How Characters Can Drive Your Plot

Whether you are one of those writers that lets the characters meander through the story while you try desperately to keep up with all the crap they do, or one of those writers who has their protagonist on baby-reins, the nature of your characters is what drives your story. Without them, your story would be a deserted city or one populated with mannequins. Generally (yes, I'm generalising, what are going to do about it?), a story falls into 3 categories -

1 - The Plot-Driven Narrative
This is when your characters are simply the vehicle for the plot and story to be told, they are slotted into their roles and the story itself is more important than the person telling or experiencing it. Characters are often not that well established or drawn and this technique is usually used in fast-paced thrillers and their ilk.

2 - The Character-Driven Narrative
This one is the opposite of 1. This is when you have these amazing characters that have subtle nuances and personality quirks that make them real and believable. The plot is formed from their lives, they take the writer on a merry dance and the writer feels privileged to be allowed to participate. The downside of this is that plot and pacing can suffer. You can get so caught up in internal monologuing when your MC is tying his shoes that the reader can give up.

3 - The Goldilocks Narrative
You guessed it, this is when you get the balance between 1 and 2 just right. This is when the characters feel real, the plot is tight and interesting, and the narrative keeps pace with the reader. This is where the characters can lead and make their own decisions in the small scale, instead of the large. Where those little details of which brand of gum the MC chooses makes the story believable without detracting from the plot.

If you read through your WIP and go three pages without an interesting incident, you are probably suffering from number 2. If you go three pages without any character reflextion or description, you've no doubt got a case of number 1. Try to find the balance. If an interesting incident happens, one that is important to the character (accident/emergency/birth/marriage/death/odd conversation/fired from job etc.) then give a paragraph or two of description about how this affects your character, how this event has changed things for them, if at all, how their perceptions of person/job/life has altered. This will reinforce your characters and give them more than one dimension while keeping the plot moving.