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'Character driven story'? |
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#1 |
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: England, Bolton
Posts: 693
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'Character driven story'?
Forgive my ignorance but what is this exactly & how is it better than a 'non driven story'?. How can u tell if a story is character driven. All of Callums stories in Corrie are driven by his thuggish personality so Im guessin thats 1 example. The Nikhil actor recently said 'ED is fantastic at character driven stories', so I'm kinda curious
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#2 |
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Losing the plot and not caring
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Plot-driven sls are those which usually require a character to have a personality or sexual orientation change just to suit the sl. Eg serial womaniser and utterly heterosexual Robert in ED came back as bi or gay, (no one's sure, least of all him), just so that he could have an affair with Aaron.
![]() Similarly Jai Sharma who, unpleasant as he is, has never shown any interest in drugs, is now on the verge of turning into a raving cocaine junkie, thus paving the way for Nikhil's return from Canada to try and sort things out. ![]() In a nutshell, character-driven sls are usually believable whereas plot-driven sls rarely are because they involve the character behaving in a way that is out of character. |
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#3 |
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Example of character-driven story - Christian and Syed's affair. Everything was organic, it all grew from the characters involved, the story was not gifted to them, the character's created that story.
Example of a story-driven plot - Archie Mitchell's murder. Every part to play in it was interchangeable. The story was decided upon, and the characters involved were decided at a later date. Story-driven isn't a bad thing, as long as it feeds into the character's natural progression and feeds off their back story. Sadly, all too often that isn't the case these days in the world of soap opera. |
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#4 |
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Plot-driven storylines aren't always bad, but it all depends on the writing and the continuity. The run-up to Tina's murder on Corrie was a bad plot-driven storyline. They needed a list of suspects, so she conveniently annoyed everyone and slept with Peter (yet a year before she was livid at the thought of Gary kissing her, because of hurting Izzy).
Good plot-driven storylines don't change the character too much, and try to fit any continuity changes so that it works. Kathy's return could potentially be a good plot-driven story (she's returning because they want Kathy back, and also because the shock revival would be good for ratings and the LIVE shock), or it could flop massively. It all depends on how well everything is implemented. For a plot-driven storyline to work, any change must be retained afterwards. You can't have a character change for one storyline and then revert back, yet have the consequences of the story retain. It's inconsistent and makes the storyline stand out |
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#5 |
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Because of Paula Lane's pregnancy, the writers decided to regress her character and have Max diagnosed with ADHD so that Callum could be found. Nothing organic there.
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#6 |
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Join Date: Aug 2013
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Any who-dunnit is always plot lead as it's built around keeping possibilities open in order to drive the story.
Character driven emanates from the established structure of a character. |
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#7 |
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Here's where I'm confused; Take Cain for instance, he was 1ce a thug but is now reformed, so does that mean most of his current storylines aren't character driven because he's a changed man?. I'm not sure exactly but I think the reason why character driven stories are lauded is because plot driven can come across as contrived for the purpose of plot sake
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#8 |
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Join Date: Feb 2012
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Quote:
Plot-driven sls are those which usually require a character to have a personality or sexual orientation change just to suit the sl. Eg serial womaniser and utterly heterosexual Robert in ED came back as bi or gay, (no one's sure, least of all him), just so that he could have an affair with Aaron.
![]() Similarly Jai Sharma who, unpleasant as he is, has never shown any interest in drugs, is now on the verge of turning into a raving cocaine junkie, thus paving the way for Nikhil's return from Canada to try and sort things out. ![]() In a nutshell, character-driven sls are usually believable whereas plot-driven sls rarely are because they involve the character behaving in a way that is out of character. |
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#9 |
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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It can be argued that it was character development. He's still not someone to be messed with (just see Cain attacking Robert), but he's more than just a thug. However, since he's changed - any storyline stemming from this (like his relationship with Kyle) is character-led instead of plot-led.
I'd say that most whodunnits are plot driven, as are there aftermaths (Bobby for instance), but they can be character driven as well - Emmerdale's Judgement Day (Zak attacking Cain) and EE's Who Shot Phil? mystery both fit with the character's nature (both had a tendency to p*ss many people off), and have in a way been used to mellow the characters - but they can still revert to their original base character traits. |
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#10 |
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Join Date: Feb 2012
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When Lloyd is in his cab in Coronation Street: Character-driving story.
