I want to start a political thriller with heavy emphasis on corruption at the highest levels. One hero that saves the world from distraction. Should I develop a plot First or develop the characters? From what I have read, I can get NO clear direction. I plan a story line that Wil be very intricate and swep the world. Maybe I have just answered my question. Anyway, opinions and any get a grips would be appreciated
Honestly, either will work. If you start with a few key events in the plot, a series of plot decisions and logic based items will help guide and form characters that you can utilize and plot points you can move forward with. If you start with a character, you can balance that by other distinct characters and the plot can somewhat form out of how you would like that character's purpose to develop. As an added point, sometimes solid plot can come out of the history you develop for a character when creating them. To be honest, getting words on the paper is where you should really start. For me, the characters and the plot come as a package, and the chicken or the egg argument becomes irrelevant. Sometimes writing a line of something entirely random, just to get it off your mind, can be your real starting point to the story. Grand plans are great and all, but text on the document is all around more.
As contradictory as it sounds, in many ways yes. Remember, words can always be rewritten, reorganized, edited into something completely different than first intended, but they can't if they aren't there first. Don't be afraid of a garbage first draft. Everybody writes them. That's why it gets nicknamed a vomit draft consistently. Once it is out, thenyou can mold it into what you think is best. And as far as what I've seen, that rework hardly ever looks like what was intended while going into it in the first place.
A "for instance." What story do I want to write? I want to write a fantasy story, about a war between two ideologies of magic. One that is a metaphor for capitalism, one that is a metaphor for anti-capitalism. Okay, what characters can I place and where to really zoom in, and find a point in this conflict that maximizes the amount that the reader experiences this world and this story? *runs off to better define the two sides and how their magic systems work and why, so as to make them a metaphor for each. Flesh the world out a bit so I have 1 or 2 locations that show each side encapsulating both sides of their arguments* Okay, so I want one character who is anti-capitalist, and one character who is capitalist. Shall i give each of them an antagonist, or shall i make them the antagonist of one another? I'll make them the antagonist of the other, that way it will lead into a final confrontation. But who do I want to win? I'll have the capitalist win, but make the ending have a twist that will spin it so he feels guilty or see's he isn't completely right. His emotional journey comes about him learning he isnt a well-rounded person. Okay, so I have a start and an end point of a character journey. Now I'll try and see if I can think of one for his counter-part, to really flesh it out. What can I do for that? And so on.. Some call it the snowflake way, I think of it as continually narrowing down your focus until it's razor-sharp and honed in on precisely what you want to write about, and most importantly - it's something you like. Even after you do all this, naturally developing the story will bring about new ideas and possibly take you in new ways you didn't think of - adding new characters as they become needed. Sometimes you can start it with the characters, "What sort of character story do i want to write about?" Others, like this, start off with a more generalized way and eventually come down to the characters. It's all about asking yourself questions on a page, and then answering them to what you would like to read about.
A story is like a tree. You have roots going every which way underground, then a trunk, branches and leaves. The main character(or villain) and the basic premise are the seed. Start with them. get down the basics. Seed: Dave is a low level employee working in the Senate offices. He stumbles on a massive conspiracy that is aiming to bring down the government. Now that you have this, start expanding: Sprout: Dave Burkowski is a former Naval intelligence officer who after failing at retirement, takes a job in the Senate Majority Leaders office. Well working there he discovers that the Senator is a member of the Societas Novae Diluculo, a global spanning organization with it's claws in governments, business and military. Sapling: start adding in additional details and characters that will be required to hold the story together and progress the plot. -Dave grudgingly enlist the help of Linda Marrow- His former partner and hacker extraordinaire. ect. Once you start with this you can go back and add details and flesh out things as you go.
Yeah, I would agree with @Thorn Cylenchar - maybe start with your character and his environment at the start. Who is he? What's he like before he becomes a hero? What is it that gets him started on the hero's path? Does he see something he wasn't meant to see? Did something happen to him or to somebody he loves? Is he asked to do something he finds morally difficult to justify? Assuming he's not SuperMan or some comic-book guy with magical powers, there must be something that triggers him other than, 'I just want to save the world.' Most stories that get me engrossed start with the little guy. The perspective I can relate to. Get into your character's 'shoes' and find out where those shoes take him.
To be honest, I think you should start with the world first. It really sucks when you create this excellent character, but then you have nowhere to take him because you have only a vague idea of where he's supposed to go. Now, if this were some other type of story I'd suggest you do a character first, because character is more important than plot or world, but with this kind of plot, it basically hinges on having a good conflict. So my suggestion is that you figure out the gist of your conflict, then work from there. But I mean, whichever way works best for you as a writer.
No one really knows what should go first. Political thrillers are intricate affairs, so back story is essential to keeping the reader entertained. It seems to me, if you have decided on the plot from the beginning_it much excitement exists. I think a compelling story is built around the characters. Decide on a central hero or family or whatever and let them tell you what to write. I have already decided on a politics thriller. The hero tells me where to go!
My thoughts. You need to start with the plot. If this is a politic thriller, with corruption and other big stuff, you need to come up with corruption first. It is quite a logical large and intricate scheme that will unite some major events and actions in the world. Then you build the world on this. Then you are already adding characters to the world. This was my approach to building detective stories. Until you have a convincing crime scheme, you have no reason to build everything else.
I have never written a political thriller. But I believe it is what you do best , and what interests you the most , comes first . A lot of early detective stories had a thin plot with a strong central character . A lot of early science fiction had a strong plot with no strong central character.
If you mean to the question,plot or character , were to begin . The answer is , it's up to you how and what you write .
The first place you start is realizing that plot and character go hand in hand and to develop one you must have a clue about the other. Think about all the good books you've read. What is the core of all those books? A character's want. From that comes goal, conflict, motivation and story. But there is no definite answer. Some find it easier to start with a plot, others with a character and some start pretty much with neither and just see what happens. There is no "which one should go first" because they are both equally important so whichever one you start with wont be wrong. What is wrong is seeing them as two separate things.
...Not sure if typo or intentional. That's because there isn't really a "right" way to do it. It depends on your own creative process and how you tell stories. We don't necessarily think the same way, so we may have different priorities. Me, I tend to start with the characters, but that's because I'm personally more interested in characters and how they interact with each other and their environment, then I sorta build the plot around them based on how I want them to end up and interesting situations they could find themselves in as I think of them. This might work for you or it might work better then other way around. You should probably start by considering which approach feels more natural and efficient to you.
