DividesByZer0
A cunning linguist
This is a two for one deal, woo!
Proactive Vs. Reactive. What does this mean? Simply put:
"A demonstration of the character’s ability to make decisions and affect the story. This character has motivations all her own. She is active more than she is reactive. She pushes on the plot more than the plot pushes on her. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of the character’s actions."
It’s about being proactive versus reactive. When characters choose the latter, we readers become frustrated. Is the point of your character that they are a passive person? Then work with that and have her do something about it. We don't want to read a wall of text of internal dialogue that our characters can't act on. If this passive behavior is not your intention, then you need to prove it by having your character move the story forward because they want to.
Your character is going to be determined by their motivation, desires, goals. If you figure these out, you can then go on to discover how the plot will proceed. This is also how you can create more character-driven stories rather than plot-driven ones, granting your writing a whole new level of interest for us readers.
Whenever I talk about characters with people I frequently bring up the notion that, for me, good characters are proactive. And this, I often say, is one of the things that really matters in a so-called “strong female character” — not that she is a character who can bend steel rebar with her crushing breasts, but rather that she proactive within the story you’re telling.
So, let’s talk a little bit about being proactive and why a character needs it.
Being proactive is, to me, a demonstration of the character’s ability to make decisions and affect the story. This character has motivations all her own. She is active more than she is reactive. She pushes on the plot more than the plot pushes on her. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of the character’s actions.
The story exists because of the character. The character does not exist because of the story.
Characters without proactivity tend to be like little hot air balloons bobbing down a slip stream of our own making. They cannot steer. They cannot change the course of the wind current. The current is an external force that carries them along — meaning, the plot sticks its hand up the character’s cavernous bottom-hole and makes the character do things and say things in service to the plot. (Or worse, internal monologue of thought and feelings! In turn your fellow writers can't act on this.)
Because characters without proactivity are really just puppets who serve no purpose and just watching everything unfold.
It sounds easier said than done. In the writing of a story it’s common to find that you had these Ideas about the story and the character appears to be serving those ideas — she is not driving the car so much as the car is driving her. And it’s doubly tricky when you write a story that has more than one character, which is to say, uhhh, nearly all stories ever. Because one character who has proactivity can dominate the proceedings and set too much of the pace, too much of the plot. Other characters lose their proactivity in response becoming reactive puppets. For example: an antagonist puts into play a particularly sinister plot that forces all the other characters to react to it again and again, never really getting ahead of it. That’s not to say that reacting to events is problematic — just that reacting to events shouldn’t be passive. It shouldn’t be the character going another way just because the plot demands it. At some point reaction has to become action. It has to be the character getting ahead of the plot, ahead of the other characters. The power differential must shift.
And it’s the character who should be shifting it.
Look at your characters. Are they fully-formed? Ask yourself: if the character in the middle of your story went off and did something entirely different from what you planned or expected — something still in line with the character’s motivations — would that “ruin the plot?” That might be a sign that the plot is too external and that the character possess too little proactivity.
Characters without proactivity feel like props.
Worse, they’re boring as watching a bear wipe its butt on a pine tree. (Okay, that’s pretty comical for the first 30 seconds, but then it gets boring. I’m just saying.)
Proactive characters do things and say things that create narrative. Plot is spun out of the words and actions of these characters. And their words and actions continue to push on the plot created by other characters.
(Those who play tabletop roleplaying games understand this in a practical way. If you’ve ever rolled bones with an RPG, you know when you’ve got a gamemaster who railroads the plot versus one who puts the characters into a situation and lets the plot spin out of their actions and reactions around that situation.)
What gets interesting about a story isn’t when some Big External Plot is set into motion. What’s interesting is when the proactivity possessed by multiple characters competes. This push-and-pull of character motivations, decisions and reactions is how stories that matter are created. Because they’re stories about people, not about events, and people are why we read stories. Because we are all made of people. Our lives are made of us and all the other people around us. We live in a people-focused world because we’re solipsistic A-holes who think that unless we behold it and create it, it probably doesn’t matter. And in stories, that’s pretty much true.
Stories must be made of people.
And that can only really happen when those people — those characters — are proactive.
(Because after all, your characters shouldn’t be parenthetical to their own story, should they?)
