#plot vs characters

[indiaalphawhiskey]

I hope it’s not too vague, but how do you decide what to write about? Do you usually come up with plot or character ideas first?

Not vague at all — you definitely got me thinking. ☺️

I tend to always have a goal in mind when I start writing — a certain skill I’d like to hone or something I’d like to say I’ve accomplished by the end of a fic. At first, my goals were really vague (wanting to finish writing a fic, any fic) and now they’ve gotten a lot more specific (wanting to develop world-building skills, wanting to write multiple purposeful smut scenes, etc.), and now that they’re more specific, I tend to pick my projects based on what plots/prompts suit the skill I want to develop.

I’m also the kind of person that always has prompts swirling around in her head (some that I’m really attached to and tell myself I’ll end up writing later, and some that I just make a mood board for and then put to bed), so I’m definitely a plot-first writer. In fact, I think the thing I enjoy most about writing fic is how fic authors get to heighten and augment certain well-known attribtutes of their characters’ personalities so that the same two people fit the tone of every single plot while still being recognizable.

I’m not sure if you were looking for that much detail, but maybe you were only really looking for this: I have a foot-long list of notes in my phone just with random prompts I’ve thought up over the last five years, and whatever haunts me the most is the thing I end up writing next. 😂😅

PS. The list gets much, much, much longer whenever I want to read a very specific trope that I then realize doesn’t yet exist. (Damnit.)

Thank you for asking! ♥️

Let’s talk fic: send me an ask!

[dragonsateyourtoast]

This is advice about writing from my point of view. Someone asked me the other day which was worse: Great characters with real personalities and backstories, with goals and flaws and conflicts, shoved into a plot so shitty it cannot be read Or The best plot you could ever have imagined. The twists are impossible to detect until you're supposed to detect them. The end goal is relateable but grandiose. And the characters are flat, inconsistent, and unreal. I told her that the store effectively doesn't matter. The characters do. If you have a great plot but no real people, you can't do anything until you find or create real characters to work with it. But if you have amazing characters, they'll do things on their own. They'll sneak around and play pranks on you and ignore your advice. They'll tell you things that happened in their past, they'll drop hints and never tell you full story (people who read Livewired wonder what Tam and Marcus' helicopter incident was. I have no idea. Marcus hasn't told me, and Tam won't talk about it either), and most importantly, they'll make up their own plot. You can erase yours entirely and just go e your beautiful characters a problem. They'll solve it in their own unique way; let them. They'll shine. They'll talk to each other and maybe to you (probably not, they don't need to consult you) and if they can't find an answer or some trouble, they'll make it. Also, you can restructure the plot to fit in with them, and it'll work. They'll be natural in that environment. Always go with good characters.

[on-butterfly-wings-blog]

tbh I think the main weakness of the way that mekaku city actors was written was that it focused too much on the plot. 

like I mean. the idea of the heat haze and the snakes and everything, those were always kinda the weakest parts of the story this entire time imo. but what really hooks people in is the fact that jin had created this fascinating cast of characters, all with enormous amounts of potential to be explored. the reason we care about the plot is because we care about the characters, because we've seen them explored in other mediums like the novels and manga.

so maybe the idea of mca was to hurry the plot along w/ the assumption that fans had already read the novels and the manga and were already in love with the characters, which, okay, yeah, but that isn't really an excuse. if they had taken a little more time to focus on the characters instead of rushing through the plot then maybe the cutesy ending would have a little more impact on us instead of this kinda disappointment.

[luisandthepolice-blog]

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this is how baguio feels right now