Is Your Plot At Odds With Your Character?
If You’re Stuck in Your Story, This Could Be Why.
We often discuss character and plot as though they’re two separate things. Books on writing include one chapter on plot development and another on character. Writing courses break them out as two separate steps. I know of at least one industry expert who insists you have to start with character, while others suggest you start with plot. I don’t think it matters where you start, because in reality, they’re inextricably linked.
Plot Changes Character, But Character Decisions Drive Plot
Your plot is made up of events that will ultimately change your character. Your character’s choices drive your plot. This means your character has to make choices with consequences that ultimately change them. Just like with people, your character isn’t going to randomly wake up one day and choose a different path. So every choice they make has to feel logical based on what we know about this character at that point in the story.
The problem comes when you know what needs to happen next, but it doesn’t line up with what your character would logically do. This isn’t always easy to spot in your own writing. Instead, what usually happens is that you feel stuck.
When You Try To Force A Character To Choose Something They’d Never Choose, You Get Stuck
If you feel resistance when you sit down to write, it could be a sign that you’re trying to make a character do something they would never do. A coaching session with a writer experiencing this problem might go something like this:
WRITER: I know what has to happen next, but every time I sit down to write it, the words don’t want to come.
ME: Alright, tell me what has to happen.
WRITER: Well, the hero has to jump into chum-filled, shark-infested water to save his sworn enemy. It’s how they start to see each other in a new light.
ME: Okay, let’s talk this through. Why would your character do that?
WRITER: What? He has to. It’s how they connect. The rest of the story can’t happen unless he rescues her.
ME: Right, but why would he do that? She’s his sworn enemy. He has no ties to her at this point. His life will be much simpler without her, and he showed us in the last scene that he has no qualms about killing his enemies. What makes this different? Why would he jump into that water and risk his life to save her?”
WRITER: He can’t stand to watch someone die? Except he just killed her minions in that last scene. But she’s his soulmate… maybe he feels drawn to her.
ME: Wasn’t he shooting at her in the last scene?
WRITER: Well, yeah, but she shot first… I see what you mean, though. Maybe he wouldn’t. But then what do I do?
Now that she knows why she’s stuck, she has a decision to make. It boils down to this: Do I change my character to suit the plot? Or do I change the plot to suit my character?
From the outside looking in, this isn’t so hard. Just have them connect over something that isn’t quite so dramatic. Or make the character someone who would risk his life to save his enemy.
But let’s say the hero was prominently featured in a prior book. Not only does our writer love this character as he is, but her readers do, too. If we accept (for now, anyway) that the character is fixed, that leaves us with changing the scene. But the entire idea for this book started with “the hero saves the heroine from sharks.” The hero’s pet name for the heroine is “shark bait,” and the banter this generates is fantastic. If the writer can’t include this scene, she doesn’t want to write the book.
Now, the options feel more limited. Fortunately for that writer, the coaching session doesn’t end there. If you find yourself in a similar situation, there’s a way out for you, too.
9 Questions To Ask When Your Character Won’t Comply With Your Plot
Here’s a series of questions to work through if your plot forces a character to behave in a way they wouldn’t:
What motivates your character? What is his external goal at this point in the story, and why does he want it?
Could you change his external goal in some way that would cause him to do what you need him to do in this scene?
What could you change about this character to make this a logical action for him?
Could you tweak something in the character’s backstory to make the situation a trigger? So it’s logical for him to behave differently in just this moment?
Is there something about the situation that you could change to motivate him to take the action you want him to take?
Would this scene work better if it happened earlier or later in the story? (Before or after some critical event?)
Could you change something about a different character (like the heroine in my shark example) to motivate him to take the action you want him to take?
Could you have the character make a different choice in the scene you’re stuck on? What impact would that have on the rest of the story?
What if this scene didn’t happen? Could you use a completely different situation to move the plot forward?
If your first pass through these questions didn’t yield any usable answers, try spending some time brainstorming ‘bad ideas’ for each one. (Sometimes those ‘bad ideas’ will turn out to be good ones.) If brainstorming isn’t your thing, spend some time journaling on them. Or, better yet, find a friend, critique partner, or coach to talk through them with you.
There’s always a path forward, but it’s not always obvious or easy. And sometimes you, as the author, will just plain hate it.
