I try to plan out my big beats at the start of the book and then "let" the characters figure out how to get from one big beat to the next. I don't think there's been an instance where I got to that beat and the character motivation/development had changed so much to alter the outcome, but how the granular plot transpired isn't something I like to plan out at the start.
I sometimes think that my plotting is inspired quite heavily by the 90s game Deus Ex. That game gave the impression of being very non-linear, but actually had a very defined, linear plot. The critical thing was that there were many routes to get from A to B - everyone would get there, but their path would be different. Sometimes it feels like my characters are playing their own version of that game, within my story's context.
If I could map out a hierarchy of importance, for what I enjoy as I create and what I look for in books, character would be at the top, plot would be way, way, way at the bottom. As a kid, maybe not, but that's how my tastes have changed.
Just look at A Confederacy of Dunces. Fantastic use of character, but almost no "plot". Things happen, but it's not a defined "beginning, middle, end." One of my favourite books.
What will be remembered (provided you have the structure for it) are characters. No one remembers plot. All those ingenious layers and double meanings? Forgotten, ignored, gone.
If you have structure and characters fleshed out, there is hardly any need to plot anything anyway, in fact, I find it counter-intuitive to plot everything plus it's no fun at all writing a pre-plotted story. How much fun will it be reading pre-plotted stories? Zero. Characters are going through the motions, strings are being pulled, and then and then and then etc pp.
I largely agree, as a writer, but I'm not sure if most readers approach fiction like this. If you ask someone about a book or a film, they'll usually tell you 'what it is about', and that ordinarily means boiling down the plot. This is partly because the plot is the simplest thing to recount, while characters are complicated, but do wonder if there's a bit of a weird contradiction there - the only reason someone would remember the plot is if the characters gave it meaning.
Not sure if I'm explaining my thinking very eloquently there.
May 23, 2023·edited May 23, 2023Liked by Simon K Jones
The "what it is about" would be the story, the "and then" not so much the "why" (plot) which I think people will be hard-pressed to remember. Take Indiana Jones (first movie), people remember the character, his story, maybe they remember some funny or dramatic scenes and little details here and there. In his "Aspects of the Novel" Forster talks about story, character and plot, the difference between story and plot, the type of readers and the importance of character (Homo Fictus), "for whom the novelist will sacrifice story, plot, form and incidentally beauty." A nice idea, but in the end, there are no rules.
Actually was discussing this with Laura this morning before reading this post.
I'm working through a series of books Big Finish released - novelizations of the first season of "Blake's 7" - and... Novelizations are tricky. You're more or less locked into the scripted events, but the best novelizations expand upon and illuminate further the events of the story (here, the "Robotech" novelizations by Brian Daley and James Luceno (as "Jack Mckinney") stand as perhaps the best I've ever read). Seven volumes, seven authors.
Well these "Blake's 7" books are all good, the writers involved are experienced writers and have familiarity with the franchise, but five of the books err towards merely doing the action. There is little attempt to get inside the heads of the series regulars. Perhaps this is because they assume the reader has seen the show and is familiar with the iconic performances of the original cast? Still, these same five writers will take a character with 30 seconds of screen time and give them five pages of backstory - which is a little odd - and, in the case of one character with one scene, has an entire subplot about their (unseen) wife and children. Nice fleshing out of detail, but there's nothing adding to Blake, Avon, Jenna, Vila, Cally, Gan, Servalan, or Travis (ok, I lie - the subplot with the wife has one very nice tie-in for Travis. Still, five of the volumes are mostly written from third-person omniscient, focusing more on plot and action rather than character and psychology.
Except the first and last volumes, written by Paul Cornell and James Goss, respectively. These are written with each chapter specifically using a different viewpoint character, and these writers aren't afraid to delve into the viewpoint character's psyche. Cornell finally explained EXACTLY why it was *SPOILERS FOR TV SHOW FROM 1978* Blake was able to overcome Liberator's psychic defenses when no one else couid (because his mind had been torn apart and rebuilt so many times by Federation psychosurgeons, Blake no longer saw illusions, but reality), and even used that scene to show how the psychic link with Zen enabled Blake to rebuild the shards of memory and personality from all his mind wipes.
I'm still in Goss' volume, but every time he dips into Zen or Orac's viewpoints, it's so much fun!
Long example story short (too late, several paragraphs ago), the separation between the five volumes which are merely good and the two that are great is ALL about the focus on character vs action.
