#Character driven

[bubbipond]

Character-Driven Stories - We Are and Their "lack of plot"

From a literary and film perspective...It's a long one if you wanna read...(:

I keep seeing people say We Are and stories essentially like it have no plot and as someone who went to school for this, I have realized some people don't know the word's definition. The hate-on-slice-of-life type shows always perplexe me because there is this idea in media that if a show does not have high emotions or high stakes all of a sudden it lacks plot. A plot is just a matter of cause and effect. Something happens in a story that affects how the story is told. Whatever that plot is, affects the characters and provides substance for them to keep the story going.

What I think people mean when they say that a story lacks a plot is that it is more character-driven than plot-driven. Using We Are as an example, the characters drive the plot instead of the plot driving the characters. Take Game of Thrones as an example; the goal in the story is to see who will get to the Iron Throne (yes I know that there is far more to it but that's the general goal). So no matter what the characters do, that will always be where the series ends. The villains and protagonist will eventually rule and then the series is over. It's not character-driven because whether or not a character changes their mind or dies, the central plot is going to stay intact.

Then in media like We Are, the central focus is the characters and their decision making. If Phum decides he does not want to pursue Peem then their storyline ceases to exist because the plot can only move forward with his decision to keep exploring it. This is because there is no central goal for the character once they make a decision to stop. If We Are were to be plot-driven then there would be a conflict that needed to be resolved that drove the characters. Let's take Never Let Me Go as a plot-driven story PondPhuwin have done. In NLMG the plot that drives the characters are murder, attempted murder, and imprisonment. Nuengdiao's father dies then his mother is nearly killed, leading him to need to run away because now he is being hunted. Those things make or break the plot because there is nothing Nuengdiao or Palm can do while that is happening. Nuengdiao cannot live a normal life without finding out who is after him, ie, the major plot point.

In We Are the plot is centered around friends and the lives of their friend group. The plot moves when they do and when they make decisions. Stories like highly character-driven ones do not have a basic goal or obstacle as one in a plot-driven story would. Think of it as the action of a story being where the plot lies. The reason many slice-of-life-type stories get the, "it has no plot" comment is that they do not have specific actions, consequences, or occurrences that fall back onto a central theme. Many love stories that focus mainly on love tend to be character-driven, not all, but many do. The only action in these stories that moves the plot is the relationships progressing. When the relationships stay stagnant we tend to get the time in romcoms and romances where stories get boring because the only thing moving the story along is their evolving relationship.

It is essentially impossible to have a story without a plot unless your characters are in a room looking at a wall. Even then, I am sure someone could find a way to drive a plot in that scenario.

But anyway, just food for thought. Also, disregard any grammar or spelling mistakes, my phone's autocorrect only wants to correct me when I don't need it to, never when I do... Anyway, that is all I wanted to say about it! No hate to anyone that doesn't like this show or any other one I just hate seeing people say that's stuff.

[leahjcastle]

how to build a character-driven story: an essential tip ⚜️ (wattpad: leahjcastle)

first, you design their personality. the traits. the essence. and from the essence, which is their point of convergence, you have all the answers.

my intention with each book was to psychologically explain why they were the way they were. it’s like building a case study.

like what kind of background story makes a man turn out rational, controlling, fearful, introspective?

or what kind of story explains one's impulses, explosive emotions, rage, passion, straightforwardness?

the events naturally surge once you have their essence clear in your head. for instance, i wanted Cade COLD. i wanted Traviz HOT. so their stories revolved around their respective essence.

start from that premise.

Cade's life was cold in every sense. socially, physically. it was a world of hierarchy, rules, expectations.

Traviz's life was hot in every sense. brimmed with emotions, with too much love and too much revolt, dance, hyperactivity.

the environment shapes who you are.

so whenever you’re writing a character-driven story, don’t obsess over plots. no. have their traits defined to a point it is natural to spot their background story (a collection of experiences that range from core memories to trauma).

my books: S.CHORIANS 💙 https://books2read.com/u/bPXR07 and RED PARALLEL ❤️ https://books2read.com/u/3JpAeQ you can read them for free on my Wattpad (link pinned on my page).

[miss-celestia13]

Blood Flows in a Spiral

A Jonerys Romance

Since I just posted the second chapter, I figured I’d share it here now. My new Jonerys story, Blood Flows in a Spiral, can be read on Ao3. A snippet of the first chapter can be found below the line ❤️

Summary:

Amid the turmoil of war, exhausted nurse Daenerys Targaryen faithfully tends to the wounded. It isn’t long before a gravely injured Jon Snow arrives under her care. Despite Dany’s reluctance to open up, an unexpected romance ignites.