Sometimes, It’s Easier To Swap Out A Character
If you’ve spent time with this list of questions and vetoed everything you came up with, you might be at the point where you need to make a different choice: Do you want to write this story? Or do you want to write a story about these characters?
I was over 10,000 words into a friends-to-lovers holiday novella when I ran into this issue. I knew that male lead pretty well, since he appeared in a previously published book. He was a whole person in my head, and changing who he was wouldn’t work for me. He was in love with his best friend, Erica, an event planner who had to pull off the New Year’s Event of her life to save her career. He was supposed to help her with the party, and the grand gesture was supposed to happen at the New Year’s party. The only problem: I hit a point where Aaron, the male protagonist, would’ve walked away from Erica until after the holidays. He had no motivation besides loving her to help with the event, and she’d just deeply hurt his feelings. His family was in town. And even if his external goal was to tell her how he felt by New Year’s, there’s no way he’d choose to deal with these feelings he’d been harboring now.
I had to make a choice…. I could change the plot so it didn’t culminate on New Year’s. Or I could change the character, so Aaron had a vested interest in the event, and his family wasn’t in town. I hated both of those options.
Which meant I had to choose between writing this story and writing a story about this character. In the end, I wanted to write a story called “I Need You for New Year’s” more than I wanted to write about Aaron. I created an entirely new male protagonist, changed it to a second-chance romance, and the book just flowed. Aaron will get a different story someday.
As a coach, I always encourage my writers to find a solution that doesn’t involve rewriting the entire story like this. But when the thing your character won’t do is the whole premise of the story you want to tell, it’s something to consider. This is still a last resort, though.
Example: How To Fix the Plot Without Breaking (Or Tossing) Your Characters
Let’s go back to the shark story to see how those nine questions can help you move the original story forward, without abandoning your characters or your premise:
What motivates your character? What is his external goal at this point in the story, and why does he want it?
His immediate goal is to take out the group of modern-day pirates (led by the heroine) that have invaded his ship. He’s responsible for moving priceless cargo around the world, and if anything gets stolen, his family’s reputation is at stake. This is the first time his father’s been willing to put him in charge of anything, and he can’t screw it up. He believes doing this will fulfill his need for recognition and esteem.
Could you change his external goal in some way that would cause him to do what you need him to do in this scene?
Not really, not without changing the whole story significantly. Plus, it’s established. This was his goal in the last book, too.
What could you change about this character to make this a logical action for him?
Well, I could give him qualms about killing a woman, but (a) he’d see the sharks as a loophole, and (b) he killed that female assassin in book one.
Could you tweak something in the character’s backstory to make the situation a trigger? So it’s logical for him to behave differently in just this moment?
His mom got eaten by sharks in front of him as a child, and this gives him deja-vu? Seems a little far-fetched. Plus, his mom’s alive in the prior book.
Is there something about the situation that you could change to motivate him to take the action you want him to take?
The original plan for the scene was that he wants to eliminate everyone who tries to board his ship. So, what if he decided to capture her instead of killing her? Perhaps she’s more valuable to him alive than dead. Then, when she falls into the water with the sharks, he’s following through with the plan to capture her by saving her. But falling for her captor would be out of character for her.
Or, wait! What if I added a scene where they’d met before and had a connection. In their previous meeting, he didn’t know who she was. Yes! That could work. It would also ramp up the tension as she boards his ship … he’s about to find out who the woman he’s been obsessing over really is! I just need to add a scene or two before this one.
Would this scene work better if it happened earlier or later in the story? (Before or after some critical event?)
Yes, if I have them meet before, and form a connection without him knowing who she is, then she’s not just an enemy. He’d rescue her, then. This scene has to happen a little later in the story.
We don’t need to answer the last three questions, because we’ve come up with a path forward. Not only have we removed the dissonance between who the character is and what we need him to do, but we’ve also forced him to make a decision between his love interest and his external goal… and at least for the moment, he chooses her.
The Next Time You’re Stuck, Try This
The next time you’re stuck in your story, ask yourself this question: Given their goals and motivations, would my character actually do the thing I want them to do here? If the answer is no, spend some time with the nine questions above. If that doesn’t yield results, talk through them with a friend. If you don’t have anyone else to brainstorm with, you can always book a free call with me.