Being a Better Writer: Is Our Story Character-Driven or Plot-Driven?

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Welcome back, writers! Sorry for the delay with today’s Being a Better Writer post. I got a late start today. That’s on me.

Also, before I get started, I have some news about Being a Better Writer for the next few weeks. Through the end of this month, and the first week of next month, Being a Better Writer will be running a best of? Why? Because I’m going out of town and had to choose between writing new posts for the weeks I would be gone or working on Axtara – Magic and Mayhem. Naturally, I chose Axtara, since I already spent a lot of advance time this year writing posts pack a the start of summer. But we’ve never done a “best of” before. So starting next Monday, and until I’m back, Being a Better Writer will be featuring the most popular BaBW articles over the last decade in a “Best of …” format.

With that said, I’m going to dive into today’s topic, which was alluded to last week in out discussion on character-based prose. I want to talk about whether our story is character-driven or plot-driven—or even a mix of both—and what that means for your story.

So hit the jump, and let’s get talking.

All right, we’re just going to dive right in with this one. No beating around the bush. So then, what is character-driven or plot-driven writing? Let’s define those terms first.

With a caveat. Sorry. See, if you Google something like “Character-driven versus plot-driven” you’ll find two different answers that show up. You’ll even find results disagreeing over which answer is the “proper answer.”

In other words, whether or not you agree with the definition I’m about to give for each term may come down to what school of thought your teachers espoused, or which one you ran into first online. As with most things, there are arguments for and against both. Personally, I happen to side with one, and I’ll explain why after I offer my definitions.

So then, to the definitions of the “side” I go by: Character-driven stories mean that progression of the stories are driven forward by the choices of the characters themselves. IE, our protagonists. If then end up in a spooky haunted house, it’s because they chose to end up in a spooky haunted house. They might not have known it was spooky and haunted, but they’re there because of choices they made.

Plot-driven stories are the opposite of that. These are stories in which the progression is not driven forward by the choices of the protagonist, but by exterior means. For example, if a character ends up in a spooky haunted house because they’ve been manipulated to do so by a choice they can’t refuse … or even had no agency in the decision at all.

What this really boils down to is whether the protagonists are acting in the story, or whether they are being acted upon. For example, if we take the classic “hero’s journey” metamyth, a hero may choose to set out on their journey on their own because they feel a drive to do so … or the antagonist may show up and force them into it by slaughtering their family and taking a hostage “unless the hero does X.”

Now, if a number of you are thinking “Don’t a lot of stories have both?” then never fear, you’re 100% correct. A lot of stories do have both. Sort of like how there’s a balance of “Show versus Tell” in any good story, most stories will have a balance of character-driven progression and plot-driven progression, tipping one way or another based on the exact details of the plot.

For example Colony, the first book in the UNSEC Space Trilogy, opens with a character-based progression, followed by a plot-based progression. The opening prologue chapter is a character choosing—at great risk to himself—to build holes into a logistical program he’s in charge of so that one day that hole can be used to free Earth’s colony worlds. It’s a choice he is making.

The following chapters, however, see the protagonists of the story gathered together against their will, many years later, by the employer of the individual from the prologue, and given an “offer they can’t refuse” to track the guy down for his actions in the prologue.

So, while the character in the prologue is making his own decision, driving the story forward by his own choice and character, the protagonists in the opening of the book are later ensnared by that choice and kicked into the plot by it. While they have a choice, it isn’t really much of one. They end up on a ship to Pisces because the plot drove them into it, even if they did have a choice between “go on this mission or be stuck in arrest for an indeterminate amount of time.”

They had agency in it, yes, but sort of in the same manner everyone always has a choice to slap themselves hard upside the head. The option that they were pushed to take by forces outside their control was “Go to Pisces and find the prologue character.”

Now, after that? They’re on their own, and all the choices they make start colliding with, and even against, the choices of other characters in the plot, and the story as a whole moves forward.

Again, this is meant to illustrate that many books and stories have a mix of character-driven and plot-driven progression. And sometimes figuring out which it is can be a little nebulous as well. In the example given above, for instance, One could argue that since the prologue character makes the choice to embed his little code snippets in his project, setting the plot in motion, the protagonists aren’t being driven into the story by a plot decision, but another character’s decision. Where that line is happens to be a bit nebulous, however, because that prologue character, while impactful in the story, is not a viewpoint character the story revolves around. The core of the story follows the trio who are sent to Pisces, not the prologue viewpoint.

In other words, viewpoint matters. Technically an antagonist burning your hero’s village to the ground is a choice they made. But since we’re following the hero, not the antagonist, from the hero’s point of view, this development is an external influencer on their actions.

External or internal influence on our protagonist is another lens we can use to decide if our story or a progression is character-driven or plot-driven. Is what’s pushing things to move forward in a scene or arc driven by what comes from within your protagonist, such as their choices or desires? Or is it driven by what comes at them from without, from others acting on them externally?

