1. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Character driven

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by deadrats, Dec 7, 2022.

    What does character driven really mean? A lot of places say they want character-driven stories. Sure, I understand how this is saying to focus on the character, but at the same time I don't think anywhere really wants you to skimp out on plot. So, I don't really think it's one or the other when people use these terms. I think I write character-driven stories, but plot is also extremely important to me. How do you know if your fiction is character driven enough to count as character driven? Most of what I read seems character driven. I mean isn't pretty much everything with a well-developed MC character driven to some extent? What does character driven mean to you?
     
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  2. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    A character-driven story focuses on internal conflict, personal development, and has a compelling character arc. It is driven by emotion and has a well-defined POV. The story is inside the character.
     
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  3. ps102

    ps102 PureSnows102 Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    I'm a big fan of character-driven stories and drama. Plot-driven stories usually drive characters by events and external incidents (think the inciting incident at the beginning) but in character-driven stories, its a group of characters who create incidents and later conflicts among themselves.

    So, there is a plot, a plot is a sequence of events after all. You can't have a story without a plot. The difference is how that plot is more internal to the group of characters the story is focusing on, and the characters are the ones pushing it forward as the force, rather than the opposite in a plot-driven story where it is the one driving the characters using external forces (like a natural disaster).

    For example, a love-triangle story would be character-driven because its purely the characters that create conflict by their own actions. But a story where a similar group of characters have to deal with a natural disaster would be plot-driven, as it isn't created by them. Its something plotted in by the writer to challenge the characters, and the writer is imitating nature.

    The plot would also be structured differently of course for a character-driven story, it might be a series of characters arcs, or it might be one big arc that involves all of the characters.

    Damn it, you beat me to it :D
     
  4. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    I hear what you're saying, but I'm pretty sure you can have a character-driven story about a natural disaster or other external factors.
     
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  5. ps102

    ps102 PureSnows102 Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    I've mostly seen that in long-running series or other long-types of works, where character arcs are used to develop the characters in preparation for a bigger plot... and the climax.

    But I'm not sure you can say that the events of your story are driven by your characters if you throw them a tornado to deal (and survive) with. The tornado simply drives part of the story, and so you don't have an entirely character-driven story anymore.

    It's not unrealistic though for characters in a character-driven story to encounter a small external obstacle along the way. However, if you start structuring the whole story around it, then you're starting to veer to a different path.
     
  6. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Maybe it's how you write the story that matters. I am talking about writing for the page rather than the screen. But it doesn't seem like we're on the same page about this.
     
  7. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Only if it immediately impacts on who they are as a person.
     
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  8. AntPoems

    AntPoems Contributor Contributor

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    I've wondered the same thing, and there's definitely a big gray area with a lot of overlap between the two. The best stories have both memorable plots and well-defined characters, as you said. Characters execute the plot, while plot reveals character.

    I think the most important factor is whether the main character(s)' goals are internally or externally defined. In a character-driven story, the MC is setting their own goal and trying to achieve it, while in a plot-driven story they're given their goal by someone else (an antagonist, some kind of partner, etc.), and the story is about how they pursue that goal.

    I'd call Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" character-driven, as the events come about because of Lennie and George's self-imposed goal of buying their own homestead (and George's goal of taking care of Lennie). They meet plenty of external obstacles along the way, people who are pursuing their own agendas, and George struggles with the internal obstacle of his self-doubt over whether looking after Lennie is worth all the trouble, but the fundamental action of the story is based on an internal goal.

    On the plot-driven side, consider C.S. Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" novels. They all have the same setup: Hornblower receives orders from a superior, then executes them in bold, surprising, and highly-entertaining ways. Hornblower's internal thoughts, obsessions, and self-doubt are explored in detail, and he drives the action of the stories by planning one brilliant operation after another, but the fundamental goal of the stories is an external one: defeating Napoleon by fulfilling his orders.

    Of course, there can be many goals in a story, but there's usually one that feels like the "main" one (yes, I know that's fuzzy), and that's what people tend to focus on when categorizing a story. It gets complicated when the MC's internal and external goals seem to be of equal importance to the story or when there are lots of major characters with differing goals; people may take different perspectives based on which mattered most to them personally.

    I don't think you and @ps102 are really disagreeing. The question would be what the MC's main goal in the story is: if the focus is primarily on surviving the tornado or saving loved ones from it, then I'd call the story plot-driven, but if the tornado is just one obstacle in the way of the MC's chosen goal, then I'd say it's character-driven.
     
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  9. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    The two aren't mutually exclusive. Character and plot can co-exist as driving engines, however there is a certain level of plot/action that will tip the scales away from the characters if gets too... action-y? To use your natural disaster example, there's a great chance that the disaster elements will occupy more of the reader's focus than how the characters are developing. There's the potential of not meeting expectations, whether those are genre based or not. Tell a disaster story with too heavy an emphasis on character and it might not be action-y enough for the action crowd. Or tell a character driven story too heavy an emphasis on disaster that it might not be character-y enough for the literary crowd.

    There's definitely plenty of stories that do both well, though. The Road is a great example of that. It's post-apocalyptic but you the relationship between The Man and The Boy easy pushes all the horrific shit into the background when it wants to. But overall I think all stories have a natural tendency to sort themselves into one of the two categories. They're certainly marketed and popularly identified as such.
     
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  10. Not the Territory

    Not the Territory Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    I see the term as a misnomer: if characters 'drive' a plot in a plot-driven story (as they should, being of agency), then the plot-driven work is ultimately character-driven anyway.

