Balancing Plot and Character

Writing for the DenverPost.com, novelist and Colorado State University professor David Milofsky facetiously translates euphemisms bandied around by agents/editors. On his list, "plot-driven" equals "superficial" and "character-driven" means "no story." Unfortunately, Professor Milofsky's tongue-in-cheek glossary is an all-too-true commentary on many manuscripts.

An all-or-nothing approach to plot or characterization produces stories either immediately forgettable or popular among a minuscule audience. A writer is only fooling herself, not readers, if she thinks, I'm writing a plot-driven story. I don't have to learn all that complicated character stuff. Or, I'm writing a character-driven story. My fascinating characters shouldn't be bound by an artificial formula.

Ideally, plot-driven and character-driven should be proportional rather than mutually excluding terms. Successful stories (read: popular among readers) have a measure of both, though not necessarily in a fifty-fifty split. In well-crafted stories, the events of the plot force the character to develop internally, while the character's internal development evidences in external actions furthering the plot. Together, they weave a beautiful and interdependent circle of literary satisfaction.

Some genres, because of the story elements that define them, lean more toward one element--plot or character--than the other. That's perfectly okay. Readers expect mysteries, suspense, and even romantic suspense to be more plot-driven than coming-of-age stories and women's fiction, which lean heavily in the opposite direction. Understanding the preferences of a chosen genre is vital to a writer's success.

The key word in the above paragraph is "preferences." Preference favors one element, while leaving room for the other to exist. A reader may prefer the nail-biting pace of plot-driven stories, but that preference is not an impatient rejection of character development as a whole. Another reader may prefer the getting-to-know-you intimacy of character-driven stories, but she still wants to feel the story is heading in an identifiable direction. Whichever story element sits behind the wheel driving the story, there is room in the passenger seat for the other element to ride along, read a map, and point out interesting landmarks.

Premiere writing instructors Dwight Swain and Jack Bickham taught that there are two types of scenes: action and reaction (see Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain and Scene and Structure by Jack M. Bickham.). Action scenes are concerned primarily with plot, meaning they happen largely outside the main character. They contain:

• a goal
• conflict
• disaster (“Yes.” "Yes, but..." "No." "No, and furthermore...")

Reaction scenes deal primarily with characterization, meaning they happen largely inside the main character. They contain:

• emotion
• thought
• decision
• an action propelling the character back into the plot

Theoretically, an action scene leads to a reaction scene, which leads to another action scene, which leads to another reaction scene, and so on until the end. The logic this naturally implies is vital to commercially successful fiction.

To avoid a monotonous pace, pragmatic writers seldom follow this zigzag pattern rigidly. Plot-driven stories expand action scenes and either shrink reaction scenes--sometimes to a scant couple paragraphs--or skip them altogether when the action scene following requires little or no setup. Character-driven stories expand reaction scenes--sometimes stretching them out for whole chapters or multiplying them among several points-of-view--and sparse out action scenes.

The key in any genre is finding a satisfactory balance between plot and character, between action scenes and reaction scenes. One effective approach is to study the best examples available of the genre in question. Examine movies and novels. How many scenes advance the plot? How many scenes concentrate on characterization? How many are a blend of both? Where do these occur in the story? Look for structural patterns that suggest character-to-plot ratios proven to satisfy readers/audiences. Create a table or spreadsheet to diagram the scenes. The example below demonstrates how the scenes of a women's drama might appear in diagram form:

Little Women (1994)

Scene	Description	Primary Function	Length
#1	March girls celebrating Christmas Eve with Marmee	Reaction	Long
#2	Jo writing late into the night	Action	Short
#3	March girls anticipating Christmas breakfast	Reaction	Short
#4	March girls delivering food to poor family	Action	Short
#5	March girls imagining what they want for Christmas	Reaction	Long

Compare the developing structural pattern above with that belonging to an adventure story:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Scene	Description	Primary Function	Length
#1	Indy escaping with golden idol from temple booby traps	Action	Long
#2	Indy escaping without idol from Belloq and Hovitos	Action	Short
#3	Indy teaching archaeology lesson	Reaction	Short
#4	G-men interviewing Indy about special assignment	Action	Long
#5	Indy dismissing Marcus' worries while packing for trip	Reaction	Short

Writing plot- or character-driven stories is neither an all-or-nothing nor a fifty-fifty proposition. It's a savvy balancing of scene structure and genre-awareness. When done well, the only euphemism it'll send readers scrambling for won't require tricky definitions. It'll be a keeper!

This article previously appeared in the February 2005 issue of WriteCraftWeb.

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