One of my favorite ways to think of plot comes courtesy of E. Forster, in his book Aspects of the Novel. He says:. So, a very basic definition of plot is a sequence of events that are connected by cause and effect. Plot-driven stories are often exciting and fast-paced. They compel the reader to turn the page to find out how the characters will escape, evade, prevail, or overcome.
As an author of a plot-driven story, you have to meticulously tie together plot points to create a cohesive story. You naturally focus on ideas instead of people and their motivations. In your story, you force your characters to make quick decisions that move the plot forwards. As a result, character development is secondary to plot development.
An excellent example of a plot-driven story is Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, a haunting time-travel slave narrative. The story is imaginative and relies on the choices that the characters make to move the story forward. Image Courtesy of Amazon. Every novel has at least one character, even if that character is the reader as is the case in a second person point of view. To be successful, your characters should be memorable, dimensional, and distinct from each other.
They must have a sense of agency. In other words, your characters should own and control their actions within the world that you create. A character-driven story is focused on studying the characters that make up your story. Character-driven stories can deal with inner transformation or the relationships between the characters.
Whereas plot-driven stories focus on a set of choices that a character must make, a character-driven story focuses on how the character arrives at a particular choice. Can they win over his domineering invalid mother? This plot line is driven by events, making it plot-driven. But without a set outcome, it may or may not ultimately be a plot-driven storyline. Who cares if your story is plot-driven or character-driven?
The truth is that the technique will not show in the final manuscript. You can start with a character and generate events that suit him or her as long as those events eventually become a coherent plot.
Or you can start with plot and generate a character that suits it as long as that character eventually becomes a consistent, rounded person. But whichever you use, the end product should most likely have both external plot and internal conflict and growth—coherent plot and rounded characters, character growth and motivated events. Important exception: literary fiction may be external plot optional. What do you think? Do you start with plot or character? If you choose to use this writing style, your reader will spend time thinking about the characters and their attitudes, personal evolutions and decisions, and how those, in turn, change the shape of the plot and the story as a whole.
That change in Cruella de Vil would in turn alter the dynamic of the story completely. This internal change of the character is an example of character-driven writing. Plot driven — Plot-driven stories, on the other hand, place a larger emphasis on the actual plot itself. Factors such as plot twists, action and external conflict are what make up the focus of this style of writing. Neither is better than the other. They are just two qualitatively different approaches to narrative.
I doubt these alternative terms will ever be widely adopted. No matter which kind of stories you prefer, those driven by unforeshadowed happenstance and unmotivated characters are frustrating.
Top Tip : Find out more about our workbooks and online courses in our shop. Stretch: When we Stretch a Scene, we use a technique called Infolding Internal Monologue , where the character retreats into their thoughts and feelings as the scene plays out. Both Eve Babitz and especially Lucia Berlin were skilled at this.
Also, perhaps worth mentioning, is that toggling from In-Scene writing in the expository mode, to your infolding internal monologue , always happens by dint of a narrator shift in perspective , from outside what you see and hear to in — what you think, sense, feel.
Understanding how narrative shifts work deal with a foundational technique more fundamental than even In-Scene, Flashback, etc. Why, because all of these devices hinge on narrator WHO is telling the story shift. That said, your use of the playback metaphor was genius.
Makes the stuff clear and easy to grasp — not easy. I have too many projects going to teach much but when I do, these kinds of tools are invaluable. Few people get that forensic with the process.
0コメント