Do your characters unintentionally grow as you write?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by The Elder One, Sep 22, 2016.

  1. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    If you read down to my next couple of responses in this thread, you'll see that I agree with you. I just think there's a bit of a semantic red herring to be found in using the term "surprise" to talk about changes that present themselves in the process of writing a story. I just don't think of the phenomenon you mention as a "surprise". Am I being pedantic? Perhaps, but when some writers actually do extend the metaphor out and make it seem like characters write themselves, I find myself pulling away....
     
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  2. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    It probably boils down to how well-thought-out the characters were at the start. If somebody just starts off with a vague idea of what they're going to do, or maybe creates a character who is supposed to act a certain way without giving it much thought ...then throws in another character, and the two start to interact ...well, surprises can happen.

    I know one of my characters 'grew' a lot as a result of this sort of thing. I discovered he was a lot more prickly than I'd originally intended him to be. It made him a more interesting and slightly more unpredictible character than he'd originally been, and I cheerfully went back and re-wrote the start of the story to allow for this change. At no point did I think I was losing control of my story. Rather, I believed he, as a character, had more depth to him, and that the story was enriched by this change in him.
     
  3. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I agree it does my head in when people start talking about the story writing itself or worse acting like they have no control over it. In particular t really boils my piss when people say stuff like "I can't do that because it doesn't fit with the plot/setting/charecterisation... newsflash you're in charge of the plot (or whatever), you can change it if you want , if you don't want to that's fine, but have the balls to say so, don't play the victim of forces beyond your control
     
  4. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    @Wreybies got it. :)
     
  5. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

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    No worries.

    For some reason each time I read it, it felt like it had a different subject

    Thanks for the clarification (⌒▽⌒)
     
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  6. Chris Before

    Chris Before New Member

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    Yes, it is as much about plot development as character development. If a character is radically changing then it is likely that the plot is changing and the direction you wish to take the story has altered. I usually have an outline of plot and characters, whilst I enjoy developing the characters and enabling them to move the story, there is a balance. If a character is not heading in the right direction, am i losing the plot? This is especially significant if the plot is intricate and complex. There is the question, can the plot benefit and the character sustain this development? Usually, i find the character has a range of options, a change in emphasis revealed in motivation, dialogue or action can continue to develop the character and keep the plot more or less on course. Although i am often surprised by the development of the characters and the plot. I suppose writing must be interesting to the writer long before it will be of interest to the reader. The art is making it interesting to both. However, Van Gogh, only selling one painting in his lifetime, stretches the point.
     
  7. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Oh god and in my second post I meant Wreybies got the right answer not Wreybies got my post.

    I'm not good at this wording thing. Maybe I need a new hobby. :D
     
  8. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Not if Christopher Paolini and James Patterson are anything to go by ;)

    ... That probably wasn't as encouraging as it was supposed to be.
     
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  9. mrieder79

    mrieder79 Probably not a ground squirrel Contributor

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    One of the main characters in my current book started out with a very minor roll, but the more I wrote him, the more he wormed his way into the plot and eventually he became essential. Now many major plot points hinge on his well-being.
     
  10. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    I'm definitely going to echo @jannert here. Fiction as an art is about hijacking the neurobolics of the reader's brain to make them hallucinate the same movie you have in your head - so participating in that art kind of puts you on the train to crazy town at the outset. It's not at all impossible to hack your own brain in the process, trigger your own emotional and cognitive responses at a level you didn't expect, and feel like you're not fully in control of the story when really you are. In my experience, when that sort of thing happens, it's usually (although not always) goes in a direction that's more authentic for the character as they currently exist (and if it doesn't match the plot, then you have the question of whether to edit the plot to fit the character or vice versa.)

    My characters don't always "rebel" per se, and I do think there's something important in not getting TOO emotionally connected to people who don't exist, but I do totally understand how people can get to the point where they don't particularly feel in control of the action. I personally can't have conversations with my characters in my head - I've tried that as an exercise and it doesn't work for me - but if I know a character well enough, I'll feel a certain pushback if I try to shove them down a plot hole that they normally wouldn't go down. Do I feel entirely in control of that? To be honest, not really. Although if I get to a point where I feel that pushback, I'll usually back out and ask myself the question of what happens if the story goes off course that direction, and evaluate the plusses and minuses (usually I'll take the new direction - granted normally when this happens, I'm thinking several books ahead of myself and I'm just making edits to the mental series outline rather than the one I'm actually writing).

