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Writing Article - Plot VS Character Driven Stories (Patreon)

Published:
2018-06-01 13:48:00
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Is your story character-driven or plot-driven? Which is better? Should I write one over the other, and how do I identify the differences? I'll be exploring that and more in this month's article, which looks at an oft-unused tool in an author's repertoire.

You could go your whole writing career without ever knowing which of these your story is, and which you write better, but that's not necessarily a good thing.

Comments

James Kim

Is it possible for a story to change from character to plot focused or vice versa? For example, it seems to me like PA could be considered switching from character focused with Jaune masquerading as a professor to plot focused with Cinder enacting her plan. Or would you still consider this story as one or the other? Would a change from one style to another work?

Coeur
>>12801232

In actuality, PA was always a plot-driven story because Jaune himself never moved the plot along. It was always Roman, Neo or Cinder, aka his faked transcripts, which drove it. As always, plot-driven doesn't mean no character development - it just means the plot has more weight. That's why it was such a big moment when Jaune's family arrived, because they represented a threat to the plot. A story can't really change from one to the other, at least not without appearing very confused to a reader. If it does, that's normally a sign of a mistake on the author's part.

Mylen Ploa

Hi Coeur! Do you know if there's some easier way to download/filter for all of your writing articles in one go? I see some of the earlier 2015 ones don't have any tags for example. Just want to make sure I don't miss any, since I saw this one mention articles that were done before. Thanks! :)

Coeur
>>13220507

Hey Mylen. Unfortunately the only way is to click on "posts" and keep scrolling down, using the "load more" means. When I first started this, the site was rather new and didn't do well at explaining what keywords were for or what use they'd be. Also, it was a lot easier to see old posts as they were in a grid. I've tried to make things easier now and always use keywords like "creating writing" or "writing lesson", but I'm afraid the oldest articles are only reachable through the long, arduous slog.

Jim Flint

Very interesting. I honestly never really considered the differences in the two, but now that they've been pointed out, they do help identify how characters are presented in writing. Thank you.