View full tutorial
Proactive Vs. Reactive. What does this mean? Simply put:
"A demonstration of the character’s ability to make decisions and affect the story. This character has motivations all her own. She is active more than she is reactive. She pushes on the plot more than the plot pushes on her. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of the character’s actions."
It’s about being proactive versus reactive. When characters choose the latter, we readers become frustrated. Is the point of your character that they are a passive person? Then work with that and have her do something about it. We don't want to read a wall of text of internal dialogue that our characters can't act on. If this passive behavior is not your intention, then you need to prove it by having your character move the story forward because they want to.
Your character is going to be determined by their motivation, desires, goals. If you figure these out, you can then go on to discover how the plot will proceed. This is also how you can create more character-driven stories rather than plot-driven ones, granting your writing a whole new level of interest for us readers.
Whenever I talk about characters with people I frequently bring up the notion that, for me, good characters are proactive. And this, I often say, is one of the things that really matters in a so-called “strong female character” — not that she is a character who can bend steel rebar with her crushing breasts, but rather that she proactive within the story you’re telling.
So, let’s talk a little bit about being proactive and why a character needs it.
Being proactive is, to me, a demonstration of the character’s ability to make decisions and affect the story. This character has motivations all her own. She is active more than she is reactive. She pushes on the plot more than the plot pushes on her. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of the character’s actions.
The story exists because of the character. The character does not exist because of the story.
Characters without proactivity tend to be like little hot air balloons bobbing down a slip stream of our own making. They cannot steer. They cannot change the course of the wind current. The current is an external force that carries them along — meaning, the plot sticks its hand up the character’s cavernous bottom-hole and makes the character do things and say things in service to the plot. (Or worse, internal monologue of thought and feelings! In turn your fellow writers can't act on this.)
Because characters without proactivity are really just puppets who serve no purpose and just watching everything unfold.
It sounds easier said than done. In the writing of a story it’s common to find that you had these Ideas about the story and the character appears to be serving those ideas — she is not driving the car so much as the car is driving her. And it’s doubly tricky when you write a story that has more than one character, which is to say, uhhh, nearly all stories ever. Because one character who has proactivity can dominate the proceedings and set too much of the pace, too much of the plot. Other characters lose their proactivity in response becoming reactive puppets. For example: an antagonist puts into play a particularly sinister plot that forces all the other characters to react to it again and again, never really getting ahead of it. That’s not to say that reacting to events is problematic — just that reacting to events shouldn’t be passive. It shouldn’t be the character going another way just because the plot demands it. At some point reaction has to become action. It has to be the character getting ahead of the plot, ahead of the other characters. The power differential must shift.
And it’s the character who should be shifting it.
Look at your characters. Are they fully-formed? Ask yourself: if the character in the middle of your story went off and did something entirely different from what you planned or expected — something still in line with the character’s motivations — would that “ruin the plot?” That might be a sign that the plot is too external and that the character possess too little proactivity.
Characters without proactivity feel like props.
Worse, they’re boring as watching a bear wipe its butt on a pine tree. (Okay, that’s pretty comical for the first 30 seconds, but then it gets boring. I’m just saying.)
Proactive characters do things and say things that create narrative. Plot is spun out of the words and actions of these characters. And their words and actions continue to push on the plot created by other characters.
(Those who play tabletop roleplaying games understand this in a practical way. If you’ve ever rolled bones with an RPG, you know when you’ve got a gamemaster who railroads the plot versus one who puts the characters into a situation and lets the plot spin out of their actions and reactions around that situation.)
What gets interesting about a story isn’t when some Big External Plot is set into motion. What’s interesting is when the proactivity possessed by multiple characters competes. This push-and-pull of character motivations, decisions and reactions is how stories that matter are created. Because they’re stories about people, not about events, and people are why we read stories. Because we are all made of people. Our lives are made of us and all the other people around us. We live in a people-focused world because we’re solipsistic A-holes who think that unless we behold it and create it, it probably doesn’t matter. And in stories, that’s pretty much true.
Stories must be made of people.
And that can only really happen when those people — those characters — are proactive.
(Because after all, your characters shouldn’t be parenthetical to their own story, should they?)
View full tutorial