When Lloyd isn't in his cab in Coronation Street: Character not-driving story. This should clear it up. Thanks. |
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#11 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
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Character driven is a story that develops from a character's nature and what they would actually believably do. It's more likely to be a good story, be consistent and make sense.
Plot driven is a story where it could be more or less any character; the details of the story will be the same whoever it is, and the character will be altered to fit the story even if it makes no sense. It's less likely to be a good story and usually destroys continuity and quality. |
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#12 |
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Good question actually, because it makes you think.
Character-driven story: Laurel's alcoholism say - develops slowly and believably, and links back to her history losing a baby, and the disintegration of her marriage after Donna came back. It felt like something that she might actually do, in those circumstances. Plot-driven story: usually ludicrous tosh that blows up out of nowhere, just to cause shocks. So the discovery that Moira *had* slept with James all those years ago, and that James was Adam's biological dad - totally rewrote Moira's history for the sake of a twist. Or Leyla getting back with Jai recently, when she already knew he was a hateful tosspot, purely because they needed it for the plot with Megan and Rachel getting Archie from Jai. Or everyone suddenly turning on Bob, purely to engineer a scuffle that would land him straight in jail. All the things that make you slap your forehead and groan. |
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#13 |
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Join Date: Oct 2011
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Quote:
When Lloyd is in his cab in Coronation Street: Character-driving story.
When Lloyd isn't in his cab in Coronation Street: Character not-driving story. This should clear it up. Thanks. ![]() ![]() ![]()
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#14 |
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Join Date: Nov 2010
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Interesting topic, interesting thread.
I'm going to use cyrilandshirley's post to reiterate the point that 'issue-based' storylines (drink, drugs, HIV, child abuse, gambling, cancer, depression, sexuality, rape) can be delivered very successfully from a character perspective and be wholly 'character-driven'. Laurel's alcoholism is a good example, as is Val's HIV and Hayley's transgender storyline in Corrie. Plot-driven stories are when the storyline is dumped on a random character. As others in this thread have so nicely put it, the characters involved in the story could be easily interchanged. Corrie used to hold character-driven writing at the very heart of its production values, but over the past 3 or 4 years this has almost been completely forgotten. The worst part is that the production team seem to kid themselves that everything they are doing is 'character driven'. This has led to some characters, particularly those in its higher ranks, being almost unrecognisable. See: Gail, Liz and also Deirdre. |
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#15 |
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Quote:
Interesting topic, interesting thread.
I'm going to use cyrilandshirley's post to reiterate the point that 'issue-based' storylines (drink, drugs, HIV, child abuse, gambling, cancer, depression, sexuality, rape) can be delivered very successfully from a character perspective and be wholly 'character-driven'. Laurel's alcoholism is a good example, as is Val's HIV and Hayley's transgender storyline in Corrie. |
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#16 |
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Join Date: Nov 2010
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Quote:
I was a bit wary of giving an "issue" storyline as an example really, because they can be some of the worst and most clunky plot-driven stories when they land on a random character as if from outer space. But you're right, Val's HIV was good because it made her ask loads of questions about who she was, and the life she'd led, and Alicia's assault story was good as well, because she was just a lovely, trusting person who couldn't believe the lies that were being told about her, so it felt like a perfect fit.
When I think of 'issue led' I think of the dark days of Brookside between 1994 and 1995 when plots such as a religious cult, a killer virus and an incestuous brother-sister relationship were parachuted into the close without a second thought ![]()
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#17 |
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Quote:
I agree, I would usually have a wariness about 'issue' storylines too but your example of Laurel's alcoholism gave me some confidence to see that not all issue-led stories are necessarily played out at the expense of the character. Emmerdale does seem the only soap to do this some level of justice at the moment.
When I think of 'issue led' I think of the dark days of Brookside between 1994 and 1995 when plots such as a religious cult, a killer virus and an incestuous brother-sister relationship were parachuted into the close without a second thought ![]() ![]() |
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