The Art of the Story - What Drives It?
I was a huge Game of Thrones fan. I would get giddy every time the theme song played on HBO. Then, Season Seven happened. I stared at the television in disbelief at the turn the franchise had taken. I practically needed therapy after Season Eight. Why was I driven insane? The masterful storytelling of the previous seasons gave way to something else, and I didn’t like it.
Plot is the skeleton of storytelling. You can be an amazing writer with a captivating style of prose and relatable characters, but without a compelling plot, your story will fall flat. Most stories use one of two conventions to propel the narrative forward: a plot-driven approach reliant on external events or a character-driven that relies on the internal development of characters. Both methodologies have their strengths and weaknesses, but I believe there is a clear winner, and it may not be the binary choice I’ve highlighted.
Plot-Driven Stories
Let me make one thing clear off the bat: There’s nothing inherently wrong with a plot-driven approach. Countless action-adventure, thrillers, and mystery novels use external forces, challenges, or conflicts that characters must navigate to propel the story. The emphasis is on what happens in the novel rather than on the people caught up in those events. That focus creates a fast-paced story with clear stakes and provides readers with twists, suspense, and surprises they yearn for.
There is a significant downside to this method: Characters might feel flat or be interpreted as pawns only meant to move the plot. That was Seasons Seven and Eight of GoT. And that is why it was so viciously panned by a legion of fans. And that was after the characters were already well-developed. Readers react to the plot, but they respond and identify with the characters. If character arcs are underdeveloped, the story risks lacking emotional depth or relatability.
Character-Driven Stories
How readers connect with a story’s characters is a major consideration. Most readers pick up a book because they want to feel something – love, fear, or a sense of “what’s next?” They want to root for their favorite protagonists and watch their hated antagonists get vanquished. If those characters have depth, understandable motives, and relatable flaws, the reader will feel much more engrossed in the story. Again, this is what early Game of Thrones mastered.
In these types of stories, characters write the plot, not vice-versa. When an author can compel a reader to relate to the story’s characters, something magical happens. Readers become invested. They care about what happens to them because they feel like flesh-and-blood human beings. And when they care, readers are willing to follow them along their personal journeys across multiple books in the series. Everyone who read The Hunger Games wanted to find out what happened to Katniss Everdeen. The same is true for Victoria Larsen and Tierra Campos in my series that begins with Justifiable Deceit.
That’s not to say that all character-driven works are compelling. There is a downside to having too much focus on them – an author runs the risk of writing a story that feels slow or meandering without any clear external conflicts. It’s how I felt after reading J.D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye. I know it is a literary masterpiece. I thought it was as boring as hell.
So, which is better? Neither. Or both.
Blending Plot and Character
I firmly believe the most compelling stories combine both plot- and character-driven elements. That’s how I felt in the early Game of Thrones seasons, to return to that example. Characters were pushed into situations, and their internal conflicts and decisions shaped the plot’s progression.
I enjoy stories where events are defined by your characters’ thoughts, feelings, and actions. Moves and countermoves. Decisions are made, and characters react to them. That doesn’t mean you don’t throw in the occasional metaphorical curve ball. Introducing plot points that are outside of their control forces characters to adapt. Life never goes according to plan. It introduces angst and conflict. That really makes a story worth reading.
There is no right or wrong way to tell a story. Many times, it depends on an author’s personal style and how they are comfortable telling it. Do you lean toward one particular style in your writing? When you read, do you gravitate more to the characters or the plot?