A Writerly Discussion

[kriadydragon]

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?

Comments

[swanpride.livejournal.com]

The characters - in fact, I think the only way to create a good story is starting with the characters. Though there is one aspect of the plot, which might be there before the characters: The ending. I always knew exactly where I want a story to end (after all, one needs a basic idea, otherwise you have no idea what kind of characters you need).

Fanfiction are naturally a special case, because the characters are already there...but when you write one, you naturally chose a scenario which fits the characters, not the other way around.

I think, the basic idea is the egg, the characters are the sperm to give the idea the live, and what's growing of this is the plot. I don't know how often I had to change a plot I had in mind, because my characters decided to go into another direction. The fight Neal and Peter had at the end of "ConCurrent" is an example for that. That one wasn't planned at all, I just wanted to wrap up the story, but Neal and Peter being who they are, it just made sense to add the fight there. It practically wrote itself.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Though there is one aspect of the plot, which might be there before the characters: The ending. I always knew exactly where I want a story to end (after all, one needs a basic idea, otherwise you have no idea what kind of characters you need).

A big yes to this, although for me probably for different reasons - if I don't have an ending in mind, a goal for the story to reach, then the story is a pain to write. There has to be an ending in sight, even if the story ends up veering mostly away from that ending. But I still need those characters in place to help me figure out that ending.

But another although, it depends on the story, because sometimes I've thought up stories where I had both the characters and an ending in mind, sometimes at the same time.

The thing about any story is that you can bet it's going to deviate from your original plot. And, yes, mostly because of the characters. I love outlining to bits but I also have to leave enough room to allow for that change. Even in fanfiction I have no solid idea of how the characters will influence a scene until I get to that scene, so the story needs to be malleable enough to let things play out how they want to.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Which, I forgot to say, is why I think characters always come first for me, not just to get the immediate plot down in my head but to have them ready for when I'm ready to write the story. My current original story had been a breeze to write because I knew the characters pretty well, while my previous original was a pain, because I didn't give it enough time to let the characters really develop in my head, and it slowed the writing process down considerably.

[swanpride.livejournal.com]

I always have tons of notes about the characters, which never make it into the story. For White Collar, I've long lists of likes/dislike which were mentioned during the show. For ConSpire, I've notes for more of less every single painting I think Neal will/would do, but I doubt that I'll descripe all of them - and I know exactly why for example Sally is Cassandra and Alex is Pandora, but I don't think that I'll explain it for anyone of them. The explanation for June fit in, for the others most likely not (though it should be obvious for most of them).