Saturday, August 16, 2008

Which Comes First, the Plot or the Characters?

Are you guys sick of posts about revisions yet? I know I am...but not as sick as revisions themselves!

So after reviewing Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl yesterday, I discovered that she has a blog. And the most recent post is about revisions. I particularly liked how she ended the post:
But know this--all writers, novice or professional, have to get our hands dirty. We have to cut things we love, break things and fix them, tear out scenes and fill the gaping holes, discover new subplots and make them work with the whole. Never, never say, "That's close enough." Fix it! Change it! Do the dirty work. Getting grimy is the only way to shine.
This is true. And while I whine incessantly about revisions, I do know that they are needed and that my book will get nowhere as is.

Hale also mentioned the writing process:
Every writer's process is different. Ann (A.E.) Cannon pointed out that most writers either start with character then find the plot, or start with plot then find the character (and of course it's the combination of those two, character and plot, that make story).
Which are you? Do you start with plot or character? For me, it depends on the novel I'm working on. I'd say that usually I'm a plot girl, though, and for The Amnesia Door, it was absolutely plot--I built the characters to fit the plot.

So, what about you?

6 comments:

Yukino Tsukishima said...

I'm a character girl one hundred percent! EVERY story I write starts with a character idea, then I ask myself, "Okay, what would this character do if she had to deal with this, or that?" After I answer that question, I ask, "Well, what would happen then? How would people react? Would anyone try to stop her from doing this? What kind of person would help her?" and so on. Eventually, I have a whole first draft of an outline. As I write, I keep asking myself more questions to fill in any gaps or spice up the plot. That's pretty much my whole writing process. (It takes a LONG time, mind you!)

Unknown said...

Wow. I am exactly the opposite! I think of a situation and ask myself what would someone do in that situation--then I develop the character to fit that situation. Isn't it amazing to look at how different people write? I wonder how some of the greats have done it. Which came first--Lucy or the Wardrobe? Harry or his quest? This sort of thing is so fascinating to me.

PJ Hoover said...

Thinking about it, characters come first for me (along with a very very minor sketch of plot). So count me as a character gal.
I'll post on my plotting workshop I attended later tonight. So helpful!

Yukino Tsukishima said...

It really is interesting... I guess we can only speculate about C.S. Lewis' exact writing process, since he's deceased. He said in one book I read that his stories started with pictures of the characters in a certain place, then he would string all the pictures together, fill in the story gaps, and eventually had a plot. As weird ad it may be, I happen to know A LOT about C.S. Lewis' inspiration for many aspects of the Narnia stories. If you're wondering where certain ideas, characters, etc. In the Narnia books originated, just e-mail and ask me. I'm a Narnia encyclopedia. ;)

Unknown said...

PJ--Can't wait for the news on the workshop!

Winter--I'm a Lewis aficionado, too :) Part of me really does wish we could wake him up and ask about his writing practice, but the other part of me reminds myself that zombies, even Narnia-creating ones, are bad :)

Yukino Tsukishima said...

So true! I always wish that Lewis was alive today so that I could write letters to him, like children did when he wrote the Narnia books. Then again, I think Lewis should be glad that I was born after his death: I would drove him crazy with a non-stop stream of letters! Still, I can dream...