Also, the "Robotech" novels are freaking good and are the definitive version of the saga. Something close to 5000 pages.
I always think writing a screen-to-page adaptation must be incredibly hard for those exact reasons. Translating a screenplay into an actual film is one thing, but translating it into a different kind of written form always sounds very hard.
Magically thinking non-believer, here. This is a great reminder that in each story I write, no matter the length that while what happens can be interesting, who it happens to pulls people in. There’s an investment. I’m writing something now and it reminds me to go back to the characters themselves and build on who they are. Thanks for sharing.
Plot? Character? Story? Setting? Theme? These are things that never come into mind when I'm writing. Should they? I usually write long short stories. I don't "PLOT" them out, but I do have an idea of "WHERE" I want the story to go. You have to know "HOW" the story ends. Everything else is just getting there. Each story, of course, is different--but the end result is always the same...you have to know "WHERE" it is. I don't write my stories with the intention of proving something thematically. I don't look for theme--that's for other people to look for. What do I care, if I'm writing a story and basically telling it to myself, first? My so-called "PLOT" consists of me thinking of how I want it to end, and what do I need in order to get there? And that's it. Is there going to be a happy ending? Hard to say, but I doubt it. I get the story across with my "character", and I get the character across with "dialogue". I'd like to think that most of the character is revealed through the dialogue he speaks, and the action he follows to support that dialogue. It's like peeling back the layers of an onion--only you're adding them. The setting's important, sure, but it shouldn't take over the story; World-building shouldn't take away from the characters in the story. Everybody writes differently. I tend to edit as I go along. I go back and forth, adding here and there--sometimes adding something because I think it needs foreshadowing. Sometimes it's just a single words, or a sentence. But only YOU knows where that word, or line, should go. If your story's going to be 15,000 words, you want the words to "fit" and make the whole thing cohesive. So character is important. But writing is like building a house of cards. You have to have everything in place. Character, Plot, Story, Setting, even Theme, are all a part of the "foundation". You can't create a story without having the tools handy. "How" you use them is up to you.
Seriously, I would LOVE to take a more strategic and logical approach to character and plot building. Believe me, I've read oodles of books on plot mechanics etc. However, my creative process is indeed exasperating and very emotionally-driven no matter how much I try to change it.
Sometime back I decided to just build some discipline in and learn what makes me create best. It's been working for me so far.
I think there is just no one way of writing and everyone's creative process is different. I say embrace what works for you and to hell with everyone's advice lol. There's a creative writing coach that talks about it - her name is Becca Syme. She made me realise that my process is just my process, and if my process doesn't make sense to others doesn't mean it's wrong.
Btw, through her site I discovered a number of people who actually created the way I did. Apparently, your creative process is personality-driven, and I actually found people who created the way I did and leaned into learning how to use my strengths to create great stuff.
Eh, I rather think that when a character starts arguing with you, it's a sign that the plot has taken a wrong turn. I experienced this early on with my Martiniere books, where Gabriel started hollering at me that *things didn't really happen the way you're trying to write them and this is why they happened.* The story definitely improved for the better when I listened to what my subconscious was telling me about this person...um, something like nine books later.
The flip side, which is when a character *isn't* coming to life, often reflects a lack of world building, character building (and no, I'm not talking about things that show up in character creation sheets regarding eye color or hair color or what they do/don't like--rather, the interaction of that character with the plot), or sometimes a problem with the story. More often I find it's something within the world building or character construction that keeps a character from coming to life, rather than a plot problem. At least in my process, if the character is turning in a manner where the plot doesn't fit, then the character is usually hollering at me about it.
The silent character, though? Sometimes that character is not quite ready to reveal themselves. Those tend to be more complex creations hanging out with the secondary characters. But when they speak--they can be the most fun.
Sounds about right! It's when those layers of complexity start to work inside your head. It's something I've got better at over the years, and was definitely very bad at in my teens and twenties.
"... humans are definitely weird for doing any of this in the first place." Yup.
As to your questions, I'm more practical.
As for plot-central, I've only written one book where I didn't worry about plot (though there is plot), concentrating on setting/character. Otherwise, I can't seem to live without plot.
I write a long synopsis of the story first and then iron out as many of the plot-problems as I can then write. Then iron out anything else that pops up during the rewrite, revise, resolve stage.
