Advice Please: Plot Problems

My last WIP's premise was two diabolically different sisters who happen to be best friends. There was a romance sub-plot, a losing-your-friend sub-plot, and then the (possibly overused) being-comfortable-in-your-own-skin sub-plot.

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This sounds like Jennifer Wiener's "In Her Shoes".



Characters and a "premise" are good places to start, but I think the reader has to want to follow the characters down a path of some sort. See them learn a lesson, transform in some way (as Orion said).
Make the reader care about what happens to your characters first and foremost, but challenge your characters with tough situations so you can see how they react, adjust, fail, succeed and change.

Thomas White said:

If you absolutely must develop a plot after the characters, answer yourself this. What do they want? How are they going to get it? Where will this lead them? What is going to stop them? Or who?

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I don't develop a plot at all. That comes as a result of what the characters do.

If you wait for plot to drive characters there's a danger of ending up with passive, cardboard characters in a novel bordering on the deus ex machina.

If your characters take action, decide for themselves what to do rather than waiting for the plot to happen to them, they'll become more active in deciding their own destiny.

Personally I can't stand reading books where things happen to the characters. I prefer them to be the ones who make things happen.

justpat said:

Plot isn't always the important thing. I've read that there are 3 kinds of stories.

1. Plot driven

2. Character driven, where the characters are so interesting the plot doesn't really matter (I'm sure this isn't easy to pull off, but it can be done)

3. Setting driven. Something like the Lord of the Rings where the setting is really the main point, the characters are flat and the plot is very basic, but its still interesting.

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This is false. There is always a plot, and that is what drives a story. The Lord of the Rings, by the way, does not have flat characters or plot, but in fact makes a strong point through the details of its plot that nothing is so simple in achieving a singular goal as it seems. The "setting-driven" feel comes from the embellishment of imagry and the high voice (beowulf sort of deal) that can be put in the style category, not the direction or emphasis of plot. The levels of conflict in a story's plot, its complexity, or subtlty - changes in these do not mean there is no plot, only a plot presented in a different way. Something still ties a true story together. The plot ALWAYS matters. Subject material and presentation are a different matter.

Oliveman said:

This is false. There is always a plot, and that is what drives a story...

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Uh...riiiiight. Plenty people here would disagree with you there, and I'm one of them. Not that there isn't always a plot, but whether or not it drives the narrative. To me, plot is secondary. It grows from the actions of the characters, who come first.

Characters are what drive my stories. But, if you know my work better than I do, then who am I to argue?

scarletpeaches said:

I don't develop a plot at all. That comes as a result of what the characters do.

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But what drives the characters? What gives them purpose? What demands them to act for the entertainment of the reader? What exactly makes that particular point in their life worthy of recording anyway?

What motivates them? I ask myself, "What does he/she want?" and take it from there.

Motivations and actions are down to what we want, so...it's that simple. Ask yourself what your characters most want and that'll tell you a lot about their personalities.

My characters have surprised me countless times by taking the plot in a totally new direction I hadn't even thought of. I had a general plot planned from the beginning, and it came to fruition...but getting there was a hundred times more fun because of the characters involved.

I thinks it's a delicate balancing act (as are so many things in this crazy passion/profession/hobby).

Since I personally dislike a book without a really good main plot, it will be hard for me to point out specific examples, but I know there are tons of books out there with out them (as Scarlet says, there is always 'some' plot, what I'm talking about is when the plot is not the main driving force)

As for Lord of the Rings characters, hmm. They are so strictly good or evil, with no internal conflicts or hard decisions to make: to me, that is flat. Don't get me wrong though, they are still great books.

Mr. E said:

My characters have surprised me countless times by taking the plot in a totally new direction I hadn't even thought of. I had a general plot planned from the beginning, and it came to fruition...but getting there was a hundred times more fun because of the characters involved.

I thinks it's a delicate balancing act (as are so many things in this crazy passion/profession/hobby).

