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I've been plagued by ideas of things I've been wanting to talk about but not being able to get my thoughts in a straight line to talk about them and I'm pretty sure a few of them might have ended up being controversial so...
Another writing discussion! Because I've recently come to realize - even after having been asked this question so many times and being unable to answer it - that when I get an idea for a story, it's the characters I develop first. I don't know why I've never noticed this before and dithered so much on deciding if I came up with the plot first or the characters. But it is, indeed, the characters that come first, followed by world building since much of my plots depend strongly on the world in which they take place (it can't just be a matter of bad guy seeking revenge on the world, it has to be he/she is seeking revenge because something about the world provoked them in negative ways).
I also used to think it was world building I would spend forever on. But, no. Again, it's the characters, because the plot and the world aren't interesting unless the characters are interesting, and I adore coming up with the characters' personality, back story and why they are the way they are. Whether I actually accomplish translating all that interesting onto the page is another matter, but they're certainly interesting in my head, and even if neither plot nor world come together the character always will (and then it leaves me sad when the plot or world won't work, because then I'm left with this awesome character drifting in a sea of fragmented plots, perhaps never to be used).
So which comes first for you? Character, plot, world?
Another writing discussion! Because I've recently come to realize - even after having been asked this question so many times and being unable to answer it - that when I get an idea for a story, it's the characters I develop first. I don't know why I've never noticed this before and dithered so much on deciding if I came up with the plot first or the characters. But it is, indeed, the characters that come first, followed by world building since much of my plots depend strongly on the world in which they take place (it can't just be a matter of bad guy seeking revenge on the world, it has to be he/she is seeking revenge because something about the world provoked them in negative ways).
I also used to think it was world building I would spend forever on. But, no. Again, it's the characters, because the plot and the world aren't interesting unless the characters are interesting, and I adore coming up with the characters' personality, back story and why they are the way they are. Whether I actually accomplish translating all that interesting onto the page is another matter, but they're certainly interesting in my head, and even if neither plot nor world come together the character always will (and then it leaves me sad when the plot or world won't work, because then I'm left with this awesome character drifting in a sea of fragmented plots, perhaps never to be used).
So which comes first for you? Character, plot, world?
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Date: 2012-03-08 01:44 am (UTC)From:Yes! This is me exactly!
I think that, for me, a story begins as a random series of stuff happening revolving around a very vague concept, that concept mostly based on a certain desire to write a certain something. For example, there was a story I thought up last month that basically started out as my desire to write a fantasy set in a western setting and with a character partially covered in magic-related tattoos. I figured out both the character and the world in a matter of days. But the actual plot? Yeah, still mostly working that part out (I do have a plot, but it's still pretty sketchy at best). A story I'm currently working on started out as a desire to do something with a dragon rider in it, but not in a typical fantasy setting. And I'm only now starting to piece an actual plot together.
Plots seem to come in their own due time, and mostly when I have both the characters and the world figured out enough for A) character motivation and B) villain motivation or B2) some sort of catastrophe or conflict. I have yet for a story to start off in my head as "so there was this war..." Instead it usually starts off as "so there was this soldier..."