My excuse for approaching story this way is probably due to me being overly logical and rational. To my writing's detriment? I don't know. But everyone whose read my books says they like them.
I always take 'like' as relative, because the 'perfectionist' in me always finds something 'wrong' or something to 'fix' or something to 'improve' in all my stories.
I don't think that's necessarily always 'perfectionism'. It could simply be that you're improving as a writer with each project. I always think that if you get a few projects or a few years down the line and still think your previous thing was really good, THAT'S when you worry - because it suggests you haven't got any better since then.
Highly logical plots can work brilliantly, too: I'm thinking of particularly twisty thrillers, or science fiction that leans heavily on exploring rules-based scenarios (eg Asimov's classic robot stuff).
In fact, many of Asimov's 'classic' short stories hardly have any characters at all. I wonder whether character becomes slightly less important with the short story, where it can be more about exploring a singular idea. Not something that could be extended over an entire novel.
The word 'project' encompasses so much, but I was thinking more about stylistics. The style of the genre I'm writing. When I think I've 'mastered' the style I'm going for, I find someone has invented a new style that eclipses what I was going for.
You highlight this when you mention 'highly logical plots', which is what I try for. I think Asimov's Robot series influenced me though I read it in my teens. By the end of my teens, I had read Herbert's Dune saga and his 'style' was like 'chasing the dragon' for me.
As for short stories, never mastered the art. I gave up when I couldn't stick to a word count or under - for competitions. I've met a few nasty people in the writerly realm who've said to me I'd never make it as a writer if I couldn't stick a word count. Oh well. So not sure that it emphasizes one over the other, but I have read some that did both quite well.
I do think there is still a mystical element to it. I don’t know why my synapses fire the way they do to paint the pictures that appear in my head. They’re just there. Where the craft comes in is in me translating that head movie into something comprehensive and compelling for people other than me to consume.
"Do you think of your characters as individuals almost independent of yourself, or do you take a more practical approach?"
I'd say I'm somewhere in between. The characters certainly don't exist independent of me, though I hold to that somewhat magical notion that I have set them free on the page but that they are still bound by the margins. Learning to inhabit your characters, or take on some aspect of essentially channeling them whilst you write, creates a sense of agency that is theirs alone, even though it is still deriving ultimately from you, the writer.
So the craft here (again, for me and how I feel about it) is being better at allowing that process to happen and tapping into it.
Yeah, I definitely agree that the challenge is in finding ways to let characters be characters. That's the hardest thing as a new writer, I think, because plot is much 'easier' to write, and is therefore more tempting to focus upon.
Obviously my characters are creations of my imagination, but that doesn't mean they can't surprise me. I was surprised when Leon turned on to be gay and in love with Diaz.
I suppose if a character seems to take on an inner life, can surprise the author, and even, occasionally, end up changing plot beats (or refusing to fit into a plot beat you'd originally intended for that character, you've done it right.
But, here I use Babylon 5 examples *Spoilers ahead for a TV show from the 1990's*
JMS didn't want to kill off Kosh, yet (wrote JMS), when it came time to do so, there Kosh was, saying, "It's time. It's what I'm here for."
When it came time to kill Emperor Cartagia, the outline had Londo doing the deed, yet (wrote JMS), Vir popped up, saying, "it should be me. Have me do it." And so he did.
Applies to short stories, novels, plays, TV and film. Even games. I used to maintain a stable of four PCs to move in and out of the campaign (our Ref now limits us to two, and, in some games, just the one, and I'm pretty sure it's because of me) as required by the character. Lord Baileigh... I'd intended to retire him, and have him return to his estate to repair his shattered relationship with his wife, but... The missions would come in and Leon wouldn't do it (Leon had his own quest), Hugo wouldn't do it (he was apolitical and off running his trade routes). Baileigh... Well, the missions related to the aftermath of one of his greatest mistakes. He, reluctantly, had to go. Halfway through one mission, when it was discovered the Patron had lied to us about motivation, Lord Baileigh basically said, "this doesn't concern me, I'm out," and left (taking Francois with him). Salty Pete stepped from the ranks of the NPC sailors and finished the job - and had a great story to tell over cards.
"What, Roldolpho? Who woo'd the Lady Pamela?