    The other thing is that I think you learn a lot about how your own brain works in the creative process. I always find it interesting to watch people debate whether it's good or bad to not feel in control of your characters (or the discovery writer vs. outliner debate, which generally goes along the same lines) - because at the end of the day we're just looking at different ways that different brains react to the creative process. Also - random observation - it seems like the people who feel like their characters never rebel tend to have big focus on plot as a driver with characters as the vehicle, whereas those whose characters do rebel have a focus on character as a driver with plot being a vehicle. All in all, they both work - Steven King and George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson are all great writers who sell massive numbers of books, and their creative processes are very different.
     
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  11. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    That's an excellent view of the issue, in my opinion. I agree 100%. I especially like the comparison between a plot-driven story and a character-driven story.

    Once again—in yet another thread—writers should be less concerned about how other people work, and just knuckle down and do what works for them. If you read books about how various famous and successful authors come up with their ideas and write their books, you'll discover there is no right or wrong way to approach a problem. Just do what works for you. If a period of feeling out of control leads to a more vibrant story, just go with it. Pay NO attention to people who tell you that means you're doing it all wrong. If uncertainty and lack of control produces a good story for you, well who can argue with results?
     
  12. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    1) Not always, it actually turns out that 1 person in 40 doesn't hallucinate in their heads the way that everybody else does

    2) Ever since I found out that that was a thing, I've been toying with the idea to see which of my UrbanFantasy characters would work best as having aphantasia, and I have since surprised myself with how well it would work for one of them. It was all technically my idea, but it still feels like I'm learning something about him rather than adding something.

    That too ;)
     
  13. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

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    Can you expound on this? I find it intriguing, but I'm not certain if I'm actually comprehending your meaning (I've been suffering an onset of insomnia for several nights, so I'm not at my sharpest; it's most likely due my own intellectual impairment rather than you being unclear)

    What does it mean where plot is the driver with characters as the vehicle? Do you mean that plot or the course of events is the main focus of the story with characters as mere devices to move the story along in a set direction?

    Thank you for your patience with me

    ( >人<; )
     
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  14. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I didn't write the original, but I think you've nailed @Commandante Lemming 's meaning. In a plot-driven story, the writer begins with what he wants to happen, moves on to what will happen next, and he knows the conclusion before he even starts to write.

    Obviously any plot needs characters to DO the things the writer wants to happen, so the writer creates them to fulfill that purpose, and makes sure they do exactly that and nothing else. For example, a plot about a bank robbery going wrong may need:

    1)a bank filled with employee characters
    2)characters who are bank robbers
    3) maybe police or detectives
    4) one of the robbers who wants more than his share of the loot. According to the pre-planned plot, this guy is going to betray the robber's hideout to the police, and then, during the heat of the gunfight, will sneak off, grab all the loot, and escape through a tunnel he's secretly dug into the adjacent building.
    5) the next time we see this guy, he's living the Life of Reilly in some sunny tax haven ...not realising that all of his former comrades are NOT dead, and one of them has tracked him down....

    Plot-driven stories can't allow a character to get 'out of control,' because that will alter the plot. If the guy who wants more than his share of the loot suddenly decides that, in fact, he's quite happy to share equally after all, the plot will go in an entirely different direction.

    Other writers start out with a character and possibly a situation and nothing else, and create a character-driven story. The plot develops as the writer learns more about the character.

    For example, maybe a youngish man has just lost his beloved wife and isn't sure what he's going to do with the rest of his life. There's no plot yet, but you do have a character and a situation.

    Next you throw some physical problem at the man that he needs to solve right now. Maybe his young daughter needs a pair of dancing shoes for her dance class. This is something his wife always took care of, but now the parenting is something he has to do alone. So while his daughter is at school, he goes to a shop where dance shoes are sold.

    When confronted by a salesperson he falls all over himself because he doesn't even know what kind of dancing his daughter does. The salesperson is snotty. He responds ...how?—and from his response the character of the man develops more individuality. And maybe there is another salesperson in the shop who takes over from the first one, and she is actually very kind ...and a plot begins to develop from the interaction between them.

    That's an example of the character in the driving seat, driving the plot vehicle. What the character is and does determines the direction the plot will take. This is the kind of story where allowing the character some freedom to develop can produce compelling results. But there will probably be a few wrong turns as well, so the author has to be prepared to edit like mad, once the story has taken shape.
     
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  15. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    Yeah, my story right now is going to be a character-driven one. I've got three characters, a situation, way more backstory than maybe necessary, now time to just let them go and see where they head.
     
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  16. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

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    Thank you for this.

    So I am in fact the latter, and so to his general rule I am it seems an exception then.

