Cheers
That makes sense. Is there particular methods particularly suited to different plots/genres?
Hrm in terms of particular genres? Not sure, there are some genre differences in basic ideas of HOW the plot works, but that depends on the writer too.
For example, there's a distinctive difference between sci-fi and fantasy, they're often mistaken for two forms of the same thing but there's one major difference: In sci-fi, yeu explain HOW things work and WHY stuff happens, with additional emphasis on the reasoning behind it. Fantasy just goes "oh that? Uhm... it's magic", and then doesn't bother to define magic.
While one can state that the primary difference is 'just' the method by which the writer attempts to sustain the suspension of disbelief (just go along with it and pretend yeu don't understand, vs trying to make people understand), these each have their flaws (sci-fi tends to rely on theory, which can often prove false, even at the time of writing if the writer isn't a physicist which makes people the book's often targeted at just groan at how many errors there are, while fantasy can often play the "zomg it's magic!" card waaaay too often sometimes). They also have a distinctive difference in how they run with the plotline.
For example, fantasy usually is centered wholly upon the characters, 'magic' is used often as an excuse to force the environment to change to suit the character's story, or to guide them in their path. Everything centers on the characters itself, not on the magical aspect; the times yeu see otherwise, this tends to be a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid such as ShadowRun which melds both togeather.
Sci-fi, on the other hand, generally tends to have the plot driven by logical consistancies and the assumption that one thing will cause the other to happen, with the plotline generally carefully laid out far in advance, and everything explained. In a few more obvious cases of sci-finess, there's ringworld or angelmass, in which the very nature of the plotline revolves around key concepts, and the characters are heavily guided more along a rail to these destinations as their interaction with these plot points is far more critical. In fantasy yeu can have the people "go see the wizard" and yeu really don't care HOW they go about getting there, just toss some stuff in their way at random usually for filler. In sci-fi, generally there's specific reasoning behind how to get to a certain path, and each encounter along the way is more rigidly enforced.
I think this's less based on the genre though, and far moreso based on the mindset of the writer themselves. It's just certain mindsets tend to prefer one over the other. A highly logical mind will have difficulties writing for fantasy as there's the overwhelming need to EXPLAIN the concept of magic, in which case it becomes a sci-fi interpretation of an otherwise fantasy world. But once that occurs, it'll likely also bleed over in other aspects as well, such as structuring plot development significantly.
Dramas, could be considered to be a similar mindset of fantasy, as essentially that's whot they are, with even more emphasis on the characters themselves. The concept of the world they live in though can be any of a number, but is generally more realistic to simplify things. Something like star trek's Voyager series, would be an example of a sci-fi drama though. It actually has very little sci-fi to it though, which's forcibly tacked on... see unlike a sci-fi story which revolves around the concepts, and uses the characters as a method of relating the concepts to the viewer, the characters ARE the concept, and the only use for the sci-fi aspect at all is to present new environmental and psychological and emotional challanges for them to overcome.
Comedies can go in a large number of ways but rarely seem to dwell heavily upon the characters, and are more interested in dumping the pre-made characters with a strong sense of wit, into bizzare situations, in which case it matches hand and hand alot better.
Horror's generally a very obvious example of using the puppetter style of character development... the characters act according to their strings, with a loose guide of "read this script, yeu are this stereotype". Horror does not really bother with making in depth characters or even really plotlines often, it's generally more treated as an action movie where yeu toss some people up against monsters, be they zombies, or a homicidal killer. Noone has any real REASON for doing anything... (WTH does jason kill people? Because it entertains the viewers! :hi: ). In these situations, the characters are dragged by strings to act however they're supposed to, but they usually at least use a handbook guide of stereotypes to define how they act semi-consistantly. The characters have no personality and life of their own though when not being held by the hand and told whot to do however. If that were the case, they wouldn't touch the damned door yeu're screaming at them not to go in. Seriously wth. Yeu were an intelligent, normal person seconds ago, and then BAM blindsided by genre blindness and yeu completely don't realize yeu're in a horror movie. The "plot" is more a haphazard excuse for people to be cut into ribbons in new and interesting ways. Note the emphasis on each victem usually being unique in their death scene. Just being eaten by zombies isn't good enough, no they have to stress differences in being eaten each time. That's the plot. And it's highly amusing ^.^ If yeu can suspend disbelief that the characters suck and the plot's nonexistant, then yeu can enjoy watching the vampire nazi-mongol robots taking over.
I don't really bother with most other genres, but I'm sure most also follow similar guidelines. I'm probably oversimplifying things alot too.
In regards to the post about puppets versus creatures. Twilight has to be the ultimate puppet book. Why doe ANYONE do ANYTHING in that book/movie? Because they have to to keep the plot moving. Ive never seen anythign like it, the characters arent even stereotypes there just, non-existent. How lazy is that, you cant even take the effort to copy and paste some generic characters you just leave them all blank.
Twilight's generally regarded by most people to be little more than a fangirl-horror-fic. The plot doesn't exist for the sake of furthering the story, and the characters have no purpose other than to either get eaten or fall in love. If yeu're not in one of these two positions, yeu have no place in a story of this nature. This's a prime example of where writing characters to fit whot yeu want them to do without even considering making it plausible as to why they'd act a certain way, just shows how NOT to write.
In any case, the whole writing concept's alot more complex than whot I've shown here too, and there's alot of extra styles as well and variations on a theme, but the basic concepts are fairly similar. Certain genres are more prone to one type of writing than another though, due to the fact that they have different goals (horror just wants to startle or scare an audience usually, suspense is NOT horror, suspense relies heavily on carefully integrated plotlines to add a fear of 'whot next?' that horror doesn't bother with. Yeu know from the start everyone but the annoying blonde girl and the good looking guy are going to get eaten by the werewolf, we just want to see HOW they die).