"Ah, Pamela Maurice, the most beautiful woman I ever seen! Gascony-dark, curved like a perfect wave, lips like apples, eyes like deep pools, a voice like velvet, skin smooth as satin, and hair the shade of deepest night. The wit of the finest scholar, and braver in one of her dainty toes than all you lot together! Didn't I say the man who married her was a lucky bastard, indeed? Would ye care to guess?
"No, Seamus, ye daft! T'wasn't me (tho' that's the nicest thing ye ever said t'me).
"The Imp, Pierre? Aye, ye be funny, lad! Beauty and the Beast, indeed! Think! I did say the man t'was a lucky bastard.
"Rodolfo? Aye! Ye guessed it right! T'was Fortuno Bonaventure who did marry the Lady Pamela. In the end he lived up to his name!"
Can be hard to find amongst JMS's thousands of pages of internet writing across decades.
Fortunately, I have all those B5 books script volumes (and a couple volumes which literally collate all his Usenet posts from the 90s) where he discusses them. Although I admit I paraphrased from memory.
Incidentally, Fortuno Bonaventure took a mission off to honeymoon, came back into play, got captured, and the bastards hung him out of hand.
So much for the luck of Fortuno Bonaventure. What a waste of a great name!
I do think of them as independent of myself, but only in so much as I try not to endow them with my own personality traits. They are perfectly in my control. I wrote them and I know why. I've always been opposed to the magical thinking because it prohibits teaching character development. If my characters make decisions, talk to others and take action through their own will, then there is no point in me trying to teach others about what makes a great character. I think that's the real crux of the issue. Most writers aren't teachers, and to ask them to distill character choices down to a comprehensible formula would be impossible. It's easier to say it's magic, or those characters have a will of their own.
Really interesting point, Brian. As you say, it's easier to do a hand-wavy magical explanation than to have to actually codify and explain it. I wonder if there's also a fear of taking the magic away for the reader if you present it too much as a 'craft'.
I've always been someone who laps up interviews with writers, behind-the-scenes on movies and so on, and I studied film and English at university. Knowing how the sausage was made doesn't spoil the sausage for me, but I get how it can for some people.
I was thinking the same exact thing. I want all that metadata on how it's all possible. It doesn't spoil it for me, but I guess then for some writers that does make it "less special". You and I will just continue being crafty. 😂
Ha, quite! Though, I do remember in the late-90s when I began seriously studying film, and also when DVD extra materials become readily available, having a period where my enjoyment of movies did diminish slightly. I then came out the other side, and found myself enjoying them even more than before.
I think defining characters enough to let them shape the plot is itself a skill. Roleplaying and acting are both skills, which is all about manifesting character. In another way it's also simply cause and effect, the characters are variables, and you think about what the result of certain interactions would be that makes sense. Consistent characterization is key to a story's internal logic.
With Battles Beneath the Stars I recently had some characters change fairly early into a story. I came up with new directions for them and liked those better, so I went with the new ideas. But it does feel like they changed themselves. Main thing of course is that they weren't too well defined before, now they feel more like proper characters with some nuance instead of just filling some role.
If you want to be unmagical/unimaginative about it, saying the characters write themselves is just about how new ideas tend to come out of nowhere, which happens with any inventive process. But writing is about imagination.
It's that process of colliding characters with other characters and events that help to create them, which makes it hard to do up-front. It's in the writing and editing that all that nuance starts to be defined.
It's funny, but I do find that my stories take turns and twists in different directions as my characters interact and reveal more of themselves. It's me thinking through things like, "Why would they react this way?" and then explaining their personality and motivations more through more back story and future behavior.
I'm with you on this. I miss my people. When I was doing my one woman show of comedic characters I created, I was thrilled to become them whenever I performed. This has translated to my first novel-in-progress. When I'm away from my characters for more than a few days I miss them.
Good question!
I try to plan out my big beats at the start of the book and then "let" the characters figure out how to get from one big beat to the next. I don't think there's been an instance where I got to that beat and the character motivation/development had changed so much to alter the outcome, but how the granular plot transpired isn't something I like to plan out at the start.
yep. tent poles. good plan. have a structure in place. characters will do the plotting.
I sometimes think that my plotting is inspired quite heavily by the 90s game Deus Ex. That game gave the impression of being very non-linear, but actually had a very defined, linear plot. The critical thing was that there were many routes to get from A to B - everyone would get there, but their path would be different. Sometimes it feels like my characters are playing their own version of that game, within my story's context.
