So when it comes to writing, you’re either one of two things: a plotter or a pantser. And there are two types of stories: character-driven and plot-driven. The focus in this article is character-driven.
I’m a pantser that’s slowly turning into a plotter. When I started writing Not That Bad, I had no idea what it would become (*cough* the first piece of writing that I’ve finished in years that wasn’t college-related *cough*) when I finished it, or what the plot would be. It was all up in the air.
After finishing and going through it to prepare for edits, I realized that I had questions when writing. The first?
Is there actually a plot?
For Not That Bad, there isn’t. For my other writing? There is.
You see, Not That Bad was something that I wrote after college, when I was upset with how my life was going. Without realizing it, I was going through a depressive episode that seems to hit when some graduates leave school and are like “what next?”‘ Not That Bad was very loosely based off of my life when I started writing it, but it soon changed into something bigger and better. It changed into a story about growth.
Hence, the lack of a plot.
During the review period, I wrote down everything that needed to change and everything that had to do with the nonexistent “plot.” I wrote down character motivations, backstories, and the events of the novella that took place.
With that, a semblance of a plot came to be.
There still isn’t much of one, to be honest. I have a romance thrown in there, a character redemption, and background characters that grew with the man character. But nothing else. And that’s when I realized that Not That Bad was character-driven.
This leads on to the next question: what is a character-driven plot?
Here’s a great article from Masterclass that explains the difference between plot-driven and character-driven writing, but the short answer is this: a character-driven story is a piece of work that is based more on character development and can be seen in literary fiction or something based off of someone’s life.
Which describes Not That Bad perfectly.
Once I realized that Not That Bad was a character-driven story, I buckled down on writing it better and focusing more on my characters. They weren’t as fully fleshed out as they could be, and the conflicts in their characters weren’t well-done. There was a lot that needed to be changed.
Now, I’ve talked about how Not That Bad has a character-driven plot, but that is still a plot although it’s entirely different from something that has a clear beginning and end. My characters’ goal wasn’t to defeat a bad guy or fall in love. It was to grow. And through a character-driven plot, that’s what happened.
When writing, don’t be afraid to focus on your character. There have been wonderful books that focus more on a character than the plot, and the most immediate book that I can think of is Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman. (this is my review from 2017. Please be aware of mild spoilers.) There is a mild plot to it, but’s it’s ultimately about growth.
So, focus on your character if you need to. Focus on their wants, needs, dreams, motivations, and fears. And then write about it. Write something short, or write the characters into a situation that focuses more on what they’re character would do in that time and place.
Don’t be afraid to write something character-driven.
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