#character driven story

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

I may not be able to write for crap myself, but I AM crazy insane feral about character-driven storytelling and about character consistency and development, so I make for a very annoying beta reader who WILL help you develop your characters and write a more emotionally compelling story

[t-lane-writes]

Story and its Character

Or is it a Character and their Story?

Should a story be character driven, or plot driven? And what does it even mean?

I still don’t think I know how to define that distinction. I used to imagine that writing a character driven story means that you start writing it, and it flows, and characters are doing things that result in consequences which prompt further actions and so on and so forth. A character decides where the story goes. A character “drives” the story.

Well, I thought to myself, I can’t write that kind of story. If I let my characters drive the story, they’ll just sit in the corner and wait for a story to happen to them. Because that’s how I roll, IRL. This kind of story isn’t very interesting, though, is it? So I would choose adventures for my characters and put them through a wringer. And I thought that this is a plot-driven story.

It is not necessarily how it works, though.

I have watched a tv show recently, that I shall not name and it was an example, I think, of a plot-driven story, and badly executed at that. They not only bent the characters to serve the plot, they also bent worldbuilding and, actually, the laws of physics (and biology, chemistry, geology, and also common sense). Actually, characterizations made the most sense, but it was in no way a character driven story, despite having interesting characters. One thing that struck me, was a comment from the show producer, regarding symptoms of a (fictional) illness one of the characters suffered from, “The symptoms of the disease are based on several real diseases. We needed certain symptoms for the stories.” And when I watched the show and saw what symptoms they chose, as well how they explained what caused the illness and how it was later treated, it became clear that it was all the depth they were going for – have an illness that would interfere with some adventures, cause another character to do something that was a plot point, and then be cured.

Same as they needed another character to question the MC’s decisions, so the MC would have an adversary, then their rebellion would cause another plot point, and then they would “understand” the wrongness of their actions and would join the MC.

.#

To sum it up – if you let fictional characters make decisions, they can sometimes lead you nowhere, or into a difficult no-win situation. But if you bend and twist everything to serve the plot you set in stone – you create a story with little emotional impact, not engaging, at best, and plain ridiculous at worst.

.#

Frankly speaking, I don’t think there should be a distinction between a character-driven and plot-driven stories. Both, characters and plot, should be equally developed.

That’s what I love so much about the Snowflake Method – it alternates between a step that’s focused on the characters, and a step that focuses on the story. In the first step, you give a hint of who the MC is, and what happens to them. In step two you mention a few things that lead to that most important thing happening – so that’s plot. But then you need to write about what the MC and secondary characters want, need, such things. Then you write a synopsis of the plot, and then a synopsis of a plot as it happens to MC and several secondary characters – separately for each of them.  Then you write a detailed plot, and then a detailed character sheet.

Knowing where your story goes fuels you knowledge about what makes those characters tick. And knowing what makes them tick, gives you ideas about making the plot more detailed.

Then, while writing actual scenes, you have to remember about your characterization, that’s what really matters. You can’t have a character who is levelheaded making irrational decisions, just to create a plot twist. But you can still have that plot twist, you just need to get to it another way. Does it mean the story is plot-driven, because it’s important to have that plot twist? Or is it character driven, because you respect that character’s temperament and goals, and things they do still have consequences that shape your plot?

Well. Maybe it’s both?

That’s my take from this conundrum – that a writer needs to respect both, characters and the story they are telling. And also… laws of physics... ;)

[amazonclimber]

You ever start writing and just go completely the wrong place? I’m trying to write a comfy slice of life about a mage running an item shop, and the guide - who’s just meant to introduce the town and show him around - keeps trying to convince him to run away with her and go on adventures.

[maranull]

anyway, Elden Ring is about love and hope

Marika burns everything she has build out of sorrow

Ranni banishes the Outer Gods and also fucks off the Lands, giving agency back to the normal beings of the Lands

Fortissax endlessly fights Death for his friend/lover

Melina burns herself and Erdtree in hopes of a better world in the hands of the Tarnished

Blaidd fights against the very reason he was created out of love for his sister

Ranni and Rykard always keep an eye on their mother, protecting her

Radahn evokes so much love from his troops that they organise a whole festival to give him a honorable death even in his madness

Radahn learns an entire new school of magic in order to still ride his favourite horse

Boc's love for his mother, his mother's love for him

How all but two endings are build on the hope that this new era (whatever it might be) will be good

Miquella attempting to create an whole new world-tree to host the forsaken and the damned

Miquella turning on the faith he was raised and even believed in to an extent, when it was unable to cure his sister's curse

The Cleanrot's loyalty to Malenia and their endurance of the Rot, only to stay in her service

Malenia marching through the entire continent in search of her brother

Finlay traveling all the way back on her own, carrying the incapacitated demigod on her back

Tanith's love for Rya

Dialos' entire questline

Edgar being driven mad after his daughter dies

Vyke embracing, to a point, the Frenzied Flame in order to save his finger maiden

or you know, that's just how I see it

[lilianade-comics]

My brain gaslit me into believing that Valerie got her outfit upgrade in D-Stabilized because she was the only remotely acceptable thing about that episode, so imagine my surprise upon watching Flirting With Disaster again and Technus, Lord of Drip and Shipping Gray Ghost, shoots her with the drip-upgrade beam and she (and everyone else standing around her) doesn't even question it.

