Which came first: the characters or the story?

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cheshiregator
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Re: Which came first: the characters or the story?

Post by cheshiregator »

99.9% of the time for me, my characters are what start things out. I get really upset sometimes because I'll come up with a neat idea for a character but founder when I'm trying to figure out a plot to complete his/her story. So I actually have a bunch of character ideas written down (and some just in my head) that are just waiting for their time to shine.
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Post by shayna »

I depends on the inspiration for the piece. There have been times when I wish to convey a certain situation or scenario, and thus the story comes first. Other times, I may want to explore an individual(s).
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Post by scriptbunny »

I think I have a very general premise for stories beforehand, but definitely the story arcs and resolutions greatly are dependent on the whims of my fleshed-out characters.
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Post by Lovely_Ink »

I think it all depends on which (the story or the character) has the most urgency. Sometimes there's a story inside of me just waiting to be told and it just needs a voice (character) to tell it. Other times I have random characters in my mind just searching for something (a story) to tell.
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Post by amh_02 »

This reminds me of the chicken/egg debate!

I'm not a very experienced writer, but for me I think the character would have to come first. I like to create characters that have elements of myself and my friends and family and think of how they would react to real life situations.

Although I think that with a fantasy novel, it would perhaps come more naturally to create the story first?
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Post by booklover30 »

For me it's the characters. Or more the dialogue than anything. For awhile I'll have the same conversation floating around my head until I finally write it down and then once my fingers have started writing it's almost as if the rest follows. And sometimes not all of their story comes to me either. I'll start writing and then a part of their back story will hit me, which by the way is hardly ever in the order of the story. So I could be writing the beginning and a portion of the middle of the book will come to me, but in the end it all comes together. I haven't tried publishing anything, but I find that if I don't write it down then the characters will drive me crazy.
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Post by Yukiora 24 »

Depends on how vivid the story is in my mind.
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Post by sammi8764 »

I haven't heard of doing this, but it is quite interesting. I don't believe I could do this though. I base my characters and their personalities around their particular role in the story. I personally think it would be harder to come up with a full character and then try to write a story based on them, but it would be an excellent writing prompt. I might try this someday.
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Post by CrescentMoon »

A lot of my writing is emotional. So what I usually do is have some kind of situation or circumstance that may be happy or sad and imagine what kind of people are more likely to go through those circumstances. I start out with thinking about certain feelings and then turn those feelings into dialogue and then flesh out my characters from there. Then I think of a plot that would go with it.
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Post by NJ Slater »

The story. I write thrillers set in a real historical setting so the plot has to come first in order to work
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Post by Kelli_F »

I have never heard of this approach before. The beginnings of a story always come to me as the main character in a particular situation and grow from there. I would say your friend's approach would be an great way to generate a story idea. I can imagine sitting down to flesh out a character and a scene would come to surface bringing about the beginnings of a new story.
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Post by RussetDivinity »

Lovely_Ink wrote:I think it all depends on which (the story or the character) has the most urgency. Sometimes there's a story inside of me just waiting to be told and it just needs a voice (character) to tell it. Other times I have random characters in my mind just searching for something (a story) to tell.
The same thing happens with me, though sometimes I wind up having both turn up at the same time, and a character is so much a part of a certain story that I can't pull her out without bringing a lot of the story with her.
amh_02 wrote:Although I think that with a fantasy novel, it would perhaps come more naturally to create the story first?
Not necessarily. While a lot of fantasy needs a great deal of world-building and fantasy can be very plot-oriented, some of my fantasy work starts with characters and just a hint of story. I'm working on a piece about a Fae who meets up with a human in a post-apocalyptic world. I had a bit of the story planned out, but once I started working with the characters more, the story changed completely, and the focus of the story has always been more on the Fae than on what the plot has to be.
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Post by SidnayC »

I think it is very common to do that and I have certainly based a whole story around a character which I created because I find the character so interesting and cool that I don't want to just fit it into a story I'm already writing.... it deserves its own tale. That being said I don't think you can fully flesh out a characters whole being without creating some elements of a story behind that character first.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you - Maya Angelou
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Post by H0LD0Nthere »

Hm, interesting question. I admit having (or having had in the past) a collection of characters rattling around in my head ... but charcters need something to do, and they will wither and fade if not put into a nice, clear situation. In fact, one way to get to know your charcters is to put them in a situation and see what they do. They might surprise you. Some of the charcters I've enjoyed most were ones that started out as minor charcters, created by the demands of the plot, who rose to the occasion.
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Post by Kellie123 »

I've always wondered this exact question. When i read a book I can't put down I always ask myself how the author came up with the characters. I'd always assumed that the story would come and then they would create a character that would fit into the story. However, now that I'm thinking about it, I think that creating a character first would have you that much more emotionally invested in the character making for a better story. Creating a character first would force you to take the entire journey with them. Maybe that would cause a writer to care more about the people and the direction of the story. Definitely gives you something to think about either way! =]
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