    The 'character-driven' trait is more closely associated with literary fiction, which is associated with having fewer plot events. It has fewer plot events because the characters aren't as certain of what they want, why they want it, how they'll go about getting it, how to react to the new challenges that face them, or how to even tell what is and isn't a challenge. The introspection is high but tends to dwell in motivational uncertainty. It's not doubt of personal ability, rather doubt on how to direct it and why.

    Characters in other types of fiction will have those discoveries as well, but they will happen much more quickly. I didn't read Harry Potter but I don't think it took him that long to realize he's a wizard, and that the evil wizard needs to be stopped.

    So when people say 'character driven' I think they mean 'focuses on ponderous self-discovery.'
     
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  11. ps102

    ps102 PureSnows102 Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Yup, that's what I was trying to say, you can have exclusively character or plot driven stories but nothing is stopping the writer from from getting creative and driving the story with both in varying amount.

    But it is risky, because you're effectively complicating things for yourself. People tend to stick to one or the other because it's more straight-forward and easier to write. If you screw up your structure and the direction of your story isn't clear to your audience then they won't like it.

    Of course, not all writers out there go for the easy :)
     
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  12. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    I guess my stories are character driven because one is living each day as it is thrown at him while we see and think through him, and the other is how people change according to the immediate upside-down situations in a devastated world. Both are a study of the human condition under duress. One is specific and the other is global. The reader gets to know more than the characters do in both and may decide different actions, then see the consequences of the characters' decisions, like watching a football game. Do bring your protective gear by all means.
     
  13. Rake

    Rake Member

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    I think Not the Territory has a point. People like to put labels on things, but it's not a Black and White observation. Telling a story is a bit like cooking in that every dish needs lots of ingredients, two of which are plot and character.

    my first post - yay
     
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  14. Pachoo

    Pachoo New Member

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    This is a good question. My answer is that it is one of those terms whose definition has become so blurry that it has effectively lost all meaning.

    For one thing, every story ever written is 'character driven,' just to get that out of the way.

    For another thing, 'character driven' has simply become a synonym for 'good writing'. Never anywhere on the internet have I ever read anyone give the opinion "character driven stories suck." Or, "I want to avoid being character driven, because those stories are bad." When something is always a positive, it just becomes another way of saying "good". So, you might as well just say "good" instead and move on with life.

    I think people just like the way it sounds, honestly.
     
  15. Rake

    Rake Member

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    I expect that leads to the question what isn't character driven? I think it can happen by degrees. Some of the early science fiction novels come dangerously close - the old B&W version of The Thing was fairly science driven. I also think some historical pieces can come close. I expect some writers are so close to a plot the characters become secondary. When a story is going to happen regardless of who it is going to happen to, things start to get murky. Deep Impact, The Day After Tomorrow were always going to happen regardless of character. It is just fortunate that the writers were smart enough to find good characters to illustrate the event.
     
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  16. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Character-driven means the the elements driving the story come from inside the characters. Plot-driven means external factors drive the story forward.

    Sure, in plot-driven the characters undergo changes, but this is in response to the plot, not the thing driving the story forward.
     
  17. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I see this in some of the reviews on Goodreads they either hate a story cause they deem it character driven or that it isn't character driven enough. But trying to guess what they mean based on the books they're talking about makes it a little tricky. I always thought it meant a deeper focus on the character - their responses, reactions, their arc on a more insular level. That they weren't just a machination for the plot - they are the plot. For me Harriet the Spy would be a character driven book because there's not much of a plot. Nothing 'exciting' happens even the character arc isn't all that terrific - what does Harriet learn? basically not to leave her notebook lying around and to apologize when you don't really mean it. But then some genres seem at least to be on the surface character driven - wouldn't a romance be character driven? But if they're flimsily drawn maybe they've lost the ability to call themselves that when their characters become types, tools, machinations.
    Or maybe it's because their originators - Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights seem to be character driven stories.
     
  18. montecarlo

    montecarlo Contributor Contributor

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    I half agree with this but not fully. I don't think a solid definitive line between character driven and plot driven can reliably be declared, but we intuitively know the difference. I think a plot driven story, you can swap out important characters and the story remains basically the same. I just read Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard. The main criminal was a smooth and confident criminal, who had clear lines he would not cross. The main cop was a tough-as-nails broad attracted to bad boys. You could write basically the same plot of the story (he escapes from prison, kidnaps her, she escapes, tracks him to detroit, takes him in) if he was a crass sociopath and she was a prude.

    Or something maybe more recognizable, my wife and I just watched the third season of Jack Ryan. Jack Ryan is an intelligent, go-with-his-gut patriot who will always do the right thing. But that's not really important to the plot. He could be a selfish ladder climber who gets put in a shitty situation, and be essentially forced to go down the same path our altruistic hero went down.

    There are lots of characters who'd love to frame NATO for a nuclear blast in Czechoslovakia. Russian usurpers and Soviet loyalists were the villains in Jack Ryan, but it could also be islamic terrorists, American neocons, Czech nationalists, etc. These characters are replaceable, and the plot survives intact.

    When I think of character driven stories, I think of plots and events that could not happen if they weren't driven by exactly the right kind of characters with the right values and motivations.

    I'm looking over at my bookshelf at Gods of Wood and Stone (Mark Di Ionno). The book is deeply thematic about manhood, and simply wouldn't work if the main character Horace didn't have a strongly held values that he adhered to. You may be able to recreate the plot with a different character, but not the meaning of the story.
     

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