Or maybe they are playing Steve Jackson's "Sorcery!" ;)
Aside: The Inkle adaptations of Sorcery! are fantastic. :)
Agreed. I keep them on my phone at all times.
If I could map out a hierarchy of importance, for what I enjoy as I create and what I look for in books, character would be at the top, plot would be way, way, way at the bottom. As a kid, maybe not, but that's how my tastes have changed.
Just look at A Confederacy of Dunces. Fantastic use of character, but almost no "plot". Things happen, but it's not a defined "beginning, middle, end." One of my favourite books.
indeed. characters are what readers remember, structure is the top most important though in which the characters can come to life.
Structure > Character > Plot
i.e. the Poe-etic Effect I wrote about recently.
What will be remembered (provided you have the structure for it) are characters. No one remembers plot. All those ingenious layers and double meanings? Forgotten, ignored, gone.
If you have structure and characters fleshed out, there is hardly any need to plot anything anyway, in fact, I find it counter-intuitive to plot everything plus it's no fun at all writing a pre-plotted story. How much fun will it be reading pre-plotted stories? Zero. Characters are going through the motions, strings are being pulled, and then and then and then etc pp.
I largely agree, as a writer, but I'm not sure if most readers approach fiction like this. If you ask someone about a book or a film, they'll usually tell you 'what it is about', and that ordinarily means boiling down the plot. This is partly because the plot is the simplest thing to recount, while characters are complicated, but do wonder if there's a bit of a weird contradiction there - the only reason someone would remember the plot is if the characters gave it meaning.
Not sure if I'm explaining my thinking very eloquently there.
On the flip side, people always mention their dislike or irritation with characters, even if they enjoyed the story.
The "what it is about" would be the story, the "and then" not so much the "why" (plot) which I think people will be hard-pressed to remember. Take Indiana Jones (first movie), people remember the character, his story, maybe they remember some funny or dramatic scenes and little details here and there. In his "Aspects of the Novel" Forster talks about story, character and plot, the difference between story and plot, the type of readers and the importance of character (Homo Fictus), "for whom the novelist will sacrifice story, plot, form and incidentally beauty." A nice idea, but in the end, there are no rules.
Actually was discussing this with Laura this morning before reading this post.
I'm working through a series of books Big Finish released - novelizations of the first season of "Blake's 7" - and... Novelizations are tricky. You're more or less locked into the scripted events, but the best novelizations expand upon and illuminate further the events of the story (here, the "Robotech" novelizations by Brian Daley and James Luceno (as "Jack Mckinney") stand as perhaps the best I've ever read). Seven volumes, seven authors.
Well these "Blake's 7" books are all good, the writers involved are experienced writers and have familiarity with the franchise, but five of the books err towards merely doing the action. There is little attempt to get inside the heads of the series regulars. Perhaps this is because they assume the reader has seen the show and is familiar with the iconic performances of the original cast? Still, these same five writers will take a character with 30 seconds of screen time and give them five pages of backstory - which is a little odd - and, in the case of one character with one scene, has an entire subplot about their (unseen) wife and children. Nice fleshing out of detail, but there's nothing adding to Blake, Avon, Jenna, Vila, Cally, Gan, Servalan, or Travis (ok, I lie - the subplot with the wife has one very nice tie-in for Travis. Still, five of the volumes are mostly written from third-person omniscient, focusing more on plot and action rather than character and psychology.
Except the first and last volumes, written by Paul Cornell and James Goss, respectively. These are written with each chapter specifically using a different viewpoint character, and these writers aren't afraid to delve into the viewpoint character's psyche. Cornell finally explained EXACTLY why it was *SPOILERS FOR TV SHOW FROM 1978* Blake was able to overcome Liberator's psychic defenses when no one else couid (because his mind had been torn apart and rebuilt so many times by Federation psychosurgeons, Blake no longer saw illusions, but reality), and even used that scene to show how the psychic link with Zen enabled Blake to rebuild the shards of memory and personality from all his mind wipes.
I'm still in Goss' volume, but every time he dips into Zen or Orac's viewpoints, it's so much fun!
Long example story short (too late, several paragraphs ago), the separation between the five volumes which are merely good and the two that are great is ALL about the focus on character vs action.
Also, the "Robotech" novels are freaking good and are the definitive version of the saga. Something close to 5000 pages.
I always think writing a screen-to-page adaptation must be incredibly hard for those exact reasons. Translating a screenplay into an actual film is one thing, but translating it into a different kind of written form always sounds very hard.
