Lesson 5: Character is Plot

[Tamur]

Lesson 5: Character is Plot, Plot is Character

The majority of those who read fiction read it to feel a sense of companionship. Even action plots revolve around their characters. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "Character is plot. Plot is character." Though some could argue that these are very different areas of writing, there are two senses in which this statement is perfectly true:

1. If your reader doesn't care about your characters, then no matter how intriguing the plot is, your reader will quit halfway through.
2. If the plot isn't creating situations in which characters change, your reader might finish, but she or he will feel cheated out of the time spent reading.

We have four weeks in which to cover character, and what a packed four weeks! To start off, let's define what Fitzgerald meant with his sentiment. But first, some basic mechanics.

Character Definitions and Backstory

I almost left this out in my first draft, but those who are just beginning the craft of fiction may need a reminder. Each character who will receive anything greater than a few paragraphs in your story needs a backstory and a definition. What are these?

Backstory is a brief description of a character's history up to the point at which the story starts. It's a story or summary that no one will ever likely read, and it can be as short as a single paragraph or as long as several pages. In general, the more detailed the character's backstory, the richer the character will seem to your readers. Backstories can be a simple set of sentences, or they can be narrative stories in themselves.

A character definition is a summary of the character's motives, feelings, and characteristics. There are more ways to do this than you can shake a stick at, but the two most common ways to do this are:

1. Create a list of questions that the character has to answer (in character, of course - i.e. "how would you react to a bee sting?")
2. Make a list of topics you need to fill out for each character (height, weight, tea preferences, favourite movie/medieval weapon, allergic reactions, etc etc)

Character is Plot

Nearly all well-crafted stories begin with at least one main character in a state of character conflict. The story builds up to the point where this conflict is strongly highlighted, leading to a resolution of the conflict — either the character changes so that the conflict disappears, or the character hardens that conflict into a permanent characteristic (and so brings about tragedy). Achilles in the Iliad builds up his fury until the dragging of dead Hector, after which he changes and loses his blind rage. In the same story, Ajax faces his sense of loss, and it destroys him instead of changing him.

If a character is so stereotypical that he or she has only predictable internal conflicts, then the story is bound to fall flat for nearly all readers. The change this character will undergo is so obvious to the reader that he/she will lose interest long before the end.

Character Conflict

The question remains: what is a character conflict? Luckily we're not talking in pop psychology terms here.

Character conflict refers to a single statement that defines a disconnect in the character. This is abstract, so here are some examples.

• If a character is powerfully-built, works as a mechanic, and at the weekend he enjoys collecting wildflowers, that's a disconnect.
• If a character loves to work with wood, but is pathologically afraid of splinters, that is a disconnect.
• If a character enjoys causing pain to other people, but has an uncanny way of soothing animals in distress, that is a disconnect.

Obviously these are not stunningly good examples, but hopefully the point gets across. These can be tiny or large issues, and there can be many of them in a single character.

Defining Character Conflicts

As an essential part of character, character conflicts need explicit definition before they can be useable. How do you boil down something that can be deeply complex into a single sentence or short paragraph?

First, examine the character's backstory and/or definition (if you haven't either, write at least one!). Is there something here that sticks out as an obvious conflict? This requires a pair of opposing points in the character, so look through the entire backstory and find all the conflicts you can.

Next, write down these conflicts in as few words as possible. Now, could someone who isn't you read this and understand it perfectly? If not, you'll need to add enough of a backstory in the conflict description to make it very obvious.

Finally, depending on how long your story is or how brave you are, weed this list down to at most three items. There are authors who keep all the character conflicts in mind as they're writing. However, my take is, if you aren't going to bring it to a decision point and resolve it one way or the other, why keep the reader thinking about it? Simplify.

Assignment: Due a minute after midnight GMT on Wednesday, 4 June.

Length: variable

Three steps:

1. Think over your day up to now (or yesterday if your day has just begun), pick the first interesting person who comes to mind, and then write their fictional backstory. Feel free to use reality as a basis - in fact, that's highly encouraged. But make sure there is at least one fictional element in the backstory. Just keep two rules: 1) avoid stereotypes, and 2) avoid shallowness. A good test of this is, if you can't complete step two of this assignment by using the backstory you created, you need to come back to this step and revise or rewrite.

2. Use the information in the Defining Character Conflicts section above to define at least three character conflicts for the character you've just written a backstory for. After you read through them, do they seem predictable? Done a million times before? Then it's time to go back to step one and revise your backstory.

3. Post both of these (backstory and character conflicts).

Note: Though it sounds easy and wildly free, this will likely be hard work - some people find it to be the hardest assignment of the course. If you're doing the assignment right, creating the character conflict definitions will pit your backstory against your definitions in a way that brings out all the little weaknesses. You'll end up with extremely good backstory and helpful definitions, but be prepared to put some time into this one.