In what order should I make the story, characters and world building?

[carol109]

I find it hard to be organized when starting a new story. First I would start with a vague plot. Then I would make it sound more decent and start making characters. Then I go back doing developing my story.

Right now, I started doing my chapters without even finishing my characters. I need to make more chapters but I don't know my characters' personality completely. If I continue with my characters I would completely ignore the story and make unnecessary sub plots. I don't even know when to start world building. My comic is set in a different world with advanced technology so I have to make maps and think of how the world would look like.

What do you guys think?

[Freith]

Personally, my characters and world-building happen together. Most of the time I create my characters first; really put a lot of thought into shaping their personalities, let them run loose, and they'll GIVE their stories to you. The world just tends to naturally form around them as they tell you their stories, but you can always do a bit of tweaking to have it fit the mood and style you like.

But you should definitely put a lot of thought into your characters early on. Keep your main story idea in mind but don't be restricted to it - have an open mind about where your story will go and just let your characters decide! The story will feel a lot more natural that way rather than trying to force characters to fit within a set plot, especially if you don't know your characters' personalities completely yet.

At least, that's just my take on it. Everyone's different and has their own ways that work for them.

[AnnaLandin]

Short answer: in any order you feel like. Try until it works.

Long answer: I tend to start with a general idea for what I want to tell, then I start working on characters and worldbuilding. Honestly, if you're telling a story set in a different world, you NEED to worldbuild, and it's usually a good idea to do so as early as possible. The worldbuilding is the frame on which you hang your story, so it's good to know at least some of it as soon as possible. Worldbuild early, and worldbuild as much as you need to (but not too much; the readers aren't here to read an encyclopedia of your fictional world; stick to the relevant stuff). And knowing your characters before you start writing the story itself is also helpful; if you know them, you'll know how they react in different situations, etc.

It's probably a good idea to make some sort of outline of what you want to happen in your story - giving yourself some idea of beginning, middle and end. You can add details after you've got the basics down.

If I continue with my characters I would completely ignore the story and make unnecessary sub plots.

Why can't you show off your characters while also continuing the story? If they're the main characters, they kind of have to be involved with the main plot - so you can explore their personalities while having them act out the plot. You don't need subplots to show off characters unless you want to. Look at Mad Max: Fury Road; it really only has the one central plot, and all of the little character-development-moments tie directly into that plot - and it pulled it off beautifully.

You can do story and character at the same time. In fact, you probably should. If you tie both the plot and the characters together, the whole comic will work better; I will care about the plot because I care about the characters, and I will care about the characters because of what is happening to them, and what they're doing.

[carol109]

I'm actually going to start my world building right now. I have soo many ideas my head is going to explode just thinking about them.

I guess I'll have to continue making my characters. I think I need to get to know them more. I don't even have a villain yet. How many main characters do you think I should make?

[windikite]

Here's my two cents.
There are stories that come from good characters, and there are characters that come from good stories.

In the first concept, you make stories that explain why your character is this or that. If you want to make unique characters you let them show how unique they are with their choices; as an example, make them come from an unusual background and find the missing pieces that are crucial to understanding the character. Break these characters in your story and let them glue themselves back together in interesting ways.

As for the second concept, fully fleshed out stories will inspire characters out of necessity. You'll need to realize what facets of your civilization exist, and why they are or aren't represented in your story. If you start thinking about your stories' major religion and realize you have no priest, clerics, or rebel cultists you're on the right track.

In my story, I had characters that I wanted to explain with a whole story. While building the world around them I stumbled upon other characters that couldn't not exist and show up. Then I used the first process on them and edited the world to fit all of them.

[AnnaLandin]

How many main characters do you think I should make?

I really have no clue. I don't even know what kind of story you're trying to tell. Is it a huge, sweeping scifi epic in which your characters need to save the world? Is it a smaller story, in which your main character(s) have a conflict with someone living on the same street, or in the same town? Are they space explorers? Are they part of some huge expansionist empire? Are they soldiers or scientists or artists or shoe-makers?

Create as many characters as you feel are necessary to the plot. Less is more, though; you don't need a cast of thousands unless you think that's absolutely crucial to the story. There is no magical number of characters you should strive for, because the requirements of each story is different. I have (or am going to have, once I get there) 3-4 central protagonists, a few villains, and a bunch of secondary characters, because that's what my story requires. You might need a different number.

[windikite]

Ah villains. Just call them antagonists since making the opposing side always evil is a bit of a bore. The best antagonists pose deep questions to your characters that directly conflict with their beliefs. Antagonists don't even need to be wrong about their beliefs either. My main character is wrong about quite a few things, and the main antagonist ends up teaching some good lessons to him. This also works in reverse too. Just don't make your antagonists second class characters and remember to explore them like your other main characters. Lastly, well liked main characters can also be antagonists, maybe they are just on the wrong side of a battle or have conflicting interests.

I would also recommend not shooting for a quota of antagonists, just evolve characters and figure out who is opposing your main characters.

[carol109]

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. Generally, my story is about how humans go to another planet because Earth has become too dangerous to live in. In the new planet, the tyrant king of the humans/aliens wants to find the elixir of immortality because he is dying so he commands leading scientists make experiments. They eventually make Semis, who are evolved from the new planet’s animals. Semis are identical to the humans/aliens. They are not immortal but have super powers. The aliens create a TEST in which Semis undergo a virtual reality and live in it. If they survive, they could potentially be immortal.