I very much agree.
Magically thinking non-believer, here. This is a great reminder that in each story I write, no matter the length that while what happens can be interesting, who it happens to pulls people in. There’s an investment. I’m writing something now and it reminds me to go back to the characters themselves and build on who they are. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Chevanne! I've always thought that you can get away with not having much of a plot, but if you don't have good characters you're sunk.
Plot? Character? Story? Setting? Theme? These are things that never come into mind when I'm writing. Should they? I usually write long short stories. I don't "PLOT" them out, but I do have an idea of "WHERE" I want the story to go. You have to know "HOW" the story ends. Everything else is just getting there. Each story, of course, is different--but the end result is always the same...you have to know "WHERE" it is. I don't write my stories with the intention of proving something thematically. I don't look for theme--that's for other people to look for. What do I care, if I'm writing a story and basically telling it to myself, first? My so-called "PLOT" consists of me thinking of how I want it to end, and what do I need in order to get there? And that's it. Is there going to be a happy ending? Hard to say, but I doubt it. I get the story across with my "character", and I get the character across with "dialogue". I'd like to think that most of the character is revealed through the dialogue he speaks, and the action he follows to support that dialogue. It's like peeling back the layers of an onion--only you're adding them. The setting's important, sure, but it shouldn't take over the story; World-building shouldn't take away from the characters in the story. Everybody writes differently. I tend to edit as I go along. I go back and forth, adding here and there--sometimes adding something because I think it needs foreshadowing. Sometimes it's just a single words, or a sentence. But only YOU knows where that word, or line, should go. If your story's going to be 15,000 words, you want the words to "fit" and make the whole thing cohesive. So character is important. But writing is like building a house of cards. You have to have everything in place. Character, Plot, Story, Setting, even Theme, are all a part of the "foundation". You can't create a story without having the tools handy. "How" you use them is up to you.
Seriously, I would LOVE to take a more strategic and logical approach to character and plot building. Believe me, I've read oodles of books on plot mechanics etc. However, my creative process is indeed exasperating and very emotionally-driven no matter how much I try to change it.
Sometime back I decided to just build some discipline in and learn what makes me create best. It's been working for me so far.
I think there is just no one way of writing and everyone's creative process is different. I say embrace what works for you and to hell with everyone's advice lol. There's a creative writing coach that talks about it - her name is Becca Syme. She made me realise that my process is just my process, and if my process doesn't make sense to others doesn't mean it's wrong.
Btw, through her site I discovered a number of people who actually created the way I did. Apparently, your creative process is personality-driven, and I actually found people who created the way I did and leaned into learning how to use my strengths to create great stuff.
💯 There's no proper way to write. If you're writing, you're a writer, and that's that! Writer's write, and anyone who doesn't write....isn't a writer.
Imagine how boring literature would be if everyone wrote in the same way.
Right? Totally agree.
I wish though I could employ more strategic approaches. It's far more predictable. (sniffs)
On the one hand, I love the idea of a tulpa, specifically Superman. On the other, haha. No.
Eh, I rather think that when a character starts arguing with you, it's a sign that the plot has taken a wrong turn. I experienced this early on with my Martiniere books, where Gabriel started hollering at me that *things didn't really happen the way you're trying to write them and this is why they happened.* The story definitely improved for the better when I listened to what my subconscious was telling me about this person...um, something like nine books later.
The flip side, which is when a character *isn't* coming to life, often reflects a lack of world building, character building (and no, I'm not talking about things that show up in character creation sheets regarding eye color or hair color or what they do/don't like--rather, the interaction of that character with the plot), or sometimes a problem with the story. More often I find it's something within the world building or character construction that keeps a character from coming to life, rather than a plot problem. At least in my process, if the character is turning in a manner where the plot doesn't fit, then the character is usually hollering at me about it.
The silent character, though? Sometimes that character is not quite ready to reveal themselves. Those tend to be more complex creations hanging out with the secondary characters. But when they speak--they can be the most fun.
Sounds about right! It's when those layers of complexity start to work inside your head. It's something I've got better at over the years, and was definitely very bad at in my teens and twenties.
"... humans are definitely weird for doing any of this in the first place." Yup.
As to your questions, I'm more practical.
As for plot-central, I've only written one book where I didn't worry about plot (though there is plot), concentrating on setting/character. Otherwise, I can't seem to live without plot.
