More writerly-processy pondering

[gnomi]

I had coffee with a friend last night, and we got to talking about writer-type stuff. And that prompted this question: when you start a new story, does the plot come to you first or do the characters tend to show up first and then let you know, eventually, what the plot is? Does it vary depending on the type of story?

I'd love to hear from people who write all sorts of stories - genre, mainstream, whatever. If it's got plot and characters, I'd love to hear which order they come to you.

Comments

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

heh. considering that i don't actively plot because i don't think i CAN, and that every time i plan something out ahead of time it ends up taking the left fork and the road less traveled, i'd say i get the characters first.... i have kind of a plot for this year's nanowrimo, but i don't know if i'll do it or not because i don't really have characters to be in it. i have a city, that's about it. it doesn't really vary - folks show up in my head and eventually they might let me in on the plot, assuming there is one. (like, the ot4 boys and girl? ain't no plot there. there's hardly any action.)

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

If it's fanfiction, then the plot - or a kernal of plot ("what if Lex only meets Clark when they're both starving students?") usually occurs first.

I've only done a hand full, but when I've written original short stories, the characters came first, then the plot.

[terri-osborne.livejournal.com]

For me, I usually have at least the basic framework of a plot, and then the characters move in and flesh it out from beginning to end for me. I usually go into it knowing, say, points A, F, J, P and Z, and then the characters come in and begin to tell me how I'm getting from A to F, F to J, and so on. (Fortunately, I long ago developed the ability to skip around in the plot when I write. :) )

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Kind of both, kind of neither? What I tend to get first is what I think of as a situation -- that is, a single salient characteristic or two along with a single moment of what's happening to them. I can't really call that plot, because it's not moving yet.

Then I start asking myself questions, or someone else does. They loosely group into "how did they get into this fine mess?", which I'm pretty good at, and "how do they get out of this fine mess?", which I'm not so good at yet.

These questions tend to generate plot and character more or less in tandem -- I figure out who they are by what they'd choose and what they'd choose by my emerging sense of who they are.

I run into trouble when the two don't mesh and I have to figure out which to tweak or cut, but that's when bringing in an outside opinion -- or even just hearing myself explain it aloud to someone else -- can be enormously clarifying.

There are also stories that start with neither plot nor character but with a sentence or two that I simply want to write, and then have to work backwards to figure out who's saying it and why.

[suzvoy.livejournal.com]

Gawd, my stories start from all over the place.

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

I usually get triggered by a moment like a great phrase of dialogue or a visual image, and then figuring out how that moment makes sense gives me both plot and characters.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i get that too, and then i end up with a bunch of characters who won't tell me their NAMES.... >_< a frustrating way to start, but sometimes something really nice comes out of it....

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

Neither the plot or the characters, really.

I get an idea or a tiny image of a character or a scene in the story, or a peice of technology or an idea. and there it will sit until it collects more stuff that sticks to it - sometimes for years. I can't start writing until I know who my main character is, what she wants, and what she has to do to fulfill herself (which may not necessarily be what she wants) and a thematic statement and a way cool skiffy idea - and then I can't start until I know my setting and where to start.

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Usually the characters come first. Right now? I have a plot. Or part of one. Not much of a clue who my characters are. I know the roles they have to play, somewhat. This whole thing started with a martini, actually. It was an inspirational martini.

[dpolicar]

So, I always feel a little sheepish answering questions like this, because to a first approximation I don't write and I don't want to claim a status I don't have. But, that caveat aside: neither, or perhaps both.
What comes to me is scenes... a character or group of characters doing something.
Plot, when I get that far, derives from repeated asking and answering of questions like "why are they doing that? what were they doing a minute ago? what will they do next? what are they trying to accomplish, and do they succeed? if not, why not?" and so forth, and listening to the answer.
Character comes for free... as with nonfictional people, it is an emergent and sometimes imagined property of a set of actions and reactions with a common agent.

A housemate of mine used to complain that I would write scenes in which characters who clearly have shared history would wander in in pursuit of a fragment of some obviously complicated goal, to which they would periodically refer, achieve whatever it was they set out to achieve (or fail to), and exit stage left, and she really wanted to know what they were talking about. It frustrated her that I had absolutely no idea, and she was as free to write the background as I was...

[eal.livejournal.com]

You know how it happens for me. I dream the whole danged thing.

Characters appear sometimes before; sometimes after. Storylines appear -- whenever.

I think this may prove to be the only difficulty in our writing partnership -- except that we share a brain :)

M

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Didn't I already answer this question for you once? Do you remember what I said? 'Cause I don't. :-)

[neilfein.livejournal.com]

Aside from the whole music/words interaction, plot comes first, I think. You can look as a song lyric as a short short short short short story. After I have a story I care about enough to tell to other people, a little garden gnome that lives in my medulla oblongata starts modifying /creating characters to suit. The first conscious decision I make before doing serious writing is, what's the theme I want to get across? Having theme in place generally opens the door to layered interpretations. (I've heard some strange meanings read into my lyrics. And some disturbing ones.)