The Egg or the Chicken
Posted by Andie Ryan Blog at 10/21/2010 4:10 PM 
Categories: Conflict, Characterization
Tags: character action story Arthur Hailey formulaic conflict emotion genre fiction motivation Airport fiction plot
Categories: Conflict, Characterization
Tags: character action story Arthur Hailey formulaic conflict emotion genre fiction motivation Airport fiction plot
Does plot or character come first in developing a story? Does it matter?
The fear about stories that are plot-driven, or even very strongly plotted, is that their characters will be flat cliches or stereotypes. This fear is especially prevalent with regard to genre fiction, such as westerns, romances, or cozy mysteries. Plot-driven stories also run the risk of being overly formulaic, as genre fiction can be, although this may be more related to reader or publisher expectations rather than an author's desire to manufacture the same story repeatedly by changing little else other than names, places, and the source of a conflict.
Many writers I know start with character, perhaps someone based on someone they know or "someone like" someone they know. Around that character, they build a story, a situation organically grown for the particular person they've created.
I always start with plot, an answer to the question of what happens in a story. It may be the barest structure of an idea, but from that, I start to think about the types of characters I need -- and the types of conflicts that are likely to arise among them and within them. If I stick with a series of "companies gone wild" novels, I expect that I would always have a company involved in serious wrongdoing, a character who discovers the mess, a character who is conflicted about the mess, and a character that not only invented the mess, but is intent on keeping the mess going-- at pretty much any cost. And unless I start to get sweet in my old age, someone's gonna get killed.
That's the shell.
But who are the people involved in my mess? What drives their motivations? And why are they in the situations they're in? Why don't they just quit and become street jugglers, or at least go to work for a non-profit?
When you start deriving answers to these questions, that's when your story really begins.
Because it becomes their story. Your characters' story.
You start to see how they fit into the plot, what actions they can take as their own, and how integral they might be in resolving the central conflict. They may have internal conflicts of their own (it's best when they do). They dress in a specific style, listen to a particular type of music, and react in a particular way when faced with injustice. There's a reason they eat in a clockwise direction around their plate, a reason they don't speak with their family, and a reason why they drink one martini at exactly 5:45 PM each day.
Getting to this point in your story's development -- defining who your characters are -- is more important than how you begin a story. Some people may dissent, but it is through character that a reader connects to a story -- or doesn't. Characters are the keepers of a story's emotions, and of the writer's emotions, channeled through actions (external) and reactions (internal or external) that do or don't happen. Characters are what give your story its connection to life. Get there in the first hour or the second week -- doesn't matter.
When readers say they can't wait to see "what happens next," I think this sentiment stems from wanting to see what happens next to the characters, or how a character addresses a particular conflict. Whether he's hanging by a rope from an 80-story rooftop is less important than whether or not he makes it and how he makes it. What strengths and weaknesses conspire to make him succeed or fail? If the genre alone dictates success or failure, it's less interesting because it's predictable. If it's predictable, there's less urgency to bring out your characters' unique traits or idiosyncrasies. And that's how stereotypes are born -- the danger of exclusively plot-driven stories.
This is not to say that characterizations can't be manipulated through various devices. A good example of a character "device" is taking something we have always feared (e.g., vampires) and making it sympathetic, more human (i.e., they don't want to be the way they are, they may not even like it, but they can't help it). The conflict is immediate, and we want to know more about how the vampire survives in a world comprised of people very much unlike him -- how the vampire fits in. Fitting in is a basic human need for most people at some point, so we "relate" to the vampire's journey, because if a vampire can navigate it, well, maybe we can too -- even if we pretend that we don't care about it and even if we know exactly how many standard deviations from "fitting in" we actually are.
Someone carried a column recently about the prevalence of character devices in young adult fiction, with an excess inventory of stories featuring single moms, drinking moms, jailed moms, obesity, learning disabilities, alcoholism, drug addictions, etc. These situations can easily become a cheap way of getting a reader's attention through something that most readers hope will unfold either like an episode of Oprah or an episode of Jerry Springer. While fictional stories about such situations have to be admired for what they might be trying to accomplish, for allowing those who may feel outcast to see themselves in a world that mirrors their own, and for bringing attention to social challenges and epidemics, you can readily see the dangers for the fiction writer: overstocked predictability, sentimentality, and sensationalism.
Not that you can't use character devices, but if you do, something else must be going on with your characters beyond the labels you assign. Otherwise, the character is unlikely to master his own conflict (except through a desire or expectation that he should), which forces the plot into the driver's seat. You end up on a very familiar fictional road, or you end up writing a memoir.
Same is true of plot devices -- a bomb in an airport or on a plane, for example. What was it that made Arthur Hailey's Airport such a terrific story? It had nothing to do with the bomb, and very little even to do with the bomber. It had everything to do with the innocent lives affected by one man's foolishly naive belief that his wife would have a better life if she could get a payout from a life insurance policy bought in desperation. Conflicts everywhere, all set in motion by one misplaced (and tragically unattainable) desire. Every fictional "plane crisis" movie since has fallen flat -- either the plot is too improbable, or the characters are left behind on the tarmac.
Whether you begin with plot or with character is kind of like the "chicken or the egg" argument. The point is, one depends on the other and you end up with both. Whether the plot -- the "what happens" -- is internal or external, whether its climax is a nuclear explosion or a complete withdrawal into one's self, a good story needs both. If you're going to emphasize one over the other, emphasize character. Build your ability to convey who your characters are to the reader, not just in terms of the five senses, but what they observe, what they think, and how they feel. Remember that characters should drive the action, not the other way around, and let them shine through.
