Apropos my recent writing group meeting, I had described my novel in progress as character-driven. But was that accurate? So let’s see. The reason I consider it so is because my approach is take great characters and throw them together and write the story that emerges, rather than begin with a plot and creating characters to suit the needs of the story’s course.
I feel my characters are fully formed and not props to be summoned when needed and discarded soon after. They have their own lives, motivations, personalities. If I’m successful to presenting them to the reader, does that make the novel character-driven? Or is there some other definition? Then what is plot-driven? Is one better than the other?
What do you think? Which do you prefer reading and/or writing?