Okay, here is where I’m going to step back for a moment and finally get to that other definition I mentioned. Which … When you read it, I think you’ll be able to see how people could move from what we’ve talked about above, with internal versus external, acting or being acted on, to what a portion of writers/readers hold plot-driven/character-driven stories are. you ready for this? This is the other definition that some hold to. I have my option on this, but I’ll present the definition before I speak on it.

Ready? Here goes: character-driven stories are stories that are concerned with the internal emotions of the character, while plot-driven stories are concerned with external elements like action and adventure.

That’s it. And personally? I think this definition sucks. It’s crap. For one, it’s kind of vauge, and even worse, it doesn’t really add much to how you look at a story. Worse, a story can be both inwardly focused on a character’s emotions and full of action. I’ve read plenty.

Honestly, one of the criticisms of this definition that I happen to agree with is that it’s vague and self-aggrandizing, especially as some critics note that those who subscribe to it tend to decry any work that isn’t “character-driven” as being inferior, and that those stories that laud themselves as “character-driven” by this definition tend to be quite melodramatic or overly indulgent in emotions.

Yes, I bolded that word for effect. Honestly, however, this definition just has issues. Arguments arise because a book has a scene of action or two that it cannot be “character-driven” despite the rest of the book languishing in internal emotion, while other’s will say their book fits the definition in order to pull in readers looking for developed characters, just to flood them with internal musings and emotion that could border on melodrama.

It’s just a really poor definition, and frankly I think it’s inferior to the alternative, which is looking at what forces act to progress the story.

Okay, so getting back on track from that sidestep, how can we use character or plot-driven elements in our stories?

Well, if it helps, I like to think of it as a framing device for your story. We’ve used the analogy of a story being like the framework for a building before, where you lay a foundation and then put up a frame atop it, building walls and windows, etc etc.

Well, I see the knowledge of which elements our plot can be driven by as a framework tool. Like a carpenter’s protractor. See, here’s the thing: For any story, there’s very likely a way we could make each progression, each choice, or scene, or act, happen either as a character-driven one, or as a plot-driven one.

For example, if we return to the opening chapters of Colony, I could have written them so that each of the three protagonists chooses to go to Pisces all on their own and finds some inciting moment that pulls them into the hunt for Rodriguez. However, doing so would have required a large expansion to each character’s introduction and would have changed their motivations in ways that wouldn’t have worked well with the story later.

By contrast, choosing to use a plot-driven progression to bring them into the story allowed them to have characterizations that effected the later elements of the story in ways that were better for the overall tale I wanted to tell. And so I went with the plot-driven opening, so that the character-driven elements would line up more neatly later.

This was a framework decision. I looked at my options for framing the opening, character or plot, and chose the one that served the rest of the story I wanted to tell better. Likewise, being able to apply this tool to your own story and look at how making a progression happen due by character-driven or plot-driven events allows you to see how one or the other may affect your story, and in turn choose the one that you feel serves the story best.

Each has their advantages and disadvantages. For example, with a character-driven progression, your character has to want to do the thing that will progress your story, such as set out from their humble home to make their mark on the world. This is why so many hero’s journey style stories start with a plot-driven incident, such as the loss of something valuable that only a quest can recover or the like: otherwise the protagonist is often quite happy where they are, with no desire to leave. So if our character wants something, a character-driven progression can work as long as they’re in-line with it. But the moment they don’t want that, a plot-driven progression may be necessary or more useful.

But there are other advantages and drawbacks as well. For example, if our readers really understand our character, than it may be hard to surprise the reader with the character’s decisions, and our story might become predictable.

Plot-driven progression, on the other hand, can catch a reader as off-guard as it does the characters, since it can be an external influence that strikes without warning. Again, I’m not saying it can’t be predictable as well, since you’ll still need to follow the logic of your setting, nor that a character-driven plot still can’t surprise the reader with a clever protagonist’s decision, just noting that in general, choosing one or the other comes with ramifications for the rest of your story.

And again, ideally you’ll use both over the course of a work. Like Show versus Tell, choosing what drives progression of your plot will likely change from act to act, chapter to chapter, or even scene to scene.

But also like Show versus Tell, knowing what each is, and how they work and interact with the storytelling process, is incredibly useful knowledge to have.

So, to recap: Character-driven and plot-drive are determined by who or what causes progression in a story, chapter, or even scene. Are our characters driving things forward? Or is an external element doing so. What drives a chapter may be different than what drives the book, and we may juggle the two of them.

However, knowing what each is, and how choosing one method of progression over another can change or affect what we’re working on, is valuable knowledge. Once again, the knowledge of such is like having a carpenter’s protractor in your writer’s toolbox: it will help you analyze how to frame chapters and the story as a whole.

So, know the difference, and keep that tool handy. It’ll be useful.

Good luck. Now get writing!

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