Their bond deepens as they discover they share a mysterious affliction: strange, unsettling dreams that speak of a profound connection. To secure their future, Jon and Daenerys must unravel the enigma of these visions, facing their pasts and uncovering hidden truths along the way.

Snippet:

The white wolf howled at a moonless sky.

The dark woods stood as noble black knights, fresh from the fields of legend as he passed by their ancient rooted forms.

Forlorn and lost, his silver sheened fur marked in blood, dirt, and ash as he slunk through the forest. He moved deeper within the pine labyrinth and refused the urge to turn back. Freedom beckoned from behind, a siren song in his blood. He ignored it.

His paws kissed the cold earth with a lightness that shouldn’t have been possible for an animal of such size. His stance was confident and strong, muscles rippling under the short fur on his body. He moved fluidly, nose twitching as he tried to catch a scent of something that could help his search.

He couldn’t remember a time before this.

It felt to the wolf that he’d always been searching, always looking, and chasing hints of promise in the air that always led to nothing. The hunt was in his blood. The woods were his domain and he would succeed. He had to succeed.

The forest was a tapestry of secrets, each thread leading to a different mystery, and he had unraveled many in his time here. This search proved less agreeable, but the wolf continued on, unfettered and sure that by winter’s end, he’d find it.

A frigid breeze whipped through the trees, dry leaves crinkled and trembled as the wind swirled through the grass. It carried the smells the wolf hated. Infection. Death. War. The acrid taint of smoke never left this land, and the wolf knew it had always been so.

Snow was on its way. The sky itself seemed to hold its breath in preparation as the temperature dropped, and the wolf prowled and leaped over broken, burnt boughs. He did not know what he sought. His keen scarlet gaze scanned the gaps in the woods as his huffing breath clouded the chill air.

Branches and tiny bones crunched under his claws as he bounded through the woods and followed the strange pull he felt in his chest. It glowed and warmed, pulsing and aching with the beat of his heart.

Find me, find me, find me, it seemed to say. Urgent and silent, but heard like a dinner bell to the racing white beast.

His swift paws whispered on the forest floor, gliding through the undergrowth like shadows guided by the smattering of glittering stars above. The crisp air tasted sweeter the deeper he traveled. The scent trails left by his kin had long gone cold, and a familiar despondency threatened to overwhelm him, but something new was emerging.

It reminded the wolf of meat charred over a fire. And something bright, warm, and beautiful lingered at the very edge of it. It called to him. His mouth watered, eyes sharpening and ears flattening to his head as he took off running.

The black velvet night slowly lightened to gunmetal with fissures of ruby, cobalt, and violet marbling the clouds as the wolf hunted. Rich damp earth tickled his sensitive nose, the panicked scent of rabbits and other small creatures enticed his empty belly, but his goal wasn’t to eat.

He wasn’t sure what his true purpose was, only that he had one.

As the sun glimmered and rose, dawn broke silently like a heart in distress. The world would soon awake and bathe the day in fire once more. The wolf knew he had little time left.

Ignore the image below. It’s the banner for chapter two!

[holfelderwrites124]

Rejection!

Got a rejection from a leetle publisher for Finding Home. They liked my writing style and scene descriptions but couldn't identify a plot. Huh. I mean, fair? It's a slowish burn romanceish style creature that focuses more on character development.

This is a repeated problem of mine. My stories have character driven "plots" which means there's not as much of a defined Plot going on.

Anybody have tips tricks and hints for ... like...character driven plots?

[itsthepumpkinpatch]

My Indie Game - Blue Province

Greetings to everyone and anyone who sees my post! My name is Pumpkin Patch!

Blue Province is a cozy indie game set in a town destined to be sacrificed to the chaos deity! It's art style is inspired by Gameboy games. The game is character focused, and takes place over five days.

It's going to be pretty short, likely around an hour long. I am a decent percent through the making of the game, and I hope to soon put out a trailer and a demo for it!

[echanart]

The Gilded Cage is a fantasy adventure visual novel featuring a unique neo-noir and cinematic aesthetic. Set 5,000 years after a nuclear apocalypse, the game follows Livvie, a Nightingale girl kept as a royal "pet" all her life, on a journey to her ancestral home, the Nightingale Tree. It features Ace Attorney-inspired gameplay, including point-and-click investigations, inventory, and a character profile system. Plus a rich and immersive world!

