I've just been witness to an epiphany as regards badfic plotting.

First things first: this wasn't my epiphany. It was actually rokesmith's, proving yet again which of us is truly the brains of this operation. It came upon him last night, with me complaining about the latest Act of Mary Stupidity I'd inflicted on myself. And I listened - well, read, IMs are convenient like that - and I wondered why I had never thoiught of that one, and I agreed with every single word.

He's letting me borrow it, though, so I can write about it. I think this deserves a wider audience than just me.

So: an epiphany as regards badfic plotting, and I specify badfic plotting rather than fanfic plotting for a reason. Fanfics, the good ones, the ones that actually pay attention to what the Hell they're doing, aren't the issue and don't have this problem, and they don't have this problem because a good piece of fanfiction is, by definition, an in-character one. An out-of-character fanfiction may be a perfectly functional story, but sadly that, when writing fan works, isn't quite enough. A good story can still be a bad fanfiction.

So what does good characterization have to do with fanfic plotting - or badfic plotting?

Turns out it has everything to do with it. Now read on...

From an in-universe perspective a plot - any plot, fanfic or original - is going to be dependent on characters to drive it along. It's the characters as a group that kick-start a plot in the first place; it's the characters who have to deal with the events that arise from that plot; and it's how the characters deal with the situations they're placed in as a result which will govern where the plot takes them next. Your characters' decisions and actions will dictate how your plot unfolds. Simple. That being the case, you the author have got to know who your characters are and how they'll react in a given situation to have any idea in what direction your plot is going to branch and what's going to happen to them next.

So, characters drive plots. The problems start to arise when a group of characters who are supposed to be intelligent adults whose car breaks down won't logically, say, reach the conclusion that the only way out of their situation is to go into Death Forest. If it is vital to the plot that they go into Death Forest, that can lead to all sorts of problems. This is why we sometimes get Idiot Plots, and an Idiot Plot - it bears repeating - is a plot which does the following:

'Idiot Plot' is a term for a plot that hangs together only because the main characters behave like idiots. A single intelligent move or question by any of the characters, and all problems would be resolved. It's not so bad if the characters are supposed to be acting like idiots, but it's very bad if the Idiot Plot depends on a character suddenly acting stupid enough for the plot to work. Even worse is the "second-order idiot plot", in which the plot can only function if every character involved suddenly loses about 50 IQ points.

From Idiot Plot, TV Tropes.

And one of the surefire ways to end up with an Idiot Plot on your hands? Removing all stable sense of characterization from your cast.

A plot, any plot, is as much about what your characters, alone or in combination, won't do as it is about what they will. You should, as an author, be able to say very clearly: no, this character won't behave like that. They won't go into the forest. And if your plot really needs to take them there, you're going to have to find someone else to go there - for instance, perhaps the one who wouldn't go would follow one who did - or some other reason for them to go. Because if that character wouldn't go into the forest and you make them do it anyway, you're not paying any attention to who that character is - and, worse than that, your plot loses a vital mooring. If the characters can do anything at all, if you don't know what they'll do quite happily and what they would never consider, how do you narrow what they'll do next down?

If it happened once, it'll probably keep on happening. An author who sacrifices characterization once to better fit their idea of what they want to see happen next is an author who'll likely do it again and again. The end result? Vague, ill-defined, uninteresting characters with personalities like a piece of silly putty, who are whatever the Hell the story needs them to be at that point in time.

And that? That is one of the reasons Mary Sue fanfiction often falls so painfully flat.

A Mary Sue is an idealization. She is the center of everything, she has the answer to every question and is the solution to every problem, and she is always right. Either she is treated as right from the start, with nobody (or at least nobody sympathetic) questioning what she's saying; less frequently characters her creator wishes to portray as unsympathetic will question or challenge her - but one way or another are invariably proved wrong, as she turns out to have been right all along or have a totally legitimate reason for acting the way she did. A character like that, who can do no wrong, cannot carry a story. They're uninteresting to read about because they have no road to travel, no lessons they need to learn, nothing they need to overcome. Things just come too easy to a Mary Sue, and that is one of the reasons they're so infuriating to read about. Why the things they inhabit are not stories but fantasies.

Plots need conflict. A character who is both the cause and the resolution of everything that happens, who is always right and is whatever she has to be at any given moment to best achieve her aims isn't really a character at all. That's why the standard Mary Sue's overly contradictory personality - cold-hearted but loving, shy yet outgoing, charming but rude, all things to all people depending on what will serve her needs best at the time - is so unsatisfying. If she can do or be whatever the Hell she likes, where are the limitations? Where's the focus? And where in the world does that leave the plot?

If a character is supposed to be supernaturally perfect, the plot breaks every time it hits a point of actual conflict. You'd almost start to wonder if Mary Sues thought it was a dirty word, or something that was far too normal and ordinary to be acknowledged by a wondrous creature such as themselves.

A plot that has been pressed to the service of a character like that cannot help but be boring as sin. Because plots need conflict and one of the only ways to get a really good conflict going? Is for your characters to fuck up from time to time.

Of course, there's a difference between a character-driven screwup and a group of idiots constantly failing their Int rolls.

This is another standard problem for badficcers. Conflicts that arise simply because the characters - as in the standard Idiot Plot - have suddenly dropped about fifty IQ points. Yes, conflict is a good thing, but a conflict that arises because, say, an intelligent grown adult has jumped to a conclusion about a close friend and instead of clarifying it with that friend, has run off in a sulk? That's the precise opposite of good plotting.

Of course, there are some characters this would be perfectly understandable from: the problems arise when someone who was previously established as cool and rather calculating as opposed to hot-tempered and impulsive is the one running off in a sulk rather than actually trying to communicate with their friend. Almost as bad is if the hot-headed one is the one who runs off and their friends, previously established as level-headed and rational, don't actually try and do anything about it despite knowing full well that the conclusion he has jumped to is inaccurate, simply because the plot relies on the hot-headed one running off and getting into danger... and, as the cherry on this woeful cake of poor plotting, forgetting that he's perfectly capable of looking after himself and falling victim to something he's supposed to be perfectly able to handle.

It sounds stupid put like that, and yet I've seen it. I've seen it and things like it happening in fan work after fan work for no more reason than this is what the ficcer wants to have happen and damn whether or not the characters in question are remotely likely to get into that situation in the first place.

The plot is the variable. The characters shouldn't be.

The characters - especially in a fan work, where the pre-existing characters are why we the readers are here - should, no matter what situation they have been put into, be themselves and remain themselves. If they change over the course of the story the audience should be able to see that change, should be able to follow the path of it and understand the logic of it. It should not simply be sprung on them without warning because you can't find any other way to get them to behave the way you want them to; that's not only bad writing, it's lazy writing. If your fanfic's plot isn't workable without making the regulars break character in order to fulfil its demands, no matter how good the resulting story may be the fanfic is a bad one.