Plot or Character first?

Deciding whether to create a plot or a character first can be a challenge. Writing fiction can feel like going around in circles, constantly changing your mind about which element to focus on – plot or character.

There’s a short answer and a long answer. Here’s the short answer: character.

Now here’s the long answer:

Perhaps you’ve spent years on a story and you’re still not finished. You’re still editing. You know it’s still not right, yet you can’t find the work-arounds that will get the manuscript to feel ‘done’. It feels a bit empty, somehow. 

I hope this blog has found you before you’ve got that bogged down in it. I hope you’re still early (ish) in the writing process – ideally still on your first draft or beginning to revise it. It’s never too late to fix a story, but all writers want to take the most direct route, yes?

The problem of not being happy with your story is likely to be because you’ve had your focus too much on plot. You’ve probably been spending too much time thinking up new things that could happen to your character and not enough time considering what your character would do about it. 

Character -based plotting

By using a character-based plotting method, you move towards considering the character and what they would do and how they would think and feel in various situations. It doesn’t mean that you forget about plot entirely. There’s a very small readership out there for novels which are all about the depth of a character’s soul but in which nothing happens.

Character-based plotting means that you get to know your character so well that you know what they will do in whatever situation you throw at them in their story. It means that your readers will care about their suffering, their victories, their sacrifices and the strength they have developed by the end of the story.

It’s your characters that your readers really care about. Start there.

Would you get up tomorrow and decide run a marathon?

You might decide you wanted to run a marathon, true. You might decide that you were going to start running this week and plan to build up to longer distances. You would probably reach out to your park run organisers and local groups. You would almost certainly ask those in the know how you should start and what equipment you should invest in.

You would NOT, however, dust off the trainers you’ve not worn in ten years, step out your front door and run twenty six miles.

Imagine how that conversation would go with a fitness coach…

“Hi! Let’s start with your fitness goals. What do you want to be able to do? Walk a mile? Walk up flights of stairs without getting breathless? Run 5k? …”

“I want to run a marathon.”

“OK, wow! Good on you. How long have you had marathon running as an ambition?”

“Years. I’ve always thought I’ve had a marathon in me. I’ve just never got around to starting.”

“And now you’re ready? Fantastic! Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll start with finding out what your fitness level is like and then work on building up your strength and stamina. If you look around the gym you’ll see there are different areas for different types of work – ”

“Oh, no, no! You don’t understand. I don’t want to do all those things.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, I don’t want to do those things. What I want to do is run a marathon.”

“Yee-ess. I understand that. What we are able to do here is train you from the place you’re at right now to a place of fitness and stamina that will mean you’re able to run that marathon.”

“Hmm, I see. But there must be another way of doing it. I mean, I’m not saying you don’t know your job or anything, but I learned how to put one foot in front of another when I was really young. Can’t you just show me how to do it – you know, how to get my breathing right and how to go at the right pace and all that – then I’ll just put my name down for the next marathon?”

“You’re kidding me, right? You know it doesn’t work like that, right?”

“Why not? That other gym, the one down the road, say they can do that. It’s on all their advertisements.”

“Is it?”

I have lost count of the number of people I’ve spoken to who have a novel or personal story in mind. They know exactly what it is about and feel they just need to ‘get it out’. I understand that feeling. Of course they want to produce the great work they feel so passionately about.

Then, all too often, I hear the words I dread. The words that mean the person in front of me with such a great story to tell simply isn’t ready to work with me. The words that mean they are going to have to go through the painful process of trying ‘quick fixes’ and falling for flattering words before they can see what’s actually going to work.

What they say is, “I just need someone to start me off and show me what bits to put where and I’ll be fine.”

I used to try to re-educate those people, to try to save them months or years of pain in which they try to write their story but still can’t get it to come out right. I wished they could have understood me when I told them about the need to learn to tell a story that is irresistible – it’s not just about getting the events of the story down on paper. The actual principles of doing that are not very complicated but they take training, just like running a marathon does. I have learned that they will just look at me with that, “Yeah, what do you know?” expression.

They often end up with their confidence crushed, convinced there must be something inferior about them because they can’t do it … it was supposed to be simple and straightforward, wasn’t it? It was just a case of ‘getting it out’. They’re not ready to hear the truth until they’ve learned from bitter experience, which makes me really sad. I wish there was more I could do about it. Horse to water, and all that.

These days I content myself with wishing them the best of luck and reassuring them that my door is open should they change their mind.

Are you writing stories that no one will ever read?

‘Sure, I’ll read your boring novel. The way you’ve told it is like wading through mud, your characters speak like robots and you’ve written lots of dull and pointless description, but I know you’ve spent time writing it and you think it’s fabulous so of course I will give up twenty hours of my life to make you feel good.’

… said no reader EVER.

I spend some of my social media time in support groups for writers and storytellers. I like to keep up with current issues, see what people are worrying about, and it is always possible to learn something new.

Some of the time, though, I end up shaking my head in disbelief. Recently I saw a thread started by a young writer who was worried that he was wasting his time. He was concerned particularly that he might be creating stories that nobody else would ever think were worth their time and effort to read.

Out of the shadows already had come fifty or more group members, almost all singing from the same song sheet…

‘Don’t worry about it, man. So long as you’re writing what YOU love, that’s the point.’

‘Just write from your heart and there will be people who resonate with your story.’

Stories that readers find irresistible

That poor guy was expressing his concern that he might not find an audience to read his stories. He was terrified that he would put them out there and get nothing but tumbleweed around them. He was writing because he wanted to have an impact on people and make a success of himself as an author, not so that he could tuck it away in a drawer or create a support group for a specific issue.

What he wanted was to make his stories irresistible. The reason he posted in that Facebook group that day was because he knew his stories WEREN’T irresistible.

Now I don’t know what was good or bad about his writing: he didn’t share any extracts in the thread. But he knew it could be better and he knew it was his job to make it better.

That guy looked to be in his early twenties. Many of the people offering him ‘advice’ must have been twice his age, at least. He didn’t know it, but he had wisdom that those ‘experienced voices’ simply didn’t have and probably never will have. Despite his lack of confidence, he had grasped the truth that no audience out there will ever read something just because its writer loves it. He could see that every person who chooses to read a story will do so because they can see something in it for THEM. What’s more, he could see that it is up to him to engage people in his stories.

Nobody owes him their time, effort or money to give him an audience. That goes for the rest of us too. It is the job of all of us to write stories that are irresistible.

The One Thing that Makes a Good Story..

What makes a story a good one?

Ask one person and he will say, “Action, and lots of it.”

Ask another and she will say, “I want to get to know the characters and what makes them tick.”

Ask a third and you will get the answer, “I want to feel like I know the world where the story is set.”

These three people have very different ideas about what they want in a story, right? So how can we pin down what makes a good story to just one element?

The clue is right there, staring us in the face. We just have to take a step back to see it.

What wisdom can you take away from this blog?

This.

You have to know who you are writing for. Know your audience. What sort of person are they?

Then consider this. What are they looking for when they read your story? What kind of beginning, middle and end will satisfy them? What kind of point do they want your story to make?

Because that is ultimately what makes a good story… a story that satisfies the desires of the audience. So get to know your audience. Knowing your audience leads you into the style to suit them.

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