Traci S. Sanders

Character or plot? When I asked my fifth grade class what was more important to them, almost all said character. Why? Because it made them care, not just about those on the page, but about the world they inhabit.

I’ve thought about this a lot since the Coronavirus began. It has, in essence, changed humanity’s story. But how? At the beginning of this year, we were human doings, racing through our days. Then, somewhere along the way, as the virus became bigger in our world, our individual worlds became smaller. The plot changed, but not the characters.

Today, and every day, we spend more time with the people in our lives – face-to-face and computer to computer. And, in doing so, we are discovering that, perhaps, we had placed plot over character too many times in our own narratives; as hectic, as exciting, as routine, as surprising, the plot got in the way.

So, in today’s new world, let us remember that as good as the plot can be, it is the characters that make up the story. They are why the plot even matters; they are why the story even exists.