{"id":1722,"date":"2012-03-23T16:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T21:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1722"},"modified":"2012-03-23T16:00:16","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T21:00:16","slug":"plot-vs-character-save-the-eggs-torch-my-metaphor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1722","title":{"rendered":"Plot vs. Character: Save the eggs; torch my metaphor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf your story was a house on fire, what would you run in and save?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Brad Bird ~ Writer\/Director<\/p>\n

(Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Mission Impossible \u2013 Ghost Patrol)<\/p>\n

Plot vs. Character? No doubt in my mind, I’d save the characters.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why:\u00a0 character drives plot.\u00a0 The \u201cstuff\u201d of story, the desire that drives choices and actions made under the pressure of dilemma, are all expressed through character.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have them, you don\u2019t have plot, and ultimately, no story.\u00a0 Characters are the eggs, if you will; plots are the chickens they hatch. (Which came first is another post, but it\u2019s the egg per my high school zoology teacher, Mr. Highfill, an amazing character in his own right, so I\u2019m going with egg.)<\/p>\n

But I digress.\u00a0 Yes, I\u2019m giving the edge to the egg, but what about that chicken? Is it just crowing in the morning, pecking at the ground, taking a nap, running around the barnyard, going to sleep, and doing it all over again the next day?\u00a0\u00a0 This is not plot, this is not story.\u00a0 This is activity not action.\u00a0 The chicken that comes out of that egg has got to be top notch, too, or no one is going to hang out in the barnyard to see what happens.<\/p>\n

To put it all together, your eggs need to have Grade A burning desires, inner and outer conflicts that create dilemmas, through which they make choices to try to reach their goal, and thus, advance the story.\u00a0 These choices and their results create the chicken, which in turn acts on the characters (eggs) and so on to the last action in the series, the end of the road.\u00a0 Perhaps just before Sunday dinner when the horse, who, against all odds, has fallen in love with the chicken, kicks the axe out of the farmer\u2019s hands, and, together, horse and chicken ride off into the sunset.<\/p>\n

So, to take this horrible pun to the end: go lay some fresh eggs; the chickens will be tasty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf your story was a house on fire, what would you run in and save?\u201d Brad Bird ~ Writer\/Director (Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Mission Impossible \u2013 Ghost Patrol) Plot vs. Character? No doubt in my mind, I’d save the characters.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why:\u00a0 character drives plot.\u00a0 The \u201cstuff\u201d of story, the desire that drives choices and actions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[35,174,178,273,288,316,332,846,1066],"class_list":["post-1722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-action","tag-characters","tag-chickens","tag-desire","tag-dilemma","tag-drive","tag-eggs","tag-plot","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}