Some people will tell you that literature is “character over plot,” and that commercial fiction is “plot over character.” This is untrue. Plot is generated by character. It doesn’t matter how much money or what kind of readership you expect to get out of your story. Your story is the story of someone who wants something and who then acts to get it. The “want” is character and the “act” is plot.
In previous posts I talked about character creation and about structure. Once you have created your character, the next step is to think about the first and last scenes of your story.
In the first scene, the character should be living their normal life. Something should happen (it can be minor, or even incidental) that illustrates the Lie the character is living in and what the character really Needs.
The last scene should show the character happy because they have achieved or obtained what they Need. Ideally, it should mirror, in some fashion, the introduction.
For example, in my second book (unpublished), the protagonist Wants AND Needs to be a part of a family. (It’s okay if the Want and the Need are the same, but the character should WANT to get it one way and NEED to get it another way.) He’s sitting at a bar, by himself, when the villain walks in and proceeds to kidnap him to make him part of her vampire family, to do things for her and raise her status in the eyes of other vampires. This is not the family he wanted! In the last scene, he’s relaxing at a welcome-home party with his found family, secure in the knowledge that he is loved and accepted for who he is, not for what he can do for someone else.
Once you have that, it’s time to chart your story. (This is not outlining. I’m a pantser.)
Blog entry 5, “Story Structure,” goes over the story beats common to most stories throughout Western civilization and across time. It’s not a formula so much as it’s the result of research into what kinds of stories we’ve always told and why we find them appealing. To get a character from A to Z, you show them in their native state. Then the villain (or life, or the protag herself) does something that changes your protag’s day. Your protag reacts, and that starts a sequence of events, a causality chain.