[biblioflyer]

Discovery's character drama logic

Occasionally trips to Reddit are actually informative. Credit to MalleusManus of the Daystrom Institute subreddit for unpacking this in a way that finally gelled. I'm kind of kicking myself for not seeing it sooner. I always understood Discovery was more of a character drama than an adventure show. Yet the piece I was missing, the piece I think a lot of Trekkies are missing is that Discovery has always been a character drama first. Whereas most previous Treks were mystery/procedural/"competency porn" first.

The specific mix of characters involved rarely actually mattered (except in DS9) and you could lift the outline of the story and transplant it into more or less any Trek series or even an entirely different anthology series like Twilight Zone or Dark Mirror and only need to fudge some of the details. That isn't to say that the individual characters and their quirks didn't make us love them, but the characters were never the point of TOS & TNG except when it was a showcase episode written specifically to do a bit of character development. The point of the characters was to have the plot happen to them, to wax philosophic about the particulars of the ethical or conceptual conundrum, and then solve the problem. The problem, once resolved, largely leaves them and their fundamental conditions unchanged.

DS9 is what happens when you ditch the anthology style storytelling but are still largely plot driven rather than character driven as a first priority. The writers of DS9 had grand visions of things they wanted to happen to both the setting and characters, but the characters still evolved rather slowly.

Discovery started from the perspective of what sorts of situations it wanted to put specific characters in in order to have them react in a very particular kind of way, what sort of emotions they wanted to see emoted, and what mindset the showrunners wanted the characters to have when it was all said and done. The relationships between characters are what ultimately matters and the particulars of the plot and worldbuilding come after that.

I would have liked more attention to the particulars of setting and plot, but recognizing that Discovery's plots are the character journeys not the puzzle of the week, I definitely understand it differently now and why its always been a little tedious. Namely because I've never liked any of the characters all that much. I don't really dislike any of them, but other than Saru, I can't honestly say I have any favorites. Ariam, for obvious reasons, and Owo because of her past as a luddite I was always curious to learn more about....only to have the first one die in her first and only point of view episode and the other to only talk about her life outside of Starfleet when she needs to manifest a special talent related to her history to save the crew.

But again, its an insight that was on the tip of my proverbial tongue and I couldn't quite articulate it before. I finally get what I don't like about Discovery and why in a way this is more than just "bad show bad." It has never really worked for me precisely because the central focus isn't really why I watch Trek and what it was trying to make me feel, it didn't succeed at.

I'm still sorry to see it go, because I think it was starting to think bigger and try to situate itself better within the Star Trek storytelling tradition, its themes, and rhythms and it just got cut down as the ugly ducking was showing swan like tendencies.

[highcafgoblin]

I might have dropped a surprise novella set in my dark fantasy world that has information about the world and the prologue for my upcoming book "Suneater" included in the back matter. ... SURPRISE?🫣

You might like this if you're down for a sweet, character-driven, read with:

🏴‍☠️ Pirates ❤️‍🔥 Slow Burn 🐉 Lots of Worldbuilding 🌈 ENBY/Trans-Masc MC 💞 Fantasy Romance 🌦️ Grumpy/Sunshine

amazon.com/dp/B0…

[faierius]

I plan on releasing my 2nd book in early 2024, so it is once again time to remind everyone the first book has been out for nearly 3 years. The ebook is available foe 0.99 USD

Nrekeeka 'Keeka' Seldon knows what it feels like to lose loved ones.

First her father. Then her mother. And now her sister has contracted the deadly Amaran Virus. The Parset Department of Health and Welfare has been searching for a cure to this alien illness for decades, only to come up empty-handed. Desperate, they hire Robyn Stamos, a teenage prodigy with an agenda all his own. For him, finding what has been so elusive is no more than child's play. But he's not ready to hand it over just yet.

When family is all you have, you do everything in your power to protect them. Even if that means stealing from the government.

Binding Moonlight is a character-driven light sci-fi drama, and the first book in the Moonlit Memoirs series.

[dailysonadowfanfics]

Reading every single Sonadow Fanfic (Ao3): 1/4.6

Title: Crystal Heart

Author: Orphan Account

Website: Archive of our Own

Published: 29.05.2011

Word Count: 2.583

Suited for minors? Yes

Warnings: blood

Smut? No

Finished? Yes

Characters: Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog

Ships: Sonic/Shadow

Author Tags: One Shot, Fluff, POV First Person, Poetic, Metaphors

Author Summary: "I wanted to make a deal with you. I will trade our hearts, so I can deal with your pain that stretched on for 50 years. I want to do this because I want to sacrifice. I love you." Oneshot, Sonic/Shadow. No real warnings to speak of.

