is that you realize what is driving your plot and then fully flesh it out to make a satisfying arc for your readers.
Thanks for reading!
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