The fear about stories that are plot-driven, or even very strongly plotted, is that their characters will be flat cliches or stereotypes. This fear is especially prevalent with regard to genre fiction, such as westerns, romances, or cozy mysteries. Plot-driven stories also run the risk of being overly formulaic, as genre fiction can be, although this may be more related to reader or publisher expectations rather than an author's desire to manufacture the same story repeatedly by changing little else other than names, places, and the source of a conflict.
Many writers I know start with character, perhaps someone based on someone they know or "someone like" someone they know. Around that character, they build a story, a situation organically grown for the particular person they've created.
I always start with plot, an answer to the question of what happens in a story. It may be the barest structure of an idea, but from that, I start to think about the types of characters I need -- and the types of conflicts that are likely to arise among them and within them. If I stick with a series of "companies gone wild" novels, I expect that I would always have a company involved in serious wrongdoing, a character who discovers the mess, a character who is conflicted about the mess, and a character that not only invented the mess, but is intent on keeping the mess going-- at pretty much any cost. And unless I start to get sweet in my old age, someone's gonna get killed.
That's the shell.
But who are the people involved in my mess? What drives their motivations? And why are they in the situations they're in? Why don't they just quit and become street jugglers, or at least go to work for a non-profit?
When you start deriving answers to these questions, that's when your story really begins.
Because it becomes their story. Your characters' story.
You start to see how they fit into the plot, what actions they can take as their own, and how integral they might be in resolving the central conflict. They may have internal conflicts of their own (it's best when they do). They dress in a specific style, listen to a particular type of music, and react in a particular way when faced with injustice. There's a reason they eat in a clockwise direction around their plate, a reason they don't speak with their family, and a reason why they drink one martini at exactly 5:45 PM each day.
Getting to this point in your story's development -- defining who your characters are -- is more important than how you begin a story. Some people may dissent, but it is through character that a reader connects to a story -- or doesn't. Characters are the keepers of a story's emotions, and of the writer's emotions, channeled through actions (external) and reactions (internal or external) that do or don't happen. Characters are what give your story its connection to life. Get there in the first hour or the second week -- doesn't matter.
When readers say they can't wait to see "what happens next," I think this sentiment stems from wanting to see what happens next to the characters, or how a character addresses a particular conflict. Whether he's hanging by a rope from an 80-story rooftop is less important than whether or not he makes it and how he makes it. What strengths and weaknesses conspire to make him succeed or fail? If the genre alone dictates success or failure, it's less interesting because it's predictable. If it's predictable, there's less urgency to bring out your characters' unique traits or idiosyncrasies. And that's how stereotypes are born -- the danger of exclusively plot-driven stories.
This is not to say that characterizations can't be manipulated through various devices. A good example of a character "device" is taking something we have always feared (e.g., vampires) and making it sympathetic, more human (i.e., they don't want to be the way they are, they may not even like it, but they can't help it). The conflict is immediate, and we want to know more about how the vampire survives in a world comprised of people very much unlike him -- how the vampire fits in. Fitting in is a basic human need for most people at some point, so we "relate" to the vampire's journey, because if a vampire can navigate it, well, maybe we can too -- even if we pretend that we don't care about it and even if we know exactly how many standard deviations from "fitting in" we actually are.
Someone carried a column recently about the prevalence of character devices in young adult fiction, with an excess inventory of stories featuring single moms, drinking moms, jailed moms, obesity, learning disabilities, alcoholism, drug addictions, etc. These situations can easily become a cheap way of getting a reader's attention through something that most readers hope will unfold either like an episode of Oprah or an episode of Jerry Springer. While fictional stories about such situations have to be admired for what they might be trying to accomplish, for allowing those who may feel outcast to see themselves in a world that mirrors their own, and for bringing attention to social challenges and epidemics, you can readily see the dangers for the fiction writer: overstocked predictability, sentimentality, and sensationalism.
Not that you can't use character devices, but if you do, something else must be going on with your characters beyond the labels you assign. Otherwise, the character is unlikely to master his own conflict (except through a desire or expectation that he should), which forces the plot into the driver's seat. You end up on a very familiar fictional road, or you end up writing a memoir.
Same is true of plot devices -- a bomb in an airport or on a plane, for example. What was it that made Arthur Hailey's Airport such a terrific story? It had nothing to do with the bomb, and very little even to do with the bomber. It had everything to do with the innocent lives affected by one man's foolishly naive belief that his wife would have a better life if she could get a payout from a life insurance policy bought in desperation. Conflicts everywhere, all set in motion by one misplaced (and tragically unattainable) desire. Every fictional "plane crisis" movie since has fallen flat -- either the plot is too improbable, or the characters are left behind on the tarmac.
Whether you begin with plot or with character is kind of like the "chicken or the egg" argument. The point is, one depends on the other and you end up with both. Whether the plot -- the "what happens" -- is internal or external, whether its climax is a nuclear explosion or a complete withdrawal into one's self, a good story needs both. If you're going to emphasize one over the other, emphasize character. Build your ability to convey who your characters are to the reader, not just in terms of the five senses, but what they observe, what they think, and how they feel. Remember that characters should drive the action, not the other way around, and let them shine through.
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