Book Blogger Hop

This meme is hosted by Crazy for Books, so hop on over her way to see what she is up to!

Here's this weeks question:
"What do you consider the most important in a story: the plot or the characters?"

This is a tough question because they really aren't mutaully exclusive. You need both. If I had to choose though, I'd say the charecters are more important. Here's my reasoning. If you have a shoddy plot, written well, but a wee bit cheese ball or unbelieveable, but the characters are so engaging and believable that you make a connection with them, you can overlook the short fall of the plot to an extent. There have been books where I'm not buying into the plot, but I like the people in the book, once I kind say "I guess I'll just go with it" and stop worrying so much about the plot, I find myself liking the book alot more. It's hard to do that in reverse. If the plot is fabulous, but the characters are dullsville, there is nothing to connect to.

I'm going to use Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall to ephasize my point. 1.) Fabulous plot- really well written. 2.) At the beginning of the book I hate Sam. No amount of wonderfully written plotline makes me want to continue this book. I just cna't connect with the characters. 3.) On the suggestion of many I keep reading because they assure me I will grow to care about Sam. 4.)true to their word, I do, and it's the character and that connection that eventually keeps me reading. The good plotline alone was not enough for me. Thank goodness I had so many book pushers insisting I continue reading because they were right- the characters in this book become more and more engaging and eventually live up to the plotline.

So there's my gigantic answer. You need both, but without good, weel written characters you may be doomed.