Hey, it’s Emily! I’m so excited to start us off on our new series: Building Your Plot. Our series title most likely speaks for itself, but some specific topics of this new series you can expect are creating conflict, raising stakes, foreshadowing plot points, writing subplots, balancing your pacing, and more! But let’s go ahead and get into our first blog post of the series:
Different Ways to Drive Your Plot
When crafting a plot, writers can make their storyline more intentional if they focus their plot on a specific drive. Most stories’ plots align with one of these three categories: character-driven, theme-driven, and world-driven. While every novel requires characters, themes, and settings, well-developed novels tend to focus more strongly on just one. This gives stories a purpose—a drive, if you will—so that every element works together towards one central goal. Let’s take a look at a classic and a young adult novel example for each type.
1. Character-Driven Plots
Most new novels—especially young adult—focus on character. Publishers look for what sells, and in today’s culture where society focuses on personal growth, identity, and emotional experiences, the hype is strong characters. If readers cannot relate to a character, they may not connect with the story as much either. This is especially the case in YA where the target demographic—teenagers—are often still on the search for self.
Character-driven novels, as you can guess, focus on one or multiple characters—their internal and external struggles, their arcs, and how their decisions affect the plot. For this reason, nearly all coming-of-age novels fall under the category of character-driven plots. The big idea of character-driven novels is what readers can learn from these characters and their personal journeys. For our classic and young adult examples, let’s take a look at The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Published in 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray focuses on the psychology and moral decay of its main character, Dorian Gray. Dorian starts as a young, innocent man until the idea of eternal youth captivates him, leading him to wish that his portrait would bear the consequences of age in his place. Wilde describes in-depth Dorian’s personality, thoughts, desires, and emotions, making Dorian himself—and his moral dilemma—the focal point of the story. While this story is also very theme-driven, exploring the concepts of vanity and self-indulgence, the main draw of this novel is how these concepts affect the main character and how his choices change the plot. Another key element of Wilde’s story is Dorian’s negative character arc, how he sinks from youthful innocence to hedonistic immorality.
All the Bright Places
All the Bright Places, published in 2015, is a character-driven novel like The Picture of Dorian Gray but one focused on two teenagers who fall in love and grow together. The novel’s conflicts stem from the main characters, Violent and Finch, and their internal struggles and external challenges, which not only shape the narrative but each characters’ personal journey. This novel’s most central theme is the struggle with mental health, and Niven explores these themes through the characters’ interactions. Violet and Finch share their experiences with each other, learning how to face their trauma together, and grow in empathy as their relationship deepens.
Other Examples
Other examples of character-driven plots in novels include: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, The Shining by Stephen King, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
2. Theme-Driven Plots
Just as character-driven plots prioritize characters, so do theme-driven plots prioritize themes. In these novels, the most important element propelling the plot is the message the author communicates about the world and life itself. Most other facets of the story—character, setting, symbols—are vessels to explore the novel’s themes. Most classic novels (the ones often taught in English and literature classes) are theme-driven. For our classic and young adult examples, let’s look at The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Unwind by Neal Shusterman.
The Scarlet Letter
Students and scholars have analyzed Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter since its publication in 1850 for its strong focus on themes such as humanity, hypocrisy, conformity, identity, and gender roles. The story follows Hester Prynne, whose Puritan society convicts her of adultery and forces her to wear a letter “A” upon her clothes and spend the rest of her life disgraced. The plot unfolds as other characters’ secrets come to light, revealing that every member of their society has flaws and hidden sin. This novel explores inherent human value in the face of societal norms, asking questions about morality and the weight of the decisions people make.
Unwind
Like The Scarlet Letter, Unwind explores a man vs. society conflict, asking moral questions about autonomy and the value of human life. In this society, parents can retroactively “abort” their children, so long as they are between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. Society justifies this practice by calling it “unwinding” and claiming it is for the greater good—harvesting all the body parts of the teenages and distributing them to those who need them. While the main characters—Connor, Risa, and Lev—are all interesting to follow as they flee their own dangers and face their own journeys, this book focuses on its themes more than any other element. As the story continues, readers discover more horrors about “unwinding,” yet more reasons the practice has helped others survive. This draws the readers’ focus to the novel’s questions of life and morality.