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Yeah, when my characters start misbehaving I drop pianos and stuff real close to them until they straighten up. I just haven't figured out yet how to tie all the falling items into my story.

Then the only difference I can see between our styles is that you have your characters act as the catalyst to a plot, whereas I have mine thrust in the middle of it's development.

I just don't like the suggestion that your preferred approach leads to stronger characters and a thicker plotline. I could list plenty of reasons why I think this isn't true, but you'd just disagree anyway. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but a good author can work around these and produce a great work all the same.

But...no matter if the characters go out and do something on their own accord or the action comes out of nowhere and the characters just go along with it, or whatever else falls in between, something is happening, right? That something is, in my mind, a plot...

Jordygirl said:

Why don't I do plots? (I forget who asked this... sorry!)
I don't do plots because, well, I find characters a zillion times more interesting and they always come first, so I hardly ever start out a story with a firm "plot" in mind; just a beginning and a resolve.

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But the plot can make the characters more interesting as well. I've found a lot of fantastic character development driven by complications created by the plot. It was like all these elements were coming together to make the characters grow and react and do things they wouldn't normally do. What if the plot complications forced the character into making an ethical decision? What if the character was a naive, innocent person who changed because of the plot? It's an opportunity for even more character development.

Without a plot, you might as well give us an elaborate character description. Character is revealed through action/reaction, and it is revealed to a deeper extent as extremes of situations are reached, what do they do when circumstances thrust them out of the norm, to the extremes of their reality? People misconstrue, many times, a plot where the conflict is centered on a personal or inner level rather than the extrapersonal with that of a character-driven plot. Furthermore, colorful characters, and the existence of many of them, all interacting, are both only methods used to bring out the plot of a story more, and belong in the category of presentation- a way of bringing out the plot and relating it to the reader through people that people engage with out of interest, empathy, or sympathy - a remarkable way to build trust.

I think too many people are assuming that "I don't outline the plot beforehand and concentrate on character," means "My book doesn't have a plot," which is simply not true.

scarletpeaches said:

If your characters take action, decide for themselves what to do rather than waiting for the plot to happen to them, they'll become more active in deciding their own destiny.

Personally I can't stand reading books where things happen to the characters. I prefer them to be the ones who make things happen.

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I'd go a step further... if you had a whole book of no more than "things happening to characters", would you even have something you could call literature? Anyway...

I also tend to begin with characters who then drive (or at least unexpectedly and dramatically alter my preconceptions of) the plot. But I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I do, however, definitely prefer reading books with very strong characterisation... clever plots with flat characters cause me to very quickly lose interest.

I guess it must be something to do with our perception. If I was asked to name one author who is brilliant at characterisation, it would perhaps for me be Graham Greene. Yet in Wikipedia (mind you who know who writes that stuff) the very first thing said about his style is...

His novels are written in a lean, realistic style with clear, exciting plots

It does then though go on to say...

Yet he also concentrated on portraying the internal life of his characters, their mental, emotional and spiritual depths.

But when I think Graham Greene, I definitely think characters before I think plot. Just me I guess. But I am going to take a stab here, and OK he never did make it over for a barbeque to tell me this personally, but I'll bet he started with his theme and characters before plot. His work just smacks of it.

It's his characters that give his books such strong plots. Bendrix, for one. The End of the Affair is on my 'favourite books' list and I can't tell you how many times I've read it. In fact I think I'll go and dig it out, read it again to give myself a lesson in tortured passion.

After all...if Bendrix wasn't so tortured and passionate, would there be a plot? Well he wouldn't have done what he did (and the book would have been completely different. Flat and uninteresting IMO)...which I won't reveal for the sake of spoiling it for those who haven't yet read.

Jordygirl said:

Can the over riding theme sometimes be the plot?

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No. There's a reason virtually all good stories told over the last 3,000 years have some things in common.

