Feb 2021
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Feb 2021
Feb 2021
HippieGhost
Feb '21

I find when I'm writing that oftentimes I'll come up with a planned "personality" of a character, only to have them throw it out the window when it comes time to actually writing their lines. For example:

Incredible Documentaries of Lady Forista - I planned to have two characters show hints at a potential GL romance, with very subtle interest slowly building over time. Instead one of the young ladies took one look at the other and suffered from immediate thirst.

Brooders - I meant to give the MC a friend who was going to support her and help her to discover the part of her that she's missing. Instead this friend turned out to be extremely fake, spending her time trying to push her toxic positivity on the MC and her other friend. This worked out great for the story, but I had to bring in another character to fulfill her original role :sweat_smile:

My favorite example of course is a young man that hasn't been introduced yet. He was supposed to be a gruff alcoholic that drank his problems away, but ended up being an anarchist that eventually joins a pirate ship and likes to scream "Eat my entire ass, you fascist piece of shit" while he throws bricks at the guards.

The lesson I've learned is to only minimally plan my characters, and let them do what they want :sweat_smile:

Does anyone else do this? What do you do with the would-be-characters that birthed the real ones?

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    Feb '21

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HopefulAttempt
Feb '21

To an extent, and it's mostly because I try my best to be true to my character's experiences and traumas, but when I have a certain way their character development needs to go for story purposes I make sure there is a event that will push them in that direction. What I do I feel is more of writing a living character rather than a character that writes themself completely. I have had times where characters go in way I didn't intend, which actually led to me have to decide between rewriting 20 pages to stay true to them or to bend it. I rewrote it, but that was a character that had a very strong personality, and she just was not going to cooperate with people trying to keep her to treat injuries xD
So really the personalities I decide on stay very true it's just the world that gets in the way :laughing:

cherrystark
Feb '21

Yep. While I jot down ideas of the role the character will play, I let the characters' personalities develop right along the original storyline. In my experience, I found that "letting the character decide the reaction" helps dictate the flow of the story a lot better than if I overplan the character or rely to much on established tropes.

My main character, Jamie, spent most of her life as a quasi-orphan after her father disappeared and mother died when she was young. I toyed with the idea of her hating her father when he comes back into her life but it didn't feel right. Instead, they are trying to define their relationships as adults. She also developed a fear of being forgotten about during one of their adventures. As the series goes on, I still learn a lot about her that I couldn't have planned out before hand.

AnimeKitty
Feb '21

While I've always been thoroughly in my plot planning and character development, I've recently learned I like a little element of surprise in my writing. I did this with a character who I thought I had planned all out too. Turns out sometimes my characters take a little control themselves with the story​:joy:

UrMom
Feb '21

Honestly I've never thought about it, but I guess so. I develop the character's personalities, quirks, why the are the way they are via backstory and medical stuff, then I toss them into the world to see what they do with it. (With the story already being thought out, of course.) Kinda like a Sim, but more entertaining.

As messed up as it is, I like giving my character mental and/or physical ailments, then seeing how they would handle a certain situation as opposed to other characters. It calls for a lot of mental health, medical and emotional research which makes the process really fun since the more I understand the characters the more confidence I have in letting them go to do their own thing. Also it's just enjoyable to learn about them as "people".

crowstories
Feb '21

Characters AND stories... I outline a lot, but at some point the story just takes on its own life, and I'm not always happy about it.

Inspector_Spinda
Feb '21

it certainly is easier, but i like to avoid it if possibly. the mark of being an effective writer is being able to write things according to some intention. explaining it in terms of art. sometimes a beginning artist will draw something really good by accident, but all the other times their product is mediocre, but they haven't learned how to convey what they intend yet. their work is hit or miss. is the same with writing. even if what im writing isn't technically bad, i always try to get as close as possible to my vision, otherwise it's taking the easy way out and im not writing the story i actually want to write.

AmysGames
Feb '21

I start with a general idea of what the character is like—their personality, their role in the story, etc.—but most of the nuance only develops as I start writing them. It can be exciting, because often my characters will make certain scenes more nuanced and interesting than they otherwise would have been, but also frustrating because sometimes I have to completely rewrite said scenes based on the new developments, lol.

therosesword
Feb '21

I have the core of the character and the rest provides window dressing. Bad guy / good guy, the core never changes. It gets dented, it bends, it does a 360, but it never really changes. Everything else it throws out there has bits and pieces of it in it, bad behavior or good, the core remains. Just like regular humans. I've know a lot of really nice people who are rotten to "the core" but they can appear to be sweet and wonderful, giving and charitable, and then they get found out.

So yup, I keep the core and let the character have their fun with the trappings.,

Write hard, write true.

Lahin
Feb '21

Well, the thing about this is that you need to know your characters well enough. If you can hear what they're thinking, what they're saying; if you know how they want to do some specific thing, then you can let them write themselves. It's just like how it works with humans, the better you know them, the more likely you are to predict something their actions or what they want to say.

I have spent.......about 4-5 months now, with these characters and I kind of know who they are pretty much in great detail. So, I just let them write themselves now. I basically have something that I want happening in a certain chapter and then, they inhabit it and bring it to life.

skippyjoeskilling
Feb '21

Lol yeah, it definitely feels like that sometimes. It's just when you have a very clear sense of a character, and their wants/needs, it organically starts to shift from where you originally planned the story to go.

That said, I've definitely had epiphanies right before I fall asleep of the perfect line or reaction a character would have. Cue scrabbling around in the dark to write it down before I forget.

Fedriz_Marini
Feb '21

It's a similar process that happened when writing my series.
Original there was a planned "plot" and route, but it was merely a draft, Being more a story revolving around its characters, I wanted it to be shaped by their action, their experience, but also trying to go for the planned rout... eventally, it took 3 years and it will take now one last revision, but I have no regrets in doing that, as long I was able to balance: Lore, Character driven story, and Plot driven Story!

Ordinaryaverageguy
Feb '21

I really enjoy the experience of beginning to write & stuff pours out that I didn't consciously plan. So far, I've liked 99% of the results. It's also an amazing little look at how the unconscious mind is working on things that escapes your everyday awareness.

crowstories
Feb '21
Ordinaryaverageguy

There have definitely been some unexpected changes that I liked, but at times I'm like "hey, where are we going? The important plot point is that way!"