100 Things Challenge (#2):: The Origins of Fiction: Character vs. Plot

[dawn_felagund]

A few years ago, I made a statement that got people quite unexpectedly riled up. I said that not much exciting tends to happen in my stories, plot-wise. Ho boy, did people jump to defend me against myself, arguing that stories like Another Man's Cage were actually quite involved in terms of plot and very exciting in that regard. At the time, it

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[spiced_wine]

which in short, says that a story about a character (written to be realistic and empathetic) walking with a heavy sack of groceries that splits and breaks halfway to her destination will inspire more emotion in readers than a story about a character (written flatly and wholly in service to the plot) undertaking an exciting quest where she risks risks life and limb

This is so true. I have mentioned to other people that if an author who is skilled in characterization were to write an entire story that had two people sitting in a room talking, I would be engrossed. I have read many stories (both fanfic and original fiction) where the people get propelled through a series of dramatic events, and all I feel is boredom. Since the characters took second place to the plot, they were not developed enough for me to care about them. For me, those stories fail.

I start with people rather than plot.

It started with a person for me. My main OC. In the days when I was unaware of fanfic I role-played for many years. I virtually always rp-d original characters because I wrote o-fic and it was second-nature. I looked at many different rp sites over the years, and one day was just looking at the home-page of one, wondering if I should join it. The image was, I think, of Mount Doom, and I suddenly had a story fall on me, but it was the story of a character. The plot was there, but the character and what he was like, was vivid. It was the person that interested me.

I was thinking about what drew me to certain fanfic stories, and came down to the 'people'. Whether the story is set in the Years of the Trees or post War of the Ring, it's never the plot, it's how the people live through the events of the plot.

I am in the middle of writing two long stories which do have a plot, but my purpose in writing them was to fill in a gap of 25 years in my series. I knew I would come back to it and be able to wallow in it a little. I could cut it, yes, but I wanted to write the gapfiller stories to concentrate on the people rather than the plot. (There is one, but I am in no hurry to rush to the conclusion).