Other Examples
Other examples of theme-driven plots in novels include: 1984 by George Orwell, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, and The Giver by Lois Lowry.
3. World-Driven Plots
Finally, we reach world-driven plots. In these sorts of stories, writers grant a lot of weight to the world where the narrative takes place, sometimes even making the setting itself a character. Typically, these novels involve detailed descriptions of locations, rich histories and cultures of the world and its inhabitants, and a focus on exploring or protecting that world. For our final two examples, we’ll examine The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.
The Lord of the Rings
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series is perhaps the epitome of world-driven novels. His world is expansive, containing so many different settings each equipped with unique geography, culture, language, and history. Furthermore, Tolkien invents or popularizes many mythical creatures that each have their own cultural values. He draws inspiration from many myths, including ones of his own creation alongside songs and epic poems that expand the world and make even the mightiest characters seem like small cogs in a massive machine.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Riggs’ first novel of his Peculiar Children series introduces readers to a mysterious, evolving world where children with unique powers reside in a home that becomes much like a character itself. The world seems to take on a personality throughout the book, especially as the main character Jacob follows clues and discovers more about the home and the children it houses. Riggs’ book becomes more clearly world-driven as it delves into the history and lineage of the peculiar children and the time loops, using their complex pasts to give the sense that the world has its own story to tell.
Other Examples
Other examples of world-driven plots in novels include: Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Gallant by V.E. Schwab, The Gods of Pegana by Lord Dunsany, Chronicles of the Black Gate by Phil Tucker, Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi, and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
Overlapping
While, as I mentioned, strong novels tend to focus on one of these three elements to give the narrative direction, often these three elements still overlap, much like a venn diagram. For example, while The Picture of Dorian Gray focuses on Dorian’s character—his desires, motivations, and gradual descent—Dorian’s arc is the key to unlocking the novel’s themes of beauty, duality of man, morality, mortality, and decay. And Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children must have interesting characters to inhabit its equally interesting world, especially because a world can hardly have a history to explore without actors of that history.
In short, it’s a difficult balance to strike: you must focus on one element above the rest without sacrificing the rest. The best way to do this is to first ask yourself what about your story is so important. Why do you write? Do your characters’ journeys inspire and encourage? Maybe you want to teach a life lesson you yourself learned? Perhaps still you have a world bursting inside you with legends and wars and magic that must come out?
In the trilogy I am writing I know that my main focus is my two protagonists. They were once childhood friends, but throughout the story they’ll become strangers, enemies, allies. My books focus on their fluctuating dynamic and ever-growing relationship, how their different cultures and upbringings—and a prophecy dooming them to different paths—affect their senses of self, the world, and each other. While my worldbuilding and themes are important to me, this is the crux of my story. Find yours.
Honey Heimsol as the Crux
As a final example, let’s return to Honey Heimsol and her journey, which now has a name: The Threadborne Throne. Our story for Honeycomb is character-driven, with Honey’s journey to adaptability and open-mindedness taking the spotlight. Our plot beats will focus most on giving Honey opportunities to grow.
For example, the inciting incident—Honey’s brother’s disappearance—will give Honey incentive to leave the safety of Ilverseed for the first time. She must learn to navigate a world she’s only ever read about, and, as a result, her world grows wider and she learns that not everyone is like her, nor should everyone be. Later, Honey can’t convince her brother to come home, because, unlike her, he doesn’t want to live behind the sanctuary of walls. Throughout the rest of the story, Honey learns to become more understanding as well as resourceful, eventually learning about a significant role she plays within her world to protect it and its people. You’ll get to see more of Honey’s story throughout the rest of our Building Your Plot blog post series!
Reach Out!
If you want to discuss with someone who understands the differences between character, theme, and world-driven novels, please reach out to us at Honeycomb! We’d love to help you explore your story, whether through a consultation call or through one of our many editing services. As always, you can reach out to us through our website, Instagram, or Twitter!
Till then, bee brilliant!
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