Character driven and plot driven storys

I have heard there are two different types of storys. The first is plot driven storys and the second is character driven.
I have heard too, character driven storys are better and people like them more. I am not exactly sure what the difference between them is, but I will take a shot based on my understanding.

Here goes....Character driven storys are when there is a story, and the actions of the character drive the story forward. Say theres a war, and a soldier loves a woman and decides to leave his post and chase after her to make sure she is safe. Then his friends also leave their posts to go look for their missing friend.

Plot driven storys are where the characters base their actions on the events which happen around them. For example, there is a war, and the enemy invades and captures the capital city with the president in it. Then a group of soldiers have to go behind enemy lines and rescue the president.

Which type of story are people more interested in?

You described it already yourself. I'll give you two examples you probably know: the master of character driven literature is Stephen King. It's not that he's such a good writer (doesn't even say that of himself), but he's really good at creating certain characters and then simply blow their world up. Most of his types are like you and me and Mary Jane, but then he lets us watch how these characters react to certain situations. IMHO he's that successful because we like to practically ourselves in unusual situations - btw also the recipe for most 'adventure' stories.

The other side is Tom Clancy. While an expert on what he writes about, he won't just create characters and then let them 'live' naturally like King, who often doesn't even know what will happen in the beginning of a book. Clancy does it vice versa - he creates a completely laid out story and populates it with people. There is nothing inherently wrong with that - you don't watch yourself, you watch some guy you are not (Jack Ryan, John Clark. Not Joe Sixpack). In the case of Clancy, there is no real downside. The books are fine, the man knows more than 3 NATO generals together, and often his scenarios are so outrageous that the idea alone is so interesting you'll read it (RED STORM RISING is one example among many; I'm only choosing it because it's his only book I have read more than once).

The problems start when you have a lesser writer than Clancy. Because in that case, neither the idea nor the execution will be interesting enough to grab your attention. Then you'll start longing for characters, but the usual cardboard cutouts won't do any more when the plot sucks. I don't have an example right now as I refuse to read books that don't get my attention on the first few pages, but you can use 90% of Hollywood movies. They are mostly plot driven, as are many TV series. Don't get me wrong - that's not inherently bad. But you can cover a boring plot with interesting characters better than the other way 'round. People just like watching their kind I guess.

^Couldn't have summed it up better myself.

Which one is BSG?

I think the combination of both is best. (According to the Clancy/King comparison I have to say though that I prefer plot driven )

People say Deep Space Nine was a character driven story, as well as most people's favorites, i.e. Firefly. I think Battlestar Galactica seems more plot driven although they have elements of character driven, like when Adama decides to go down to the planet himself to rescue his son, or when he himself chooses to put the fleet back together.
I do not know what Enterprise was because some of the storys did not make any sense and I thought they were full of plot holes, but maybe someone can tell me what it was.

Interesting question. I'd have to say character driven, though it is a good mix of both. Of course there's a plot, i.e. a story arc, and what I think has been challenging in the reimagined series has been not knowing how many seasons it will run for (although it seems pretty clear now, unless SciFi are a bunch of hopeless knobs, that it will run for at least 7-9 seasons).

You have a clear beginning/end (the colonies are destroyed/they do or do not find Earth), but whatever happens along the way can be fluid.

But what really separates this series from anything else out there is the characters. Too much TV is so heavily plot-driven that the characters seem to be there just to mouth the dialogue. The BSG characters are fully realized. There's more backstory than we'll ever get to see onscreen, but just having it implied gives them a richness I don't find in most s/f productions, or in most TV in general.

Well, there goes that show.

BSG is very much a plot-driven show IMHO. It just also happens to have lucked out with a good cast and good writing to give that cast stuff to chew on. But I think the plot clearly dominates the characters in that case, not the other way around.

^How 'bout we compromise and call it a good balance of all the elements?

Plot driven stories are better, but most American writers and TV shows and movies do character driven SO much better, and some do it so incredibly well, that the majority of really great American storytelling in the 20th century is character driven.

Your above description of the plot driven story ("Plot driven storys are where the characters base their actions on the events which happen around them."), while common, is thus actually a description of a character driven story without drive: You're still describing the story from the point of view of what the characters are doing, and because they're doing not a whole lot, you describe them as reactive.

Now, an example of a REAL, well-done plot driven story is a classical Greek tragedy. Antigone, Kreon, Philoctet -- what cereal do they prefer? Can you name their three most interesting personal quirks? What kind of man/woman would they fall for? What is their distinctive pattern of speech? Name five typical things any of them would do.

You can't answer any of these questions, because that's not what these stories are about. They're not about the characters; they're about a story that is not unlikely to happen, given what humans are like (as opposed to: given what we have this one character defined as being like). These stories don't tell you something about a fantastic and interesting individual character; they tell you something about the kinds of interesting things that might happen, i.e. they focus on a plot.

(Learned this from Aristotle's Poetics, which is a remarkable book. Read it.)

BSG is a plot driven show that has great characters. But it is still all based around the plot and how we get from one event to another.

Character growth (as the central theme) is probably the single most defining element in character-driven stories. We have that in BSG, though not enough, probably. But relationships and characters do evolve, so it's not entirely plot-driven either. And that is what makes BSG interesting, imho.

If I think of a plot-driven story, human emotion has little to do with it. But for example Adama's character is a very strong driving force in BSG. The conflicts between him and the President are entirely character-based, and they influence the lives of everyone in the fleet. The fact that the chief and Sharon had a relationship that the ground crew was covering up, in season 1, was enough to form the backbone of an entire episode. Even though a cylon suicide bomber was the trigger, the appealing factor of that episode was the human side.
The fact that we've had martial law declared on BSG, was character-driven - the main characters are not interchangeable. Seeing Starbuck in her old appartment on Caprica would have been wasted screentime in an entirely plot-driven series. So what if she paints? In a character-driven story, it helps us understand Starbuck better and makes us enjoy the show more. Still, it would be just as meaningless without the plot we have. Yes, I'd like to hear more about Starbuck's life, and the lives of other characters - but the developments of the plot take up that time on the show. What do we really know about the chief? What is suggested about his life? And what about Apollo, even? Personally, I'd love to see more of that, and I'd love to see more episodes on what life is like in the fleet. E.g. following the life of a 'random' civilian on one of the vessels, or focussing on many people on one civilian ship in the fleet each episode. Who leads which ship?
The episodes where the people responded to the martial law by refusing to supply Galactica, the episode with the political conference - great stuff! Unfortunately, with only 13 episodes in a season, that's unlikely to be a focus of the show very often. The plot, the fight against the cylons, still takes precedence.

Ron Moore has indicated that there will be spinoff novels from the series. While he didn't go into detail (and I probably shouldn't mention it here, but what the hell), they'll be produced by Tor Books, and James Frenkel will be the editor.

How many books, by whom, and when are, of course, the big questions. But my assumption is that they'll take their flavor from the show and, while being strongly plotted, will focus more on the characters, with the kind of backstory and side story that there's no time for onscreen.

I'm wondering, if this thread ends up being mostly about BSG, should it be moved to Media Central?

Stories.

^Well, yeah, but I didn't want to dampen his enthusiasm.

Tor paperbacks have a tendency of falling apart, Garamet. Why is that?

^As opposed to any other paperbacks? I dunno. Cheap production values, I'd guess.

Yeah, but what are you doin' to 'em?