Building my worlds - Characters

For those who don’t know, there tend to be two drivers for a story. Either a story is character-driven or plot-driven. Obviously, plot and characters are integral to a story, but determining what drives a story forward is going to determine if your story is plot-driven or character-driven. Essentially, a plot-driven story focuses on the events that occur rather than the characters (not to say the characters won’t develop at all, but it is not the main goal of the story). I think a great example would be World War Z, a book written as if it were a history book about the zombie apocalypse. This story spans many years of the zombie uprising, and often, numerous characters come and go. Rarely is a character developed, and the story centers around the events and how they unfold.

Conversely, a character-driven story focuses less on goals and more on character development. Their thoughts, feelings, and actions. To me, romance is a major genre of character-driven stories. It’s less about the events themselves, but the internal feelings of the characters.

I tend to favor character-driven stories, even in fantasy. Certainly, the events that take place are important, but they are almost ultimately secondary to the characters. So, I like to have a great understanding of my characters.

Like anything, when I personally build something (a story, a character, or a setting), I start small. It may be an occupation, it may be a counterpoint to another character. For Shutdown Syntax, for example, I had Tim, who is a relatively solitary man, who, despite the outside world’s insistence that he needs to leave his small town and constantly “move up in the world”, likes the life he has. He’s relatively meek and does not stand up in confrontation well, so the counterpoint to him is Ali, with her strong outward emotions and aggressive attitude (and she’s always ready for a fight, if she can win).