Much is made of the difference between writers who plot and those who make it up as they go along. We hear less about the writerly focus – is your story heavy on plot or do you focus on character arcs?
“Even if our story is fairly balanced, either our plot arc or our character arc is likely to have more of the focus in the story,” Jami Gold says in a guest post on the Writers Helping Writers blog.
What’s the real difference? “A balanced plot-focused story still includes a major character arc, but the character’s internal change doesn’t determine the direction or essence of the story as much as the plot does,” Gold explains. “A balanced character-focused story still has a strong plot arc, but the essence of the story lies more in the character’s choices with those events and dilemmas.”
So, how do you know what you write? Gold suggests a few internal queries:
- When you think about your story, do you think more about the cool plot event or about your character’s emotional struggle?
- When describing your story, do you talk about what happens or how events affect your character?
- Most importantly, which could you change more easily without affecting the essence of your story: the character’s choices and growth or the plot events that cause the character’s struggle?
“In addition to being able to judge how well our story matches our intentions, knowing the focus can help us recognize when advice won’t apply to our story,” Gold says. “If we have a plot-focused story, all the tip-filled blog posts and feedback suggestions about character arcs might not be helpful to us and might even make us question our writing skills. On the other hand, if we have a character-focused story, all the advice about including a strong villain or antagonist plot might make us worry our story will be boring.”
