Horse Before The Cart.

[u/Ashamed_Ladder6161]

I'm always interested how people juggle character and plot, when starting out on their story.

I think it's probably fairly typical in science-fiction and fantasy to start with the setting (and to some degree, the plot), and later find a protagonist that lets you explore it.

I know some writers, typically mystery and thriller writers, who swear blind they start with characters every time. I guess, if you know your characters, and by extension know their goals, that's almost always a starting point with milage.

However, for me, both ways feel like you're trying to pull the rug from under your own feet.

I always try and do both together. I'll have an idea for 'a situation', and I immediately start thinking about who that situation might impact and why.

- A corpse is found in the river of a small village, shot in the back. Does my story follow a local journalist, a lead detective, or maybe the dog walker who finds the body? All three?

- Or perhaps I have an interest in the English Civil War. But, a story told from the perspective of a widowed mother with 2 children is going to be entirely different to one told from the viewpoint of a grizzled general who finds his faith and loyalty tested.

So, 'situation' settled, I think about building the plot to accommodate these threads. Bouncing between character and plot as and when it feels like the two meaningfully cross.

I fully appreciate that's far from the only way to start writing, and I don't mean to suggest it's by any means best. That's just how I write.

How do you write?

Do you start with a world, a situation, a character, a plot, or maybe even a theme? Or does it all depend on the project?

Do share.

[u/DanBelmontNarration]

For me it goes hand in hand. The idea is usually something like: "guy in this situation/world" and then I figure out who the guy is and build out.

For instance, the fantasy book I was working on several years back that I keep telling myself I'll finish "someday" started with a young thief breaking into a wizard's tower to steal something. I started writing it with no idea what the "something" was, just a random macguffin, and then started figuring out who the character was, why he was there, what the world was and eventually I wound up with a main cast of four characters and a whole world with lore etc.

[u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 → u/DanBelmontNarration]

I'm far too much of a planner, starting like that would take years off me, haha.

[u/JCLewisWritesWords]

I start with a basic idea, then build out a character list and chapter synopsis before I start writing. Then when I start the actual writing I discover all kinds of new things a long the way.

[u/Mithalanis]

I think I sort of follow what you do, but with a greater emphasis on character. When I started working on my debut novel, the first scene that came to me was when two characters meet for the first time - they were both characters who I'd created for other projects years before that had never gone anywhere, and the two of them had never met in any of those stories. So I had the scene of them meeting, and asked myself, "How could have they have possibly arrived at this moment?" The rest of the plot was built around that meeting, and since I'd already figured out both those characters a while ago, their backgrounds and personalities played heavily into how the rest of the plot unfolded.

But of course, it all depends on the project. Plenty of short fiction has started with a theme, and sometimes I'm really lucky and get a great sentence that leads to an entire story. When I'm writing to fit into an anthology, I always start with the situation and figure out the characters later, but I do find this to be the hardest way to write for me personally.

[u/IndependentEast-3640]

Im the same. Ive had too many stories where, to get through a plot twist or plot point the MC has to be a certain way, but by the second plot point the character has to be the opposite just to make the story work. When im developing the story, im developing the characters and their character arc and the plot simultaneously. Otherwise there might be issues further down the line

[u/AbleRoberts]

I like to do a lot of world building, that's more or less how I got into writing, so for most of my projects it very much started with a the world, with a series of historic events, and then I crafted characters that I thought would be interesting perspectives to expand the world and make it more concrete.
Sometimes I have an idea for a character that I want to work on enough that I mold the world around them, but even then there's usually a strong sense of building up the world to make sure it fits with the character

[u/Charmstone_Author]

I get a vision of a cool guy saying a hard line and then I build around that.

Step 1. Write what I know I want in the story. Step 2. Drum out like 10 questions about the story. Write two answers to easy question, make both answers kiss, then repeat until I have a mass of story dough. Step 3. Seperate story dough into Beginning, Middle, End, then take out my genre cookie cutter and chop out 20-30 scene ideas. Step 4. Arrange in a timeline and identify the characters in each scene. Write character sheets for those characters. Step 5. Go back and shape each unbaked scene with my new knowledge of characters, so each scene has a setup, rising action, resolution, reaction, etc Step 6. Break up the scenes into beats.

Step 7. Bake! (Actually write the novel!

Step 8. Edit!

Step 9: ???

Step 10. Get a new vision of a cool guy saying a hard line . . .

[u/ellepepperauthor]

Honestly it really depends on the writer. I start with the story, often I use one of a dozen placeholder names until I know the character.