Post #13 - Plot and Characters working together

I think I was unclear at some point, or I was not sufficiently explanatory because I'm getting the impression from people that you either write plot or you write characters, placing one ahead of the other in terms of importance.

It's not a matter of importance, it's a matter of definition and quantity of description. Both are important -- you cannot find story without plot or without characters. (If by some stroke of genius you know a story where there no characters and/or no plot, please email me...I'm curious about this.)

You need to have characters AND you need to have a plot. At the most simple level, if you have characters and no plot, they just exist on the page without a reason to do anything. If you have pages where characters are created, but they're not doing anything, that's a character study or a nice biography you've written, but that's not a story. If you have a plot, but no characters, then you've created a problem and have no one to solve it or grow because of it.

Both these components of writing are critical, but my point has been, and remains that there are different schools of thought and different talents that distinguish one from the other. There are some people who promote plot over character, just as there are some people who make more complex characters over simpler plots. It is not a mark of competition or superiority, just difference. I think for some people this is a particular sticking point that one has to be subordinate to the other, but both must be masterfully written...which explains why they spend a lot of time worrying about writing, don't you think?

Relax. Both have to be done, and you may end up doing one better than the other. It's totally okay. We all still love you.


In the great big scheme of your book, whatever it is you're writing, to have the characters and plot work together, and often off each other. It's a great dependence that cycles like this:

* Either the plot or the character exist first (chicken/egg argument)
* If the plot came first (meaning the author developed the problem first), then the character is created to solve the problem.
* If the character came first (meaning that the author had someone in mind, but not what they'd do), then the plot comes along to challenge the character.

An average plot is rescued by brilliant characters (we can point to various TV shows having weak episodes made tolerable by great acting, and by various books in an author's library being better than others).

An average character is made magnificent by a challenging plot (Frodo is an ordinary hobbit who saves Middle Earth, Batman was just a guy until his parents were killed).

Let's get more into this:

We'll start with look at the situation plot-centrically:

What's your plot? If you can't immediately spit it out in a few sentences, then you need to write that out somewhere, and keep it in mind. Now gauge that problem, that conflict, that opportunity and consider the character(s) required to really make that problem not only resolved by truly epic in its scope. (You have hundreds of pages to explore the problem...be sure it's got some weight to it).

Write out your plot, not in a long-winded clunky way, but in a pretty open and direct way. Make a whole sentence out of it. I'll make an example:

A man must overcome his issues. No! This needs more. Remember, this is your story we're discussing. This is how you're going to encourage the world to see it? This is the best you, the creator of the work, has to say about it? Break a mental sweat, let's see what you can do.

A man must overcome his emotional and mental fragility to find his sense of meaning and love of life after losing it to failed relationships, failed opportunities and fear. Yes! Brilliant! See the depth here, see the craggy nature, where we have so many elements we can expand on? For people who don't see all the richness of this plot, I'll extract them:

1. The man must overcome the issues, which immediately says that he believes them to be greater than he is, or that they will be a difficulty.
2. The man gets his first layer of depth here, listed as emotionally and mentally fragile. This makes the character compelling. How is the fragile guy ("fragile" is left for the audience to define) going to overcome the issues?
3. We start to see the issues outlined. He's lost his sense of meaning, his love for life, and he's been in some failed relationships and failed opportunities. Now this fragile guy has context.
   
4. And just to ice this cake, we end the sentence with a raw emotion, to really grab the audience - fear. There isn't a specification to the fear, so people are left to guess what the fear is. We have clues in the prior words, but we're uncertain...and intrigued.

So we've created a plot, and along the way created the mold of the character best suited for that plot. There is a natural symmetry to this creation, we have in one sentence created a problem and the being attempting the problem. Both work together, because both are integral to the other's existence. Would the man be fragile if he had not suffered? Would the issues be there if there was no one to experience them? (Please don't get philosophical, we're speaking strictly literary, to see the constructive potential of the symbiosis.)

In the course of 3 days, since teaching about Plot, I got two emails asking me how people can figure out their plots. Here is the quick-and-dirty way:

1. Think about what problem there exists in your world. (There's an evil wizard!)
2. Give the problem more depth by attaching it to consequences. (The evil wizard wants to rule the world and enslave people!!)
3. Give the problem a sense of urgency (Only one man or one way exists to stop the wizard, and time's running out!!!)

That's plot generation in 3 steps.

But, wait. What if you have a great character and no idea what to do with him? Time to consider this issue from the character side:

Who's the hero? Who is this fantastic character that mirrors and connects to the audience (so that they can relate to him) but may possess abilities the audience craves (so that they can project themselves into his role)? Go write it down. I have an example here:

He's a guy who realizes that he can communicate with animals. Okay...that's a great ability for the audience to crave, but what does he do with it? How does that power (which the audience doesn't normally have) allow him to connect to the audience? Try again.

He's a guy who realizes he can communicate with animals when he gets struck by lightning. This is the common misstep people take. They expand the character with another detail, rather than taking the existing details and pushing DEEPER. This is often the problem with most current comedies, where a character is introduced and given a power or skill, but the plot-conditions to test that skill are incredibly shallow or transparent. We want to go deeper. This is the guy the audience is going to stick with and root for in your entire book. And the best you've got for me is lightning? Think deep, think about what an audience experiences.

A guy realizes he can communicate with animals, and decides to use this power to finally fulfill his dream of fighting crime. THIS is the depth of character we wanted. If you're not immediately seeing the depth, here it is.

1. A guy (who may just like us) gains an extraordinary power, one that many people may be interested in.
2. This power allows him to do something he's always wanted to do, which is fight crime. This is also the audience may have wished for or desired.
   
3. We know that because he's chosen to fight crime, either he believes crime to be a problem or crime ACTUALLY is a problem wherever this guy lives.
4. We know this guy has dreamt about fighting crime, so we may extrapolate that dream into his own feelings of inadequacy or longing for purpose. Those feelings are felt by the audience.

Now I'm not always sure if I can boil down character generation into 3 steps the same way I did with plot, but if I had to, I'd say the parts are these

• Pick two emotions, feelings or ideas. One must be greater than the other, but both do have to be somewhat complimentary. (You can't pick "Always helps the elderly" and "fears lemons"...they just don't go together in this exercise). It doesn't matter which of the two is the greater, as long as you can keep the two straight.
• Give those emotions a body, either capable or desiring to be capable, male or female, young or old...but think about the sort of person that would have those two emotions you picked.
  
• Describe the character in short list form (see below). Physical traits, elements of voice, personal history...all of these things come into play here. Names are optional but eventually the character needs one.
  

I've written it out here.

I've picked my 2 ideas/feelings/emotions to be "Loyalty" and "Tenacity"

My character will be named "Gary".

The embodiment of "Loyalty" and "Tenacity" looks like this:

• short, stocky body
• played some nose tackle in college
• worked as a cab driver
• muscled arms
• scar over his right eye
• drinks whiskey
• calls women "dames"
• always willing to fight
• won't back down

Notice that in my description of Gary, I've created some springboards for writing. Why does he have a scar over his right eye? How good a nose tackle was he? Where did he play? How long did he drive a cab? Why is he always willing to fight?

Here's my rule of thumb: A character will rise or sink to meet the plot.

If the plot is too soft, too short, too elementary or too fluffy, then not even the greatest character can ultimately elevate it, and they will mute themselves in order to satisfy plot conditions.

If the character needs to be pushed, propelled and defined, then it is up to the plot to make this maturation possible.

All the pieces here must compose themselves into the particular engine of your story. So take the time to build your pieces carefully. You'll appreciate the hard work.