I need to make changes so that there's no plot holes.

[GlanceReviver]

To me, it shouldn't matter what order you do these in, as long as you have ALL of these aspects done before you start. Then edit and edit again. During the process you'll probably think of more stuff.

A lot of people do start by creating characters with a stat sheet like they are about to start role-playing, but I find that to be too much of a shoe horn.

Sometimes I get to the end of a story I'm writing and realize that the characters I've written really don't behave the way I set out for them to. The "voice of reason" is more all over the place than the hot-head, or whatever. So I'll end up going back and saying okay, so what if these two roles switched places, would that make the story stronger? You might end up with more characters than you needed, and it might be better to combine them.

The thing about world building is that you might not know that certain elements of your world need to exist until you're done writing it. Your characters might need a form of travel or a place to go. And in the opposite sense, your world might give you ideas for things to happen. Maybe I want to design a cool landscape, so now I set one of the major plot developments there.

It is an organic process you really shouldn't feel the need to limit yourself by working in a certain order.

[punkarsenic]

start with characters and build whatever bits of world are needed to develop them, then build the rest of the world, then design the story - once you have your world and characters, the story will come easy, but you may need to add bits and bobs to character and world to fit the story when you create it.

[zoonland]

The first thing I usually do is a quick plot of the story.
Then, I start creating the characters, trying to give them an unique personality and look. They are the "actors" of my story so is important to me to have well defined characters even before the story.
Then, I start adding details to the story and get it completed.
Last, the world. My worlds are usually very simple, and it's easy to create them when you have the plot and the characters.
Sometimes, when I have too much ideas in my mind (it happens VERY often), I do a brainstorming and write them down, and select the best ones.
The worst thing is when ideas come to my mind when I'm not home, so I always carry a little notebook with me to write/draw them down (or I write them on the phone/iPod) and don't forget them

[kazukitakamura126]

I think you should start off with a rough idea then refine it further as you stated. The next step you chould develop traits about your characters like how old they are, there social standing how they behave things of that nature. Then, you build the world around them and what makes your story tick. Finally tie your characters into your world. Make events that happened in the story's history affect your character or they could be the one that caused it to happen. Finally you plan out the chapters once you know how everyone fits into your world that way you can make events happen that remind them of how the story's history affected them or how they caused it.

[eschaefges]

I would say 'all of the above' is valid.

what is compelling you to write the story? is it a dynamic character that has sprung to mind? Is it an interesting twist on an old tale? is it an enchanting world you've envisioned? Find whatever it is that is drawing you to write the most, and write about that. If it is the world, you will start to populate the world with various characters and stories will emerge. if it is the story, you will find various characters needed as you go, and a world to support them may spring up. If it is character, imagine what sort of world they would need to exist in, and the interactions that would ensue.

my first long-form story started with character and a bit of story - I wanted to run through The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past but replace the hero with a dim-witted, uncool dork, to see how the story changed. the story and world were created as I ran this character through the paces of the original game.

the last thing i wrote, a radio play, started by riffing on two characters, then expounding the world they lived in, then adding more elements until a story was born.

[mg78]

imho u have to start with 2 point in mind before all:
what s the point of the story + whats the business/deal/problem with the main chara in that world.
done that, u can start to develop all... shape all from genereal to detail, without rush. and dont forgot the 2 point in the beginning!

[Hug_Mug]

I write the story and characters from macro to micro. This means tackling the biggest aspects of the piece first before working down to the smaller details and weaving them in convincingly.

World building comes last because it's just about adding in details. For example, if you have want to create a dystopian world you could think about having a billboard in the background advertising the sale of oxygen or something like this.

[SeraphicMayin]

Tossing in my Two Cents here as well:

When it comes to World, Characters, and let's call it Plot, because all three of these create the "Story", the easy answer is IT DEPENDS. Of course--that explains absolutely nothing.
(Plot = This happens and this is why, while Story = And then this happens)

When I dedicate myself to a story, I decide first what the most important thing is, and then I flesh it out just enough to be able to see it in my head without any of my notes.
Sometimes, based on inspiration, it's two characters that interact; sometimes it's the concept of a world based on a "What If?" and sometimes It's "omg, I just really want to rewrite romeo and juliet's plot."

Be that as it may, I can only give an example of my process:

1/ Inspiration based on tons of sources, half of which i'm not aware of or finding a notebook where I wrote 100 prompts for myself ages ago. Pick one of those inspiration and have a gist of Main character(s) [Max. 2 at this stage], setting and plot's key conflict.

2/ I like Character-cause and driven plotlines, so I focus on the one or two key characters that the story is about; Ideally, I focus on telling the story from one character's POV so it's easy to have a protagonist or two if the romance or partnership is important to me.

3/ One sentence plotline that summarizes what the entire story is about. Expand into 3 acts, one sentence each; Expand each sentence into it's beginning middle and end; Continue expansion until the very act of writing the story has given me necessary characters (Allies and Antagonists mostly because I start with my hero or heroes)

4/ In Step 3, on the side as characters and situations arise, I world-build and flesh out characters that will, in turn, affect the story.

5/ Finish the expansion and split the story into given acts and chapters/scenes; and proceed to create all concept references needed to create the comic itself. The rest is just pounding out pages.

At one point, though you may start with one order in mind, everything tends to happen in tandem.

For a short story, I find Characters most important
For Long-form Stories, A solid world is most important at first, then Characters.

This is just how I do things though xD.