Characterization vs. Plotting

Is characterization more important than plotting in novel writing?

If you have read any other creative writing guides, you have probably stumbled upon this "Plot vs. Character" debate. The whole debate is actually a giant red herring, but I wanted to mention it here so that we need not bother with it again.

Some people claim that a gripping plot is the single most important ingredient of a novel. For others, it is well-rounded characters that come first. Most level-headed people, however (myself included), argue that characterization and plotting are of equal importance.

What Henry James is saying is that without characters you have no action, and with no action you have no characters. In other words, it is impossible to separate the two.

What the characterization vs. plotting character debate is really about, of course, is the importance of each one in both literary fiction and genre fiction. I've already covered that in the section on Types of Novels, but I'll quickly outline it again...

• The argument goes that Literary Fiction is more concerned with characterization than writing an entertaining plot.

• It also says that Genre Fiction places plot above fully-rounded people.

Both of these are true to an extent - fans of genre fiction are after a "good read" first and foremost, whereas fans of literary fiction are more forgiving of any "slow bits" in between in which the author might explore character in more depth.

But as I have said before, all good novels, whether literary or genre (or mainstream, for that matter), have compelling plots and well-rounded characters.

Why have I bothered with this article at all, given that the question is a red herring and really not worth bothering with? For the simple reason that some of you might have wondered why I chose to deal with characters before plot here at Novel Writing Help.

Did I do that because I believe characters to be more important than plot? No. They are of equal importance, whatever type of novel you plan to write.

The reason I put characterization before writing a plot is that - well, one of them had to come first, and it happened to be characters. So now you know!