Transfigurations? Which is currently living on my Palm? Less plotty than it might be, because the main focus of the story is Harry redefining Draco. The plot, though, is surprisingly good.

Yeah, that's the one.

things I'd seen had lead me to believe that the Things Making It Happen didn't count as plotty unless they were the majority of the story.

Well, I think balance is the key -- a story that wraps the character development, the changes in relationships and internal motivations tightly with the external Things Happening, that's a damned near perfect story for me. Something like Analise's Weight of the World, in which the interior life of the characters is driven by, and drives, the external happening? That's the way it should be for me.

If I spend too much time contemplating relationships without any action, I get bored. If it's all action without any character insight, I get grumpy.

I've written both plotty and nonplotty stories. Plotty, for me, is harder, because I do demand there be a character arc wrapped in with the plot arc, and so I have to juggle more elements. Just character, or just plot? Not so hard.

Just my 2 baht, adjusted for inflation.

You and I share almost opposite reading tastes, Plei. I am that bane of the librarian and the literature teacher, the escapist reader. I want an adventure, not the journal of a person's inner turmoil. Other people's inner turmoil doesn't move me, unless they're being internally tumultuous while on their way to do something.

I do get annoyed that people--no one here, of course!--call my tastes lowbrow.

I guess we're back to definition here. If someone uses "plotty" to mean, say, "densely plotted", then I can start to narrow stuff down some.

I think I'm seeing it often used as shorthand for densely plotted, yerp.

I think I'm just gonna follow Suela around waving a "what she said" banner.

t blush

To me, "plotty" means the point of the story is the unfolding events, not character interactions or character development

Hmmm. I tend to believe that the characters *drive* the plot, but then I'm also thinking novels, not fanfic.

Hmmm. I tend to believe that the characters *drive* the plot, but then I'm also thinking novels, not fanfic.

I can't really separate the two, in terms of how I think of them as a reader. (Obvious distinctions re: writing)

I started out writing fanfic in an X-Men APA, where all the fanfic was of course plot-driven, since that was the model we used derived from the comics. It wasn't until much later when I was out into the wider world of fanfic that I ran across non-plot-centered fanfic. So I'm more than a little biased by my personal history.

I want an adventure, not the journal of a person's inner turmoil.

I tend to want both. Those stories are very, very hard to find, but when I find them I hang on to them very, very hard.

I'm not sure I've ever really written a "plotty" story, then, by the definitions above. Hm.