fiction - How much character description is considered necessary in a "plot driven" story?"

Some stories begin with a rather full description of say, the main character. Here is a clip from Hello Dolly that describes in (for me) excruciating detail not only about what she does (matchmaking) but how she does it. And I can see why character description would be important in say, "Thelma and Louise," because "character" forces them to make choices that most people would not make.

But my story is a plot-driven one that begins with a "crisis." (Think, earthquake or tsunami, or Dorothy Gale's tornado.) In such a situation, I need to know that Dorothy is from Kansas, and is a "hick from the sticks," but not about how she lives her everyday life on a farm that she's about to leave.

I was once taught that in a plot driven story, you should know your characters at the level of a good newspaper article about them. Because that's the level of description that the underlying crisis is reported. Naturally, the heroine should be portrayed as vulnerable but not helpless, and the hero as brave but not foolhardy, so they are equal to the crisis.

Is this an accepted standard? Or do readers and writers demand more character description than that in most stories? And if so, "how much" more?

Answer

To me a plot driven story is like real life: you have no idea what goes on in another person's mind and all you know about them you deduce from their actions.

If a person sees some event and reacts to this in a particular way, it is completely unnecessary to explain that person's motivation, because it is apparent. That is the basis of "show, don't tell".

In an action driven story, you characterize your characters by their actions.

This is not contradicted by the advice that you, the author, should know more about your characters than what can be deduced from one particular scene. You need to know your characters to decide how they will act. But you need not write more than what the character does. (And don't forget that "behavior" includes mimics and gestures and tone of voice. A tear is something your character does.)