Tag Archives: plot driven

Reading

Focusing on themes & audience expectations: Brave

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This is a post about fiction. I swear. It just looks like a post about the movie Brave.

I have three kids, aged 6 & under. They’re a great excuse to go to animated movies, and last month we went to see Brave.

I enjoyed Brave, but it’s very different from Pixar’s other movies. Wikipedia says that some people have likened it to a Grimm or Andersen fairy tale, and that seems very accurate. Brave hasn’t been quite as universally loved as previous Pixar classics, and the darkness inherent in “real” fairytales might be part of it.

But I have to say, when I see people criticizing the form of the film, I’m very confused. I’ve seen a few people call the movie “unfocused” or even “plotless.”

It’s neither.

To me, focus in film or fiction is defined very simply: do most of the scenes support the central theme and plot? Brave‘s central theme and plot is a mother-daughter relationship: how Queen Elinor wants Merida to behave (like a lady) and how Merida wants to be free.

I think part of the problem starts right there. Viewers have seen variations on the princess who wants to (to quote her father King Fergus’s assessment [behind her back]) “let my hair flow in the wind as I ride through the glen firing arrows into the sunset” before. Several times:

  • Ariel
  • Jasmine
  • Pocahontas
  • Belle
  • Rapunzel
  • Seeing a trend?

It seems like the only kind of princess Disney knows how to write. So let’s look at the trope established by these movies, using another rebellious red-headed princess who wants to be free to follow her heart but her oppressive parent tries to force her to do her duty: Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

In The Little Mermaid, Ariel rebels. She goes to a witch and gets a spell to get what she wants. So far, so good: Brave‘s Merida follows the same path right down to her hair color.

Yeah, Ariel’s rebellion causes problems, but in the end, she wins. She was right and her dad is punished by being separated from her forever (though they still love and forgive one another, at least nonverbally). The trope is repeated in several movies: princess rebels, gets what she wants, was right all along, shows evil parent how wrong they were. (Exactly the message we need to send to our children!)

Dollars to donuts, that’s the movie people were expecting when they walked in, or at least as we approached the end of Act I. But then the story turns very dramatically, and about halfway through, you figure out, Hey, this movie is about mothers and daughters, not finding true love (which is a scary obsession encouraged by a lot of animated movies—do 4-10 year olds really need romance and marriage marketed to them?). One of Brave‘s greatest strengths was the fact that it’s fresh. But violating audience/genre expectations can result in unhappy audiences.

So some dislike the movie for not following a clichéd trope that we’ve already seen at least half a dozen times. (Come on, like they really wanted to see an Ariel Goes to Scotland retread.) But to call the movie plotless or unfocused? No. Just no.

Every event either developed the conflict or moved the story forward, often by showing character changes. An unfocused story features subplots that don’t support or influence the main plot, focus on characters who are superfluous (okay, the younger brothers did kind of seem that way, but weren’t in all that many scenes), and either no theme or competing themes. In my opinion, Brave did none of these.

Actually, it seemed like Brave was an animated version of a character-driven story. I’ve defined character-driven before as “When the basic story is more about the character’s internal growth and change.”

There is an external plot (and external subplot), and they’re resolved in unexpected (and maybe just slightly too-neat, but it’s an animated film, so hey) ways. But at its heart, Brave is about the growth and change in Merida and her mother Queen Elinor, and how they come to love and accept and understand and change for one another. Did it go over my kids’ heads? Yep, most of it. Will they be able to discover new layers of meaning in the movie in ten years? Yep, most likely.

Was Brave the best movie evar? Probably not. It was good and well-told and unique, and no, not everyone liked it. But I think that probably had more to do with its strengths than its weaknesses.

What do you think? How do you define focus in fiction? How can character-driven stories translate to film? Have you seen Brave?

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Technique

Plot Driven vs. Character Driven: I do not think it means what you think it means.

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Want to learn more about plotting or creating effective character journeys? Check out my free writing guides!

When I first heard the terms “plot driven” and “character driven,” I immediately wanted to classify my work as the latter. The term “plot driven” makes it sound like our characters are jerked around without motivations or any other reasons save it be that “I, the author, need you do to such-and-such.”

That’s not my story, we claim. In my story, the characters are the driving force. They make the decisions (based on the motivations which I carefully crafted for them) that bring to pass those plot action. They are more than just cookie cutter cardboard characters who get jerked around like marionettes.

This usage is so common that I feel bad for imposing the prescriptivist label of “wrong” on it, but I want to note that there are more than one way that these terms are used, and if you’re using these terms, it’s really important to understand how other people are using these terms.

At Edittorrent a couple years ago, editor Theresa Stevens defines these terms—and reminds us that they’re not mutually exclusive:

Most writers use both character and plot to drive the story forward. Keep that in mind as we go through the ideas in this post. It’s not an either/or. It’s a sometimes this/sometimes that/sometimes a blend of both.

In the simplest form, here are two definitions.

Character-driven: When something about the character’s essential self leads to a particular action or event in the story.

Plot-driven: When a character takes a particular action so that the result is a particular plot point.

(A little too abstract? Theresa gives a good example in the post.)

These definitions work on a macro level as well. When the basic story is driving toward a particular event or plot outcome, that’s technically plot-driven. When the basic story is more about the character’s internal growth and change, that’s technically character-driven.

Many genres of fiction, including mysteries, thrillers and romance, are inherently plot-driven. There is a set outcome: finding and stopping the bad guy, happily ever after, whatever. There is a perscribed plot formula—and if you violate it, writer beware.

However, as Theresa notes later in the article, these formulaic genres also have a specialized use of these terms. In romance, for example, there is both an internal plot (the romance) and usually an external plot (which might be a mystery or basically any other type of story). These plots influence one another an interact.

The internal plot, the romance, has a set outcome: happily ever after—like a plot-driven story. But the plot itself has more to do with the character’s inherent attributes, growth and change than about specific events and actions, like a character-driven story.

Conversely, the external plot, often does not have a set outcome: can they fix up this old hotel? Can they win over his domineering invalid mother? Can they overcome their business rivalry—or might they both lose/quit their jobs? This plot line is driven by events, making it plot-driven. But without a set outcome, it may or may not ultimately be a plot-driven storyline.

Confusing enough for you?

The bottom line, however, comes straight from Theresa:

Now, you’re probably wondering why this matters. Who cares if your story is plot-driven or character-driven? The truth is that the technique will not show in the final manuscript. When I read a book, I can’t tell if they started with a character or an event. And I shouldn’t be able to.

You can start with a character and generate events that suit him or her (as long as those events eventually become a coherent plot). Or you can start with plot and generate a character that suits it (as long as that character eventually becomes a consistent, rounded person). But whichever you use, the end product should most likely have both external plot and internal conflict and growth—coherent plot and rounded characters, character growth and motivated events.

(Important exception: literary fiction may be external plot optional . . . but this may or may not be why literary fiction gets a bad rap from time to time. However, character-driven plots are usually the most important aspect in literary fiction, tracking a character’s emotional journey and change.)

Want to learn more about plotting or creating effective character journeys? Check out my free writing guides!

What do you think? Do you start with plot or character? Can you tell what others start with?

Photo credits: marionette & puppeteer: Asian Art Museum; dash & wheel—Ted Fu; steam engine drive shaft—Matthew Hine

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