[stardustedknuckles]

It's looking like there's a growing divide between Campaign watchers and Tlovm watchers in terms of like. We're here for the characters. 12-episode seasons aren't. They can't be. I'm already making peace with everything we'll lose in the Mighty Nein show, and I know I will enjoy it for what it is but I also know that almost nothing that made the story so special will translate to the screen, because turning it into a show automatically means (in this day and age) that plot must be the number one priority. They've already come out and told us it's going to be different, the characters we know and love but new stories.

Because that's how this has to work. And I feel bad for campaign one lovers, because while it is certainly the easier of the two to translate to a big, overarching story, even though it's a more "traditional" high fantasy story with easier archetypal characters, the archetypes and the plot aren't what cemented most people's love for the campaign. So much of the love for critical role is stored in the interpersonal dynamics and the payoff that comes from hundreds of hours of tiny interactions that one day become cornerstones of development and even affect or dictate the plot.

There's no room for that. There's no room for Bard's Lament in a story that cannot afford to remove and replace a main character. A lot of tlovm is for people who have been here for all of campaign one. Most of it, however, isn't. It's for a new crowd. While CR may have creative control, you can bet your ass that there were months and years devoted to figuring out how to map a character-focused love of the show into a plot that hits the right beats to be viable in the show market.

And it worked. Tlovm has consistently high viewing numbers, and its popularity has brought and will continue to bring new people into the universe who have never interacted with CR previously. That's not a bad thing - imagine finishing your favorite show and discovering it has another FIVE HUNDRED HOURS of the equivalent of behind the scenes content. That's incredible for these newcomers. But man, it is in many ways a loss for us.

[navree]

"rhaenys could have ended the war by dracarysing all the greens right there" yes because a distant relation to the throne deciding to barbecue an anointed and publicly positively hailed king and his entire family who is well loved within the city and in multiple other parts of the country for the sake of the succession of a far-away princess no one was ever on board with who hasn't been seen by the populace in literal years, her psycho husband, her three obvious bastards, and two toddlers from the psycho husband would go over super well with westeros and especially in king's landing where scores of the still-cheering population were killed for no reason by that same dragon who would do the barbecuing, because when targaryens act unilaterally without thinking of how the people would react there's never any problem, which is why the storming of the dragonpit and robert's rebellion were actually just collective delusions dreamed up by readers who hate rhaenyra and not key parts of the story and house targaryen's history that directly contributed to their demise and are intrinsic to the plot

truly team black stans are made up of only the most genius and media literate amongst us

[clarkgriffon]

ALPHABETICAL FAVES ⟹ S is for… Sasha Waybright

[prideprejudce]

the more i think about Oppenheimer the more disappointed i get because at its core it’s such an interesting story to tell. like the whole manhattan project catapulted the entire world into a new atomic era that we could never go back from whether we were ready for it or not. and the fallout from the project not only changed and devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands of people (including of course the victims in hiroshima and nagasaki + the people living in new mexico where they tested the bomb) and the continued generational trauma of the bombs. also just the general mass panic and fear that the Cold War instilled into every citizen in the states who were literally waiting to one day be just annihilated by a nuclear attack. the whole creation of the atomic bomb had so much impact on the world. so doing a deep character study of both oppenheimer and his colleagues on the moral ambiguity of their work in the project and the outcome of it is such a great movie concept. but the film didn’t feel like that at all. instead Nolan gave us the watered down story that he’s best at and spent almost three hours forcing us to watch whether oppenheimer had to lose his disneyland government fast-pass due to his communist ties or not (spoiler: he does) and how strauss doesn’t like him because he got his feewlings hurt once. all the other scientists and physicists were given one or two minutes of screen time and were really just names to a face. the actual bombs creation was given a sidelong glance and trivial explanation at best. and of course to tie it all off the main female side characters were either naked/having sex for 80% of their screen time or was given the character depth of a piece of tissue paper

[nadiajustbe]

"Movie Howl is better than book Ho-" Lie. Slander. Misinformation. Error. Delusion. Objectively wrong.

[color-beyond-lines]

It’s how the kids “raised” by Tony are all affected differently as adults.

Babe, who believes his life is only worthwhile because of his special senses and skills. Who pretends to not need love but is longing for it. Who thinks that he cannot be loved because he is unworthy of love.

Charlie, who believes his life is worth less than other people’s and would rather sacrifice himself than see others suffer. Who thinks he shouldn’t be loved because it will put the people who love him in danger.

Jeff, who believes his life threatens anyone who knows his abilities, so he keeps everyone at an arm’s length away. Who thinks he cannot be loved because it will only lead to hurt and frustration.

Pete, who managed to escape Tony’s grip, but is still entangled in his web. Who saved himself and is now desperate to help others do the same. Who hasn’t given love a chance because he’s still only relying on himself.