I think that you have a premise and a conclusion. The plot is how the characters get to the conclusion. There has to be a point to the story. You are telling it to communicate something.

When I wrote fiction in college, I had your dilemma, but now I'm the other way around. My fiction is definitely plot driven.

I think it depends entirely on the book and on the writer. (Yeah, I know that's really unhelpful but I think it's probably true.) Some people are outliners and plotters from the word go - they need a direction. I've done it myself on one or two occasions but then the characters or the book itself will 'tell' me to go in a different direction. Writing entirely character driven books will fall flat if the reader doesn't LIKE your character, which is always a risk you run since opinions are subjective, but I think as long as you've got a direction for the character, some finishing point or revelation to give the story a hook then it's always worth a shot.

scarletpeaches said:

I don't develop a plot at all. That comes as a result of what the characters do.

If you wait for plot to drive characters there's a danger of ending up with passive, cardboard characters in a novel bordering on the deus ex machina.

If your characters take action, decide for themselves what to do rather than waiting for the plot to happen to them, they'll become more active in deciding their own destiny.

Personally I can't stand reading books where things happen to the characters. I prefer them to be the ones who make things happen.

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Perhaps we're back to the distinction between story and plot.

There's always a plot -- characters do something, then come the reaction and consequences, then the characters react to them and do something else. That's plot. Even in the most character-driven literary fiction, there's a plot. You don't see characters just sitting around doing nothing, musing about their existence and then nothing comes of it.

But what we care about is story. What is the story about? If after reading the whole thing we still don't know what the story is about, then either there is something wrong or it's an experimental piece or it's a collection of vignettes.

If you can't summarize your story in one sentence, or if the summary is something like "three women live through their lives, contemplating their future" then there's a problem, because there may be no direction, no overall structure or themes or arc.

Jordygirl said:

Why don't I do plots? (I forget who asked this... sorry!)
I don't do plots because, well, I find characters a zillion times more interesting and they always come first, so I hardly ever start out a story with a firm "plot" in mind; just a beginning and a resolve.

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But do you just describe your characters and do they do anything? Characters are NOT interesting until they do something, and when they do something, something else happens because of their action. That is plot. Whether it's character-driven or not, that's still a plot. However, if that plot is aimless -- things happen, then something else happens, but they don't come together in any shape, form, or structure or theme,then you have a very unfocused story.

Serious, interesting characters DO things, and have to face consequences.

maestrowork said:

In other words, if someone asks you "what is the story about?" can you describe it in one sentence? If not, then your story is likely out of focus.

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This is a huge problem for me. I write high fantasy, and so to really understand the situation you have to understand a bit about the world. My plots tend to be convoluted, with very strong over-arching themes. "The Queen's Hound", for instance, is essentially a story about loyalty. The MC's loyalties are tugged every which way, and she's constantly caught in the middle. She doesn't decide which way to jump until the very end, and I don't like to give that part away. While this could be called plot, it lacks the actual actions (which is where most of the plot really resides), and it lacks the flavor of the book.

My YA novel is about growing up without letting go of your inner child. In SYW, I was told that that's nice, but you can't really base a book off of it. To have a book, you need plot, not theme. Meh. While the characters do have problems and do end up getting somewhere, and while the book does have a beginning, a middle, and an end, it is essentially a character-driven book.

I think that summarizing in one sentence assumes that your audience can assume a lot about the situation. "Boy loves girl who loves boy's best friend" gives a definite impression, but gives a very different impression if, say, the boy's best friend is a horse and the girl is a shape-shifter. (OK, so I'd never write - or care to read - a story like that, but you get the idea.)


So in response to the main question, I love character-driven stories with lots of sub-plots, but they are very hard to make a good synopsis for, and therefore perhaps harder to market.

Every character-driven story with lots of subplots can still be summarized in one sentence, if there's focus.

It's very important that you can give that one-sentence elevator pitch, if you want to get published.