Recently, while searching the depths of the internet for interesting and new writing prompts, I stumbled across a quote. In the moment, it didn't really resonate, but I've thought about it for a while, and it's actually quite a good bit of advice for writers.
Anyway, the quote is this: A good character can carry a bad plot, but bad characters can't even carry a good plot.
Basically, this means that as long as your characters are compelling and interesting, you can have the world's most cliched plot, because your readers will want to spend time with your characters. They don't care about what happens in the story, they just want to see the characters grow and change.
Of course, this does bring us back to an age-old dilemma, the one concerning plot and characters. There are two types of writing, literary and character-driven, that spawned out of this dilemma. It's an argument about which is more important, the plot or the character.
Personally, I feel that they are equally important. Instead of seeing it as a progression, ranks of importance, it's more like bricks. The characters and the plot are your foundation. If those aren't strong, nothing else will stand. So you can have the most kick-ass setting in the world, but it's nothing without a plot. It could have the best plot in the world, but without characters, nothing else is going to work. It just won't.
You need good characters. They need to be well-rounded, interesting to read, and, probably most importantly, likable. If your character kicks dogs for the fun of it, that's not someone that your readers will want to hang out with. Unless, of course, there was some underlying reason, like a world where dogs are like pigeons, annoying pests that make loud noises at night and make a mess of everything.
But you can't just separate the elements of a story. Your world needs to be cohesive, to make sense altogether. That's why exercises that work with only characters, or only plot, or only setting, aren't all that useful by themselves. It's more of a symbiotic relationship, and if you remove one element, the others suffer.
So, these exercises are useful, but as a whole. When you just create settings, it's fine, but your characters need to make sense. If you have a tiger on a planet with no prey, it doesn't make sense. Now, you could make it work, but that's up to you. I'm speaking generally, because writing is a complicated craft with thousands of rabbit holes that you can fall into.
Another example of the elements needing to work together is a clan of warrior monks living on a water planet. They fish for their food, meditate and generally keep to themselves. A plot for this book would not be something involving space travel, if these monks have no outside influence. Exclusively looking at these monks, they'd have no easy way to develop space ships or any sort of transport. Unless, of course, there's some sort of secret lab with magical scientists involved. But your setting is as much of a character as your characters are. Your setting can provide conflict.
Basically, what I'm getting at is that every part of your story is important. Sometimes some parts work better than others, but if the other parts are strong, they can carry the story without that part.
Anyway, I wanted to offer an explanation for why I haven't been posting like usual. The main reason is that I'm working a lot, but there are a few other reasons. One is that I got really busy working on one of my stories. You can read that story on Wattpad, here. It’s called ‘The Silent Princess,’ just a little something to make up for my sporadic posts.
I have another reason, and that’s because I’m now working two jobs. At the end of the day, all I want to do is sleep and not think about writing. But I’m back now!
