{"id":1897,"date":"2012-03-23T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T11:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1897"},"modified":"2012-03-23T06:00:55","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T11:00:55","slug":"interwoven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1897","title":{"rendered":"Interwoven"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
You can just look at the picture to see what I was trying to say. Click on the picture for another point of view.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whisky and water. Water into wine. Wine and song. Song and Dance. One thing follows another, all interconnected.<\/p>\n

Okay, that was a bit of a stretch but I think it works well enough. At least enough to illustrate a point. Character and plot are interconnected, one feeds the other and vice versa.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m aware that one can tell a story without developing characters to the point where they are actual people. I\u2019m also aware that writers can conceive \u2018character studies\u2019 that are not really stories, but more like scenes and vignettes. I don\u2019t write that way. I\u2019m not sure that I can write that way. Either way. I prefer stories about people doing things for a reason. I like motivations into actions and reactions that muddle things up a bit more when it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

I tend to focus more on character and hope that informs the plot than the other way \u2018round. That\u2019s not to say that I don\u2019t come up with a plot before I develop characters, but once I\u2019ve got the characters outlined, I start putting them through their paces.<\/p>\n

This goes back a little bit to how I develop my characters, I suppose, but I don\u2019t want to get into all that again. (Click this link<\/a>\u00a0if you\u2019re interested.) Rather, let\u2019s take the opportunity to debate a little which is more important: plot or character?<\/p>\n

Pretty sure I’ve already told you what I think about that up above, but for clarity\u2019s sake I\u2019ll be blunt: a good story has both<\/em> and that\u2019s all there is to it. I don\u2019t think a good writer will sacrifice one for the other because as a reader that\u2019s boring. A \u2018story\u2019 that\u2019s all character doesn\u2019t move me. Oh, the characters themselves may be interesting but if there\u2019s no story to go with them, what\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n

Conversely, a story without any characters is unusual and painstaking to write and difficult to read.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a chemistry between the people – whether fictional or not – involved in how things happen one after another. One person is responsible for the bad things, one for the good things and several are somewhere in the middle. Where they are and what they\u2019re doing there are the essential bits, the things that readers remember. Characters are made memorable by the things they do in reaction what other characters are doing.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s important to me that both work together and work together well. Characters who surprise me are engaged in the plot, advancing the story with their actions which are dictated by their makeup. Which is dictated by me, who supposedly knows the plot and that makes me the god of the story.<\/p>\n

That must be the whiskey taking over. Next thing you know I\u2019ll be dancing and that\u2019s something none of you want to see.<\/p>\n

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

Whisky and water. Water into wine. Wine and song. Song and Dance. One thing follows another, all interconnected. Okay, that was a bit of a stretch but I think it works well enough. At least enough to illustrate a point. Character and plot are interconnected, one feeds the other and vice versa. I\u2019m aware that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}