My summary: A small poetic story written from Sonic's POV about his feelings for Shadow. It's suited for minors. There are some descriptions of blood/wounds, but not much.

You can read it here

[thecrushheb]

Have been talking to my brothers about A Song of Ice and Fire a lot lately. Talking especially about George's writing, the structure etc. Especially because I'm trying to be stylistically similar for the book I'm writing.

Big topic today was how everything that happens in the whole series is driven by a character, only happens because a character decided to make it happen (with one exception I'll return to). Every POV character is doing what they're doing because they've decided to, or, if they have no agency and things are just happening to them its because someone else is acting on them, and they're still making decisions on how to react to it.

The reason for this is because every acting character is given a name and a purpose, so everything can be tracked backward in why it happened.

The second big thing, is that characters both show and tell their motivations and intent. They act it of course, but they're also thinking about what they're doing and why. It grounds them in the world and story and makes them more real to the reader.

As obvious as this all sounds, it's very rare to have it all the time for all characters. And of course, even others that do it well (Guy Gavriel Kay comes to mind) do it with a smaller cast.

Okay I said I'd come back to the exception - The White Walkers are not this. They are a force whose motivations we don't understand and it makes them so fucking scary. It doesn't work when its 1/3 major players that don't follow the intent rules, but when its acting force 1/40 in your story that doesn't follow the same narrative rules? Palpably different.

It's why it's the story you can most theorize about what will happen next. There are only a few things someone could do about their situation because you know them so well. Will they follow what they seem most likely to do they have reasons to break that?

Anyway brilliant writing and such a difficult thing to do, though I'll try

[fanciestghost]

gonna finally make a blog for my project, maybe this'll cure the mental illness that is illness-ing rn

[girl4music]

I love how Season 3 of ‘Station 19’ is just showing us all the main character’s backstories. This is what I’m talking about when it comes to character representation and development. Show us who these people are as well as who they’re not anymore. How they’ve grew, how they’ve evolved, transitioned through their adolescence to the wonderfully complex and dynamic people that they are today. How they’ve been influenced by their past and their youth. All their mistakes, all their conditions, all their flaws, and all their traumas. That’s what I want to see in TV shows. A proper exploration of characterization in everything. The positive and the negative so I can see that they’re well-rounded individuals that deserve my attention.

This is how it should be done every time, all the time. Forget about plot because the plot should be wrapped around the characters. Never the other way around.

If you do it the other way around you force things to happen that don’t have any logical reason to happen. Focus on characterization helps you use themes and narrative plot points with substance behind them.

For example, because we know Travis Montgomery is gay and has been married and has lost his husband while on duty, he has a resistance to the system and his bitterness fuels his need to help people who are going through the same or similar emotions he does.

They make the narrative relate to him and his story so the narrative itself for that specific episode resonates even more than it would if that was not ever explored. You feel something from the main narrative because of Travis’ ties to it through his character backstory.

Characterization writing is crucial to any lasting story. Not enough TV show creators/runners are utilizing the characterization to tell the story of the show itself. They’re moving on from it too quickly because they believe getting to the plot beats is more important.

But what is the point of the plot if there’s nothing there that relates to or resonates with the audience? You’re missing the bigger picture of the whole show because you want to hurry up with telling the story. But you can’t tell a truly compelling story without proper characterization exploration. It doesn’t work.

Exploring main character backstories and relationships or even just one-off character interactions are very important to storytelling and I honestly believe that the TV art/entertainment industry has lost the plot because they focus too much on the plot and not enough on characterization.

Everything becomes a mess and nothing gets a successful and satisfying endgame because of it.

Don’t put the plot first. Don’t make it the focus.

Put characterization central to everything else and I promise you that the plot will practically write itself.

Tie themes to characters. Tie narratives to characters. Show us who the characters are and who they’re not.

Let the characterization drive the whole show.

[sealwithfeels]

Sometimes I see someone describe a book/thing as 'character-driven' and I recognise it/go check it out and go 'bitch, what characters? Those bland cardboard cutouts who get bounced around by the plot?'

I'm seriously confused by your definition here

[itsthepumpkinpatch]

Blue Province Weekly Update

Welcome Back to my weekly blog about my indie game!

This week I continued working on the trailer for the demo. I've done about half of it at this point, so that should be done soon!

I've also been finalizing the demo. It should just be finishing touches from here.

Farewell! See you all next Sunday!

[bookishlyvintage]

The Poison Season, Mara Rutherford (out 12/06)

check out my thoughts here