Understanding story, plot and character

Difference between plot and story

Let me tell you an extremely simple story, "The king died and then the queen died" let's take a look at another story "The king died and then the queen died because of grief". The difference between the two stories is, former on is just some events placed in a timeline but the latter is a story with a plot, it consists of a cause and that drives the plot of the story, here GRIEF is the plot that drives the story. But it's not just the plot that drives the story, its characters also play a fundamental role in the advancement of the story. So, here's the big question, what is more important in a story, plot or its characters? Different people hold a different opinion about the issue, for instance, Robert Mckee says that at the heart of the storytelling, both plot and character are one and the same. On the other hand, Martin Scorsese says that people often forget the plot of the movie and remember the character in far greater detail, people connect the actions of a character to the storyline, not the other way around. So, we must again ask ourselves what is it that is more important for a story, let's revisit our king and queen story, both the story have same characters but the second story is interesting because of its plot, thus we can say that plot is more important than characters. But wait, isn't it too quick to understand the nuances between plot and character. Let's take up two more stories, "A person is killed" and "A person is killed by the pope". Unlike the previous two stories which had the same characters but different plot, here the plot is the same but the introduction of the Pope is a more important factor in driving the story. I personally believe that character and plot are not the same at the heart of storytelling as believed by Robert McKee, neither that people remember the character more as compared to the plot. I think it often depends on the kind of story we are telling, some will have characters that will overpower the story like Joker in Batman whereas some stories have a plot that does the same with the characters like the plot of inception or prestige. Whenever someone says 'The dark knight', Jokers' image is the first thing that pops in my mind whereas for prestige or inception plot is far more interesting than the lead character of the story. To put it simply, the characters dictate the plot and the plot feeds the characters to make several decisions to move the story ahead. Both character and plot are a unified entity and inseparable from each other but the importance of either will be based upon the kind of story we are dealing with.

Difference between character and characterization

We shouldn't discard Robert Mckee's idea so soon, we should understand another important thing in storytelling, character, and characterization. Characterization is the sum of all the attributes like age, personality, sexual preference, profession, etc. Ex. how Benedict Cumberbatch behaves, acts, and looks like when he plays Sherlock is called characterization. In short, genetic makeup and social environment lead to a uniquely identifiable person and it is the characterization of that particular character. However, true character is the choices a person makes under the pressure. Greater the pressure, deeper the revelation, and truer the character nature. The principal followed here is "I choose, therefore I am". I'm sure you are still unclear about the difference between the character and characterization. Let's talk about the 5 movies of Akshay Kumar, Jolly LLB2, Gold, Padman, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, and Kesari. Do you think these movies have the same characters or different? At first glance, it may seem that all the five movies have a different character like a soldier or a lawyer or a common man, but these are mere characterization. In reality, there is only one character making the exact same choice, that is a man standing against a social problem, in every movie situation is different but the choice which the lead character makes is the same. There is no issue in having the same characters in every movie, but it's just that it is redundant and not interesting. Most of the Indian cinema focuses on characterization rather than building upon the character. Let me take the example of Sigham, a brave policeman who stands against the evil and corrupt Jaikant, but here lies the problem Singham is not making any choices, its already expected of him to take the righteous path and defeat the villain and this is how we fail to create pressure on the character thus making the story more predictable and less exciting. Let's take a look at a well-written character, in 'Vaastav', a middle-class Maharashtrian mother is presented with the two choices either to hide his son from police and endanger her entire family or kill her son to get him rid off his derangement. In both cases, the after-effects of her choice are colossal, and choosing either path is extremely tough. Under the characterization of a mother lies a very tough choice endangering her own cause of happiness. The choices which are offered should create a dilemma thus creating pressure. Once again, larger the pressure, deeper the revelation, and truer the character. Let's take another example to understand it further, Joker gives two choices to Batman, either save Dent or Rachael, convention of a superhero is that he must sacrifice for the greater good but here he chooses to save Rachael for his personal gratification instead of saving Dent for fighting the crime in the city. This choice of Batman reveals the true character of Batman that he is a selfish person who puts his own happiness above the greater good of serving the public and this choice of his, itself leads to the loss of the very thing he wished to protect. In screenwriting terms, this specific moment is called the 'character revelation', it is the moment where the contradiction between the characterization and true character is exposed. Well written character always comes with a twist because otherwise, as said by Robert Mckee, "If the characterization and true character match, the role becomes a laundry list of repetitious and predictable behavior".

How revelation happens in a story

Lets' try to understand this revelation of character with the advancement of the story. For example, the character of 'Babu Bhaiya' in 'Hera Pheri' has a characterization of hard-working, authoritative, drunkard, no-nonsense, Maharashtrian man who always sides with the right person. But as the plot moves forward, we come to know that the true character of 'Babu Bhaiya' is just of a naive, simple-minded, timid, and annoying elder man's. A similar thing can be observed in 'Munna Bhai MBBS'. I'll just add a picture to show the difference between the characterization and true character.

The delight brought by the repeated revelations of the true character makes 'Munna' a great character. This is the only thing that separates the great cinema from the good cinema. The great cinema will always present characters whose truer character will keep on revealing as the plot moves forward. Let's talk about one of the best representations of characterization and true character. Snape is always shown particularly strict to Harry, during the entire series it seems that Snape hates and despise harry because Harry's father was arrogant to him, but only in the last part of the saga it is revealed that he loved Harry probably more than anyone else and this revelation turns a simple plot moment into a great character moment. So, next time you watch a movie, keep these points in mind to better understand which characters are great and which are just good. 

I think reading this should have brought you a little closer to the understanding of storytelling.

Peace out.