What is the difference between character-driven stories and plot-driven stories?
I have googled this question several times but I'm just not clear on the answers I'm getting. For example, I know that screenplays/plays/books such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Enough Said, The Spare Room and Little Miss Sunshine are character driven - I know because of the feel of them. But there is still a plot there that unfolds.
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Character driven is typically about life changes (or life ending) for a character, basically the character(s) undergo some kind of deep emotional transformation that is life-changing. Becoming a sexualized adult, breaking out of an abusive relationship, losing a child or parent. However, in the process of this, the world and society and people are not really changing.
Huckleberry Finn runs away and travels down the Mississippi with a runaway slave, Jim. Do you remember their adventures? Probably not, what you are most likely to remember is that Huck was transformed by this experience, came to see Jim as a person and a friend, and in the end put friendship over money and sacrificed to free him.
Plot driven is more like 007 or Mission Impossible. James Bond's adventures in such a story do not change him, we expect him to be pretty much exactly the same hero in every film. We go to see the acrobatics and special effects and suspense of the plot resolution. If Bond loses friends or lovers in the course of the story, by the end he is still the Bond we started with, and other than a few technicalities (recurring characters that 'died' due to actor retirement or whatever) we could watch the Bond films in any order. In fact the notion that Bond does not change applies even to his age! Which is why so many men have to play Bond, he is not allowed to grow old. As long as he has the Bond 'look' who plays him does not matter.
Another way to see Plot Driven is through TV series. The general idea for any long running series is that the characters do not really change much at all. In MASH, Hawkeye Pierce was Hawkeye throughout. Sure, he had lots of emotional moments, he cried, etc, but by the next episode he was the same guy that started the previous episode (caveat for multi-part shows of course).
Modern TV series are changing (for the better IMO) with character arcs spanning multiple seasons, and a handful in history have allowed deep character changes throughout. But for the most part, especially in comedy, little or nothing 'learned' by the characters in one episode apply to the next episode. Homer Simpson, Lisa, Bart and Marge are always the same. Sometimes it is unavoidable (live child actors grow up; e.g. in Two And A Half Men). In other cases, the original 'situation' in a situation comedy (e.g. The Big Bang Theory) or situation drama (e.g. The Mentalist) runs out of steam and the writers must take the risk of evolving to some new situation and hope the viewers follow them (in TBBT it is that the nerds start getting married, that seems to be working. In The Mentalist, Patrick Jane finally captures and kills Red John, but the show faltered when the writers tried to evolve to a new situation).
It is not impossible to mix these, and many stories do, but it can be tricky to start firmly in one mode, and then try to switch to the other. For example, The Mentalist might have been saved if it WERE more character driven, and Patrick had evolved, along with his love interest, and dealt with Red John in season 4 or so. The writers could have changed Patrick's personality enough to make him a more generally dedicated law enforcer and introduced additional long-running villains besides Red John, so he was not completely driven by just this ONE serial killer (that killed his wife and child). He could have 'grown up' and developed empathy and sympathy, so instead of just seeking personal revenge he transitioned into a hero seeking justice in his way. As it was, because his core motivations remained selfish and self-serving throughout, once Red John was gone so was the driving raison d'etre of Patrick Jane. Of course even character driven series must come to an end eventually, but in this case IMO the writer's trapped themselves and could have had three or four more seasons than they got.
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There needs to be a testable theory that can predict if a story is C or P based in advance. Technically, a plot based story follows a story arc whereby the point of the story does not resolve itself via character dynamics, but rather by impersonal forces. However, the dichotomy is more important for writers than it is for readers. For the writer the question would be "what would these characters do next?" for a C story and "How do I get from A to B to Z" for a plot based story. The Da Vinci Code is a classic example of trying to move a story mechanically, while The Bridges of Madison County works as character drama only--or try On Golden Pond. Hardly anything "happens" for example.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31598. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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