Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Mystery series illustrates the failure of the distinction between Plot-Driven and Character-Driven

What could be more plot-driven than a detective novel? Everything has to be worked out in detail from start to finish, with its clues and red herrings, realistic police and forensic details, etc., so that it meets genre standards. Moreover, in a series like that, Grafton has to keep comprehensive records of every detail from novel to novel so her fans don’t catch her in a mistake.

However, as discussed in previous posts, the writing of Grafton’s novels involves the same character-driven process found in the work of the so-called literary novelists I have discussed. They all involve characters who, 1. as Mark Twain said, were not, in any ordinary sense, created (e.g., Kinsey originally came to Grafton as an “apparition”), 2. are alternate personalities, with minds of their own, and 3. are, to one extent or another, in the driver’s seat.