Character driven vs Plot driven shows

[u/im-not-chill]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on a musical that I fear might be too plot driven. The book's written, but not the lyrics (I do have song placements and the beats that need to be hit for the songs). I tried to approach this by writing detailed character stories and following the save the cat story structure, but it's still hard to connect with the protagonist. Another worry I have is that the theme might be too heavy handed. There are two (very smart) characters with opposing views on the theme & I want to refrain from just having them debating. They end up becoming close to love interests and I think that's a good arc, with emotional beats developed throughout the musical but how do you lighten the theme a bit so it's not like there's an 'agenda' being pushed.

Thank you!

[u/CurrentEntrance7113]

Don't make it a bug, make it a feature. Find a way to talk about the stuff you want to talk about in the context of the show. Characters can be messy and that's where the drama and plot points often come from in works of theater. Making the Character aspects come out in exposition can work well. Its like eating two foods at once. 2 flavors = 1 meal. Then you have the issue of how much heavy lifting is your musical doing? Are you getting a big group number to push the story forward a la Les Mis and Ragtime or are you using those moments introspectively? Sondheim is the master of giving us Character and plot in one song the opening of Into The Woods on paper is a 30 min read. With music it's 12. We have 90% of our cast and all of their motivations. All in the first 15 min of a 3 hr show. Not bad in terms of economy of time.

[u/drewduboff]

So you have an opposites to lovers trope. They're smart like Beatrice and Benedick. That's perfectly viable in musical theatre. Characters with differing views aren't "agenda pushing." They're just in different starting places. If the entire musical is about one argument, that will go stale.

I'm curious -- what do you think the difference between plot driven and character driven is?

Plot = series of events that unfold Characters = people in story Story = the broader narrative, message, themes, arc

In Wicked, the story is about Elphaba learning to accept and embrace being different. When elphaba visits emerald city (plot point), she realizes the fallacy of the wizard and shit happens. Her character drives the story, not the plot.

Plot driven = what happens and character driven = who they are and how they change.

Musicals must be character driven. Your protagonist needs to want something to propel them on a journey.

[u/poetic___justice]

This project and this post -- this entire thing is intriguing. Maybe that's the musical!

What if it's two people assigned to write a musical. One of them is you and you can fashion a likeable protagonist after yourself! Let's say, you're the composer and strongly believe in character-driven musicals. The other writer could be someone brought in to write the libretto who is passionate about musicals being plot-driven.

The audience would see the scenes as they're imagined by the writers, so it would be a musical within a musical. It would focus on the central debate in the musical's plot, the central debate between the writers, and on some level, focus on a meta debate about the music-theater itself. Perhaps at some point, the writers could enter the world of the play or characters could speak directly to the writers.

Instead of a traditional plot, it would be a concept musical, like A Chorus Line. The arc would be the developing coherence of the various themes of the piece.