Way, who believes he can force love if he tries hard enough. Who never considers life beyond Tony’s influence because he doesn’t think such a future is possible. Who is desperate for love but doesn’t realize that he is already loved and surrounded by a family of his own.

Kenta, who believes that if he does everything Tony asks of him, he will be loved. Who doesn’t understand that a man like Tony does not love but only uses. Who has lived in exile for so long that he’s lost sight of love and only knows loyalty.

It’s how they are all survivors and how they learn through the course of the show what love is and what it isn’t. And that they are capable and deserving of love despite what they were taught as children.

[bonaesperanza]

Damen's also a victim of gaslighting if you think about it, and it explains so many things about him.

Kastor seems to have taken care of him a lot while he was growing up (based on the amount of childhood memories that Damen has with him) and Kastor also fucking hated him. A child in that situation will sort of self-gaslight, they'll convince themselves that they don't see what they do so they can maintain a fundamental sense of safety despite their objectively unsafe environment. The end result is exactly what Damen is - someone who's pretty bad at telling apart those who love him from those who mean him harm.

If Kastor treats him like shit - Kastor fucking stabbed the barely teen-aged heir to the throne in the guts, mind - that's because Kastor is treating him like a man, he's giving him tough love and not coddling him because a prince doesn't need coddling, he needs tempering and seasoning instead. Damen is lucky to have a brother who'll stab him in the guts so he can become a better man and ruler, unlike those arrogant, spoiled other princes who get *checks notes* affectionate relatives.

And if Kastor is treating him like a man that's because Damen's earned it - Damen has a particular fixation about "earning it", whatever "it" is in a particular situation, because the main issue of contention between him and Kastor is that Damen gets the throne by default, regardless of who deserves it more, and therefore (in Kastor's view) Damen is a Bad Person who's screwing him over by his very existence. Damen's answer to this is to make sure that he works hard and is the best at everything (and working hard for things is actually a genuinely good value to have, mind), because this way he DID earn it, he DOES deserve it more, the better man has the throne, so peace on planet Earth, right? But he doesn't understand how this just further humiliates and angers Kastor, who then vengefully retaliates, the truth of which Damen, who loves Kastor and seeks his approval, can't handle emotionally, necessitating the "this is tough love, because I'm a strong man" mental defense.

I think this is interesting because it really spills over into Damen's incorrect conclusions about Laurent, sometimes in kinda embarrassingly stupid ways - because Veretians are Bad and being a spoiled cunt who's never had to work hard for anything is also Bad (in a very visceral way, because it's what Damen is desperately trying to avoid being), the Veretian prince must be both, concludes Damen after a 0.5 second glance at Laurent's resting bitch face. "A prince doesn't need to be coddled, he needs to be seasoned," says Damen to Paschal about Laurent, even though he's only in the position to have this conversation in the first place because Laurent's entire family died by the time he was 13 and he is currently being hunted down like a dog by his only remaining relative.

I also think that this is the foundation on which Damen's attitudes about slavery are able to change and develop - if his idea of someone deserving something is based in whether he's earned it (as opposed to birthright), becoming a slave is an easy way to disprove his current worldview about how much "earning it" matters in a fundamentally unjust society: first of all, Damen can't earn anything if Laurent doesn't allow him the opportunity to. Once Laurent does allow it, no matter how competent Damen shows himself to be, no matter how much Laurent treats him as an equal, no matter how much Damen earns Laurent's respect, this is all still happening at Laurent's whim and Laurent can turn around and treat Damen like a servant again, praise his military prowess with one breath and threaten him with a whipping with the next, and there's very little Damen can do about it. Damen goes from a privileged man's idea of meritocracy (I worked hard for it so I deserve it) to a more 360 degree one (some people can never have what I have no matter how hard they work, because I am fundamentally privileged).

Finally, it's really obvious that Damen also loves working for it in his romantic relationships, which probably stems from the same roots as all of the above, but it's a particularly interesting framework for drawing parallels between Laurent and the rest of Damen's life. Not only is Laurent the undisputed champion of Being Hard to Get, Laurent also hates Damen because Damen unthinkingly took something precious away from him (just like someone else!), and Laurent is also very punishing towards Damen over it (just like someone else!). But this time, Damen is actually capable of earning Laurent's respect (because facts will always take precedence over pettiness for hyperrational Laurent), and then his love, because Laurent is willing to see Damen as a person with feelings- as a man who loves him and cares about pleasing him - and not just as his role in the tragedy of Laurent's life.

I just think it's interesting to think about, is all, because I feel like the knee-jerk instinct is to analyze Laurent's more overt fuckedupness while not thinking about how Damen needs to also be kinda fucked up to find the thornbush pleasing to the extent that he does.

[howtodisappearcompletelyand]

20/10 stars little guy

[books4evermorr]

Wake up everybody

Another reason to live just dropped

[gale-gentlepenguin]

There are two types of writers

1. The ones that use their characters to drive the plot

2. The ones who let their characters tell them what they do in the plot.

And the difference in writing of these two shows.

[nostalgebraist]

You know it occurs to me that Helluva Boss is basically "Trolls! The Sitcom." But like, in a good way, though