Character driven plot or plot driven character?

The three faces of lockdown. Picture this, a sunny day in a green garden brimming with wildflowers. There is a pond, of the non-manicured variety, surrounded by a woodland filled with ancient trees and their tall canopy layer. The native canopy works to hide dark leafy paths which snake through the dappled half light waiting to be explored. On the daisied lawn an obstacle course is set up. It is comprised of high-class hurdles such as overturned benches, suspect poles balanced on tin paint cans, hurleys, three bicycles and an old dart board. Of course.
This obstacle course has been suggested by a child minder-- me-- by way of solid entertainment for a twelve and eight year old to bolt around. Like the best ideas, this backfires and I find myself being timed like a retired racehorse as it stumbles its way around a course not built for it. The sun shines  and the laughter echoes. It's a quarantine high even if I am being beaten by a twelve year old.

Another picture. I sit in front of my laptop for a weekly cyber rehearsal of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. My sister is in the kitchen/living room so my chair is a bed and the table is my lap. At this particular rehearsal the inevitable news is broken that the performance will not take place in quite the same way that we had expected i.e. there will not be a live audience. For a group of expectant actors taking a course and wanting a showcase, this news does not cause us to break out into song, or lines of Shakespeare for that matter. Ideas are being thrown around the virtual space: St. Stephen's Green Park? A handheld film? Perform it in a tent? (I'm clearly not accepting the 'no live audience' thing)...Our teacher breaks it to us that even with restrictions lifted and theatres open, it will be a long time until 'the fear' is shaken off. Her own show is being postponed until two years down the line. Quite suddenly an already, quite frankly, risky career choice on my part seems a lot more uncertain. I wonder for not the first time, if I should have studied law.
What about 'A midsummer Night's Zoom call'? Seems fitting.

And the final image: wearing socks, birkenstocks and little else to match that caliber of style, I emerge from an overdue food shop in Lidl and Maldova. Two bags are stuffed to the gills and I attempt to fit them into my bike's basket before realizing that it is like asking an Italian to drink instant coffee. The bags are not exactly stuffed with necessities either. I had neglected to buy all of the items on the list and found myself instead emerging with extra accessories such as 'Thai Sweet Chilli Lentil Curls' (for the road), chocolate and wine--a Maldovese speciality wine. I had even gone so far as to ask advice from a fellow customer. Because, when you can't travel then travel vicariously, through cuisine and wine. Sometimes, if I try hard enough, I can even kid myself I’m in Asia with all the face masks going around.
 In this fashion, I walk home clutching the bags to my chest and promptly eat three packets of the lentil curls before returning once again for my abandoned bike. That evening I shed many tears for reasons I cannot fully explain. The lentil curls weren't even that bad.

The good. The bad. And the ugly. Or, the three faces of lockdown.

But here we are, on this great stupendous day, the lifting of restrictions has begun. Where will it lead? Who can say. One things for sure, I'm missing the sun. It's missing the party and I don't appreciate the days off it has chosen to give itself.
As we emerge blinking into the..well anyway... I want to try and evaluate how 'well' or otherwise I have used this period. Certainly some of the goals that I had still remain in the pre-production phase. My 'sourdough starter' pet, for example, stands in the corner of the kitchen counter waiting expectantly to be fed. Strong white flour still cannot be found for love nor money so the yeast has gone hungry. It shall have to wait a little longer for its dinner. The awaited sourdough loaf will be a future project.

What other goals? That word seems too lofty somehow for the unexpected and unprecedented time that we were in and, probably, still 'are' in. Like many, I find that the word 'unprecedented' has become utterly meaningless and, in its own way, entirely 'precedented'.
 A job that myself and my sister are both doing is working as tutors for a creative writing correspondence course. We're quarantine colleagues. Think 'colleagues' but the uniform is pyjamas and you can compare notes and 'check in' across the couch. The job requires us to read through short story scripts submitted by primary school students and provide feedback. The first assignment was exploring 'character' and last week it was 'plot' which saw them all dial their stories up several notches. Plots were boiling at fever pitch, not to be contained within the word limit!  Each seemed to outdo the last with its assortment of bizarre or outlandish creatures (think mutant pigs, rabid bunnies and evil warlocks) and dizzying array of twists, turns, portals and realms. The frequently rolled out phrase, "we are living in a Sci-fi novel" didn’t seem to matter. Invention at its maximum was the order of the day. Perhaps it's comforting to know that our current situation can still be trumped by a ten year old's fantasy plot. The idea of character driven plots did not seem to register. These kids? They were all about plot driven characters.
 Sometimes I would remind these young writers, gently, that character and plot can go hand in hand. That they shouldn't neglect their protagonist just because of a plot. But then I would think, who am I to dish out this advice? After all, if we all chose to live in a character driven plot then wouldn't we end up in a situation a little like the one we're emerging from?