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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28316
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28316
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

At the heart of every story (or most stories, anyway) is a character arc, and in the center of a character arc is a decision, a hard decision, a decision that will cost the character something valuable, that will make them face the question of what sort of person they are or want to be.

Plot exists to bring the character to that moment of decision and to show what happens as a result of the decision they make.

That decision, therefore, is not a bad place to begin thinking about character and plot. One way into this is simply to ask yourself, what would it be like to have to choose between X and Y.

There are two key things about that choice. First, it must cost the character something. Second, the character must not want to make that choice.

So then your character development begins with, why is this choice hard, and why does the character resist making it. And your plot development begins with, what series of events will bring the character to the point where they have to make that choice, and what will be the consequence for them of making it.

Stories can, of course, be more complex than this makes it sound. Frodo has many points of choice in LOTR, and (lest we forget) chooses wrongly in the final crisis. There is a huge amount of other stuff going on, and other characters have their own arcs and their own choices. But that is the bones of the thing. It is a place to start. Not, certainly, the only place to start. But it may give you some insight into who you need your characters to be and what your plot needs to put them through.

Original score: 9