Posted by Jim at December 8th, 2004

As someone who’s into writing and reading, I find myself thinking about plot and how to create one that people respond to.

There are a lot of ways to think about plot. There’s a famous book by a playwright (I think) that describes the 30 (or so) basic plots in all of literature. I looked at it once (Ed had gotten it out of the library) and was amused to find that I hadn’t thought of any that failed to fit within it’s templates.

One of my profs (Dirk Jellema, his specialties: ancient/medieval literature and creative writing) tended to describe stories in more general categories “character driven” and “plot driven.” He preferred character driven stories–something that he probably had in common with most English profs.

Character driven stories presumably focus on the lives of people and what they want to change about their lives. Plot driven stories focus on what exciting things happen next. For example: “Star Wars” is a plot driven story. “Bridget Jones Diary” is character driven.

I tend to focus less on whether a story is plot or character driven, but on another artificial distinction… I tend to think of it as “little story” vs. “big story.” It’s a distinction much like the one between strategy and tactics. Strategy being your overall plan for a war or a battle. Tactics are the best way to take a specific hill.

I’m generally better at the “big story,” the overall plot, and setting. This means I tend to get really excited about thinking how things work in the background of the story (the history behind what’s happening now or the magic system in a fantasy universe). By contrast, I need to work on expressing character traits, creating a mood, a consistent tone or a memorable place. That’s “little story” stuff. It’s the small details that make things feel right.

I’m not totally incompetent at these things, but could be better. People playing in role playing games with me have noticed this. I’ve more than once managed to create a major character’s background and understood his/her function in the story, but haven’t bothered to come up with the person’s name.

This has happened enough that some people who play with me start laughing after they ask me what a character’s name is, not even waiting for me to look stumped. One person in particular has noted that when I’m searching for a name for an unplanned for adolescent/young boy, I tend to choose “Tim.”

He’s right about that. I probably read “A Christmas Carol” too many times.

It’s little story stuff, though. I have to work on that more.