    My stories are all on character & evolve from the character. The plot is not a driving force and is in fact a mere result of my following my characters.

    But for me (and again this does not have to have any correlation to other's styles, methods, or experiences), because my story is one of character these characters never surprise me.

    The characters are my focus, so I have a total understanding of them, so no matter what situation or event takes place, their actions & reactions, their growth or devolving, all of it flows naturally and rationally from my understanding of them. That is why I'm personally never surprised by my characters, how they behave, or the direction they take in the story.

    However, I just realized that my plot in fact surprises me quite often & a good deal.

    Because my plot doesn't actually exist until the characters go through all their motions and make their various decisions, I often don't know what the end result of the story ultimately is until everything is concluded. So I am frankly surprised by the direction the story takes & its ultimate themes, but never the direction my characters go that leads to it.

    This is actually really interesting now that I realized this about my plots.

    I wonder how this affects my story telling adversely? Does it have any actual benefits?

    I wonder if I should experiment with trying to write a plot first then fit characters & their actions into it, and see how my writing changes? Like a short story sort of thing--just to see.

    I'm rather fascinated now
     
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  17. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I don't think you're an exception. A lot of people (myself included) tend to start with characters or an interesting situation and move from there. The up side is the excitement of learning about your characters as you go. The down side is you'll write a lot of stuff you'll end up having to change, because as characters change, so will the story's direction.
     
  18. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    For me, what ends up happening, I come up with a plot, have characters to fill out the important roles then. . . I decide I don't like the plot any more and want to keep the characters for another story. So I probably should stick with character-driven pieces.
     
  19. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    Well I don't know if what I'm thinking is necessarily true - but I do think that some writers are mostly working to explore their plot, which means that if there is a conflict between the character and the plot, then the character is what needs to change to fit the needs of the story. On the other side, there's the strategy that says that the character is the centerpiece, and conflicts between character an plot require changing the plot to fit the character. I personally fall mostly into the latter camp, but plenty of people go the other way successfully.
     
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  20. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    I think people tend to go both ways on this, I don't know if there's a majority or minority at all. More like everyone figures out their preferred process.
     
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  21. froboy69

    froboy69 Member

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    Just go with the flow~

    It's how I row~


    That being said, it now has me wondering if my characters from previous stories HAVE actually unintentionally grown. In fact, I am re-reading all of my previous works. I am pretty excited! :)
     
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  22. Rosacrvx

    Rosacrvx Contributor Contributor

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    This happened to me and it was a surprise the first time it happened. Some characters are intended to play a small role in the plot and suddenly they grow and impose themselves in a way that goes out of my hands. Not that it impacts the plot (I establish the plot before I write) but they seem to demand a lot more time and space than I had intended for them. They indeed seem to "grow"! I indulge them if I like the character. If I'm not particularly fond of the character and they're taking too much time and space in the novel I don't indulge them, sorry.
    Yes, it's exactly like in real life. You make room for those you enjoy the most. I have this kind of relationship with my characters. They might feel very real and all, but real doesn't mean I'm enjoying them, especially if they are demanding space that's not intended for them. Maybe in the sequel, but for now don't mess with my plans, lol!
    Anyone else had this experience?
     
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  23. froboy69

    froboy69 Member

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    ^I am envious.
     
  24. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    Fun fact: In my writing last night I actually had a character that wasn't even in the story grow a bit more personality than expected. She was just someone Fredrick was reminiscing about and suddenly she's actually really likeable and I want to write about her now?
     
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  25. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I'm a bit late to the thread, obviously, but I think the problem with the "do what works for you" approach is the difficulty of defining "works".

    Too often I read people post things for critique and respond to suggestions with something like "that's just how I write". They think what they're doing "works" because it allows them to get words on the page... or, to be more generous, because it allows them to get words that they enjoy on the page. And if they're satisfied with the ultimate results of this process, then, great. But to go from a thread with someone saying things "work" a certain way for them to another thread where people are lamenting how difficult it is to get published is frustrating to say the least! I think we have to have a really clear idea of what "works" means in any given context before we accept that a certain process "works" for a writer.

    If people are getting absolutely everything they want out of their writing, then I agree that they've found what "works" for them, at least for the time being. But how many of us can say that we're in that situation? No dreams, no unreached goals, just perfect contentment with everything as it is in writing-ville?

    For myself? I certainly hope I haven't found what "works" for me, yet, because I'm not satisfied with the results of my writing time and am absolutely hoping that if I keep trying different approaches I might find something that "works" better.
     

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