I write a long synopsis of the story first and then iron out as many of the plot-problems as I can then write. Then iron out anything else that pops up during the rewrite, revise, resolve stage.
My excuse for approaching story this way is probably due to me being overly logical and rational. To my writing's detriment? I don't know. But everyone whose read my books says they like them.
I always take 'like' as relative, because the 'perfectionist' in me always finds something 'wrong' or something to 'fix' or something to 'improve' in all my stories.
I don't think that's necessarily always 'perfectionism'. It could simply be that you're improving as a writer with each project. I always think that if you get a few projects or a few years down the line and still think your previous thing was really good, THAT'S when you worry - because it suggests you haven't got any better since then.
Highly logical plots can work brilliantly, too: I'm thinking of particularly twisty thrillers, or science fiction that leans heavily on exploring rules-based scenarios (eg Asimov's classic robot stuff).
In fact, many of Asimov's 'classic' short stories hardly have any characters at all. I wonder whether character becomes slightly less important with the short story, where it can be more about exploring a singular idea. Not something that could be extended over an entire novel.
The word 'project' encompasses so much, but I was thinking more about stylistics. The style of the genre I'm writing. When I think I've 'mastered' the style I'm going for, I find someone has invented a new style that eclipses what I was going for.
You highlight this when you mention 'highly logical plots', which is what I try for. I think Asimov's Robot series influenced me though I read it in my teens. By the end of my teens, I had read Herbert's Dune saga and his 'style' was like 'chasing the dragon' for me.
As for short stories, never mastered the art. I gave up when I couldn't stick to a word count or under - for competitions. I've met a few nasty people in the writerly realm who've said to me I'd never make it as a writer if I couldn't stick a word count. Oh well. So not sure that it emphasizes one over the other, but I have read some that did both quite well.
I do think there is still a mystical element to it. I don’t know why my synapses fire the way they do to paint the pictures that appear in my head. They’re just there. Where the craft comes in is in me translating that head movie into something comprehensive and compelling for people other than me to consume.
Ah, I really like that as a melding of the two attitudes.
Good thought-provoker, Simon.
Strong characters a strong story makes.
"Do you think of your characters as individuals almost independent of yourself, or do you take a more practical approach?"
I'd say I'm somewhere in between. The characters certainly don't exist independent of me, though I hold to that somewhat magical notion that I have set them free on the page but that they are still bound by the margins. Learning to inhabit your characters, or take on some aspect of essentially channeling them whilst you write, creates a sense of agency that is theirs alone, even though it is still deriving ultimately from you, the writer.
So the craft here (again, for me and how I feel about it) is being better at allowing that process to happen and tapping into it.
Yeah, I definitely agree that the challenge is in finding ways to let characters be characters. That's the hardest thing as a new writer, I think, because plot is much 'easier' to write, and is therefore more tempting to focus upon.
Obviously my characters are creations of my imagination, but that doesn't mean they can't surprise me. I was surprised when Leon turned on to be gay and in love with Diaz.
I suppose if a character seems to take on an inner life, can surprise the author, and even, occasionally, end up changing plot beats (or refusing to fit into a plot beat you'd originally intended for that character, you've done it right.
But, here I use Babylon 5 examples *Spoilers ahead for a TV show from the 1990's*
JMS didn't want to kill off Kosh, yet (wrote JMS), when it came time to do so, there Kosh was, saying, "It's time. It's what I'm here for."
When it came time to kill Emperor Cartagia, the outline had Londo doing the deed, yet (wrote JMS), Vir popped up, saying, "it should be me. Have me do it." And so he did.
Applies to short stories, novels, plays, TV and film. Even games. I used to maintain a stable of four PCs to move in and out of the campaign (our Ref now limits us to two, and, in some games, just the one, and I'm pretty sure it's because of me) as required by the character. Lord Baileigh... I'd intended to retire him, and have him return to his estate to repair his shattered relationship with his wife, but... The missions would come in and Leon wouldn't do it (Leon had his own quest), Hugo wouldn't do it (he was apolitical and off running his trade routes). Baileigh... Well, the missions related to the aftermath of one of his greatest mistakes. He, reluctantly, had to go. Halfway through one mission, when it was discovered the Patron had lied to us about motivation, Lord Baileigh basically said, "this doesn't concern me, I'm out," and left (taking Francois with him). Salty Pete stepped from the ranks of the NPC sailors and finished the job - and had a great story to tell over cards.
