Learning new things about your character as you go or sticking strictly to the script (how often do you change/add things to your story as you go along?)

[clarissapattern]

Is a narcissist fun to write?

[Leyelle]

Mrs. Moon is a narcissist and I've found her both entertaining and concerning to write, but I thinks it's more her other factors than her narcissism that makes her entertaining lol

[drbwp4]

Honestly, a little. But the more I write him, the less he seems like a narcissist. I think I'm going to have to explore writing the narcissism back into him.

[clarissapattern]

it's interesting and sometimes frustrating how characters change when we start writing them

[raspberry590]

oh I'm definitely going to try this, it sounds really helpful. also it sounds super fun lol

[KevinReijnders]

To the pantsers/gardeners here; if you don't plan out your story and craft your character before you start the writing journey, how do you determine or build a character-arc? Do you just wing it as you go along, or do you have a vague roadmap?

[drbwp4]

I plot the story, then I start writing. After getting to know my character in that way, I do other things like character sheets and interviews. Plotting helps a lot since my characters are shaped by the story.

[Leyelle]

I have a character evolution planned but add to it as I go. I also have a general story direction planned out but then learn more things which I use to subtly tweak the story more and more over time. Though to be fair, while there is character evolution, my story is also comedy, so it doesn't have to be dramatic or extreme

[raspberry590]

The thing I get most surprised with lately is how important all the character interactions are - not to be too melodramatic but I find that when I have an MC interact with a relatively minor character, I end up thinking about a whole other dimension of the MC. And then that changes how I understand them going forward and even major decisions they end up making sometimes (not always of course).
Makes me think sometimes that I should do some sort of practice convos between random characters when I'm starting out to get to know them all better at first lol but that's not very practical

[clarissapattern]

that sounds really interesting seeing how they develop when they meet other people