Comments on: Plot-driven or Character-driven? http://booksbywomen.org/plot-driven-or-character-driven/ Fri, 27 Nov 2015 13:42:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 By: Annecdotist http://booksbywomen.org/plot-driven-or-character-driven/#comment-46919 Fri, 27 Nov 2015 13:42:32 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=14278#comment-46919 Useful article, Anja. I’ve just returned to the rough first draft of what I hope will be my third novel. I thought I’d read it through, then do some intense plotting, before beginning to write the second draft. But that’s not what’s happened; instead, I’m revising that first draft and sharpening up on both plot and character in the process. I have a good idea of what drives my characters, and I know where the plot has to go, but I need to go deeper, and that will only come through and interaction between the characters I’ve assembled and how they behave.
Your background as the daughter of a police detective sounds really interesting, and a great angle from which to develop your crime series. Good luck with that!

]]> By: Linda Maye Adams http://booksbywomen.org/plot-driven-or-character-driven/#comment-46917 Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:42:10 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=14278#comment-46917 What you’re describing is part of the definition of the different genres. Readers have certain expectations when they buy a different genre–but most writers don’t have a good understanding of genre. They just think they do. In fact, the biggest danger is letting a writer’s preference of one element dominate a story and overbalance out of a reader’s preference. That puts it in a different genre entirely.

An example is a romance writer who wants to try writing fantasy. So she plops a romance in a fantasy–has strong characterization, some fantasy world. Is that a fantasy or a romance? It’s a romance, because it overbalances on characterization. Fantasy’s top element is always the world–that’s what readers come to the story for.

The gist of all of this is that there is NO genre that favors plot as its top element. Mystery and romance are character; the rest of the major genres are Setting.

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