Advice on selling plenty of copies of your book will focus on commerce. But any advisory to make plot the main feature doesn’t help a book leave a lasting impression.
There are all kinds of books, from thrillers with high body counts to geo-political mashups where entire countries hang in the balance of the actions of a few desperate characters. There are Swiss watch-fancy mysteries, plus the psycho-gripper books where nobody is who they really seem to be.
There are by-the-numbers trope-driven romances, and love stories that read the same but just lack a happy-ever-after finale. People read space operas with vast casts acting in concert, or warring each other with weapons and mistakes in worlds built to admire.
These books sell well, and it might not seem like you could ever write something enslaved to plot. It’s okay if you cannot. Or maybe you have enough time to write another sort of book, plus pen those plot-rich bestsellers. This is what multiple pen names are for: you have multiple personalities as an author.
However, consider those books that don’t hum on the chorus of this happened, then that, and here’s something else. These other sorts of books elevate the characters high on the chart, or examine backstory to enrich a setting. Something is not happening All The Time. But with each chapter, you feel things deeper.
Making content: not your goal
Writing at Writer Unboxed, Kelsey Allagood calls the trend of plot-driven books the content-ification of novels. “Over the last decade or more, art of all forms has been rebranded as “content” to publish on social media. And honestly, it doesn’t feel like our shortened attention spans are to blame here. This is a publishing industry-driven trend, not one driven by authors.”
Allagood goes on to say books falls into the “bad tour guide” category when they taken the approach that everything must always serve the plot (which is not bad advice in a vacuum) and crank it up to 11. “X happens, and then Y happens, and then Z happens, and there is no pausing to create tension or emphasize how much time is passing because everything must move the plot forward, always, or else we’ll lose the reader.”
This is a balance we try to achieve with our books, and you may find yourself leaning toward plot or creating characters and settings. The good advice is to balance, of course. Understand: starting with plot and adding character and setting is one kind of mission, and adding plot to rich characters is a different assignment. You’ll tend to lean toward one or the other at first. The plot drivers get an early draft complete. The rich character folks need to seek out stakes for their magnificent players in the drama.
“It seems to go nowhere” is just as troubling as “wafer-thin characters.” Setting stakes gives the characters something to strive toward. Writing with depth to lure an actor to play the role, or win an Oscar for cinematography, lets the plotters make a lasting impression.