"What, Roldolpho? Who woo'd the Lady Pamela?
"Ah, Pamela Maurice, the most beautiful woman I ever seen! Gascony-dark, curved like a perfect wave, lips like apples, eyes like deep pools, a voice like velvet, skin smooth as satin, and hair the shade of deepest night. The wit of the finest scholar, and braver in one of her dainty toes than all you lot together! Didn't I say the man who married her was a lucky bastard, indeed? Would ye care to guess?
"No, Seamus, ye daft! T'wasn't me (tho' that's the nicest thing ye ever said t'me).
"The Imp, Pierre? Aye, ye be funny, lad! Beauty and the Beast, indeed! Think! I did say the man t'was a lucky bastard.
"Rodolfo? Aye! Ye guessed it right! T'was Fortuno Bonaventure who did marry the Lady Pamela. In the end he lived up to his name!"
I tried to find those B5 examples for the article, as I vaguely remembered them. Couldn't find the exact quotes, though. Good examples for sure.
Can be hard to find amongst JMS's thousands of pages of internet writing across decades.
Fortunately, I have all those B5 books script volumes (and a couple volumes which literally collate all his Usenet posts from the 90s) where he discusses them. Although I admit I paraphrased from memory.
Incidentally, Fortuno Bonaventure took a mission off to honeymoon, came back into play, got captured, and the bastards hung him out of hand.
So much for the luck of Fortuno Bonaventure. What a waste of a great name!
Also, Bonaventure was King-in-Exile. Big loss for the plot.
I do think of them as independent of myself, but only in so much as I try not to endow them with my own personality traits. They are perfectly in my control. I wrote them and I know why. I've always been opposed to the magical thinking because it prohibits teaching character development. If my characters make decisions, talk to others and take action through their own will, then there is no point in me trying to teach others about what makes a great character. I think that's the real crux of the issue. Most writers aren't teachers, and to ask them to distill character choices down to a comprehensible formula would be impossible. It's easier to say it's magic, or those characters have a will of their own.
Really interesting point, Brian. As you say, it's easier to do a hand-wavy magical explanation than to have to actually codify and explain it. I wonder if there's also a fear of taking the magic away for the reader if you present it too much as a 'craft'.
I've always been someone who laps up interviews with writers, behind-the-scenes on movies and so on, and I studied film and English at university. Knowing how the sausage was made doesn't spoil the sausage for me, but I get how it can for some people.
I was thinking the same exact thing. I want all that metadata on how it's all possible. It doesn't spoil it for me, but I guess then for some writers that does make it "less special". You and I will just continue being crafty. 😂
Ha, quite! Though, I do remember in the late-90s when I began seriously studying film, and also when DVD extra materials become readily available, having a period where my enjoyment of movies did diminish slightly. I then came out the other side, and found myself enjoying them even more than before.
I think defining characters enough to let them shape the plot is itself a skill. Roleplaying and acting are both skills, which is all about manifesting character. In another way it's also simply cause and effect, the characters are variables, and you think about what the result of certain interactions would be that makes sense. Consistent characterization is key to a story's internal logic.
With Battles Beneath the Stars I recently had some characters change fairly early into a story. I came up with new directions for them and liked those better, so I went with the new ideas. But it does feel like they changed themselves. Main thing of course is that they weren't too well defined before, now they feel more like proper characters with some nuance instead of just filling some role.
If you want to be unmagical/unimaginative about it, saying the characters write themselves is just about how new ideas tend to come out of nowhere, which happens with any inventive process. But writing is about imagination.
It's that process of colliding characters with other characters and events that help to create them, which makes it hard to do up-front. It's in the writing and editing that all that nuance starts to be defined.
It's funny, but I do find that my stories take turns and twists in different directions as my characters interact and reveal more of themselves. It's me thinking through things like, "Why would they react this way?" and then explaining their personality and motivations more through more back story and future behavior.
I'm with you on this. I miss my people. When I was doing my one woman show of comedic characters I created, I was thrilled to become them whenever I performed. This has translated to my first novel-in-progress. When I'm away from my characters for more than a few days I miss them.
I do occasionally wonder what some of them are up to these days.
I hadn't thought about acting, though - that must be even more intense, when you're physically embodying the roles.
I loved it. Miss it but it lead me to writing.