In his video “Make Your Characters Come Alive,” author James Scott Bell discusses the wisdom of mixing “plot” and “character.”

He says:

Plot without character bonding = action without engagement

Character without plot = overstaying a welcome

Bells also advises that plot needs to be about death. Physical death, professional death or psychological death. This applies even to comedy. Death is what raises the stakes. It can be death of a career, a job, a reputation, or the death of a way of being.

True character, he says, is revealed only in crisis—where death is on the line.

For more on Bell’s thoughts about creating characters that come alive watch his 8-minute video here:

For more tips on plot, read my earlier post, “Plotting a story is like solving a puzzle.”