Ah, but that's only one way to approach creating a story. Valid, of course, but that's not how everybody works it. As somebody who definitely starts story building with a character or two, I can say this character-first approach really does work ...for me, anyway. I envision a character or characters, put them into a setting ...maybe not even a very developed setting ...and get them to engage with what's happening there. From this engagement, a plot begins to form, the setting becomes more detailed and specific. And etc. My first (and to date only) completed novel started with a very simple idea. I envisioned a young man, a stranger to the location, getting caught in a blizzard. He's riding a horse, and it's somewhere in the mountains of the Old West. And as darkness falls, and he's at the end of his endurance, he sees the lights of a log house. He heads for that house as his only refuge from the storm ...and my story begins. I didn't know anything more than that. But the plot built from there. Why was he out in a storm like that, so unprotected? Who was he, and where did he come from? And who were the owners of the house whom he was just about to meet? What would his reception be like? I married this idea with another story idea I had—one that was based on historical reality—and from there, I got a 206,000-word novel.
Unfortunately, I think I would struggle with that. I've tried it before, got 50k words in and got to the point where I thought "ok, what do they do now?" I'm someone who at least needs a start and end-point - because the ending is something I really find hard (although sometimes, I start with an ending and think "how do I get there?"). For me, characters are developed by events. I have an idea of who they are at the start of the story though.
Yeah, I can relate to that. In fact ...I'm trying that approach with my new novel. Mind you, I already know some of the characters because they come from my old novel. But I have a very clear idea, unlike the first time, of where this story is going and where I want it to end. The one thing I'm finding that feels different is that I'm not as ...what's thew word...'involved' maybe ...with my characters this time because I know what I want them to do. I only hope the writing doesn't seem flatter as a result. But we'll see.
