Do you agree with this?

Personally, I think this is one of those things where language is insufficient to explain the creative process.

I agree with you that story and character are intertwined. I usually start with character, and as world/story builds around them, more character detail gets filled in. It's very much symbiotic. But what I've described is really only the roughest sketch of what it feels like in my head. How I create is far less deliberate than anything I could put into words.

What the person you quoted said is true, if viewed from a certain angle. I think what he's saying is that all your characters need to be there for a reason - but of course that's true of all aspects of a story. Every piece of it serves the whole. Where I differ with his phrasing is that I don't think the whole is separable from its components (like character). One doesn't exist without the other.

There are writers whose creative process starts with characters. The created universe and the plot are just there to give the characters something to do and somewhere to do it. There are stories that are so character-focused, the plot is barely noticeable. That's the opposite version of the stories that are all plot, with characters just stick figures sufficient to hang the action on.

No generalization about the writing process is universally true. (Except: it's made of words. Mostly.)

I think the process will vary for each author (and for each author the process might vary from story to story).

For my my current work in progress, I came up with characters and a general plot/world-building idea. The characters greatly influenced the plot as I wrote out the story because I could only have them do things they would actually do (they had to "stay in character"). If I'd had different characters, the plot probably could have gone in a different direction because the characters would have reacted to things differently, would have different skills/knowledge, etc.

Depending on the kind of story you're writing, that's entirely true. If you're writing plot-driven fiction, like I do, then characters only exist to facilitate the story, just like everything else. If you're writing character-driven fiction, it's not so much true because the story exists only to give a place for the characters to interact.

I seems a fair statement to me after the event, but I certainly wouldn't think about that at the beginning of the journey.

How do stories come to you? I think a history of significant LSD use comes in handy.

Sometimes it's like a scene from a dream half remembered - I get a sense of something happening and an image and from there the rest just falls into place. Other times a person shows up in my imagination and they tell me their story.

For me, the most important aspect is not the plot, it's the characters; I have to care about them because otherwise what they go through is uninteresting.

"Characters exist to further the plot. They are devised to fit the story. They are created for the sole purpose of inhabiting the created universe the author crafts."

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You could just as easily have said that the plot exists to enhance and develop the characters.

The process is unique to each of us. But as always, the answer's 42.

NINA28 said:

"Characters exist to further the plot. They are devised to fit the story. They are created for the sole purpose of inhabiting the created universe the author crafts."

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I heard it explained as: Stories are a collection of character arcs.

Character transformation furthers the plot.

Setting, Plot, Conflict, Characters.... Characters are most important. The MC's story and transformation is at play. The reader must be engaged to want to read the next scene, then the next, till the end of the book / series.

I start with setting. Many start with character. You can start with any of the four components, but character is most important for storytelling.

There's plot-driven, and there's character-driven. In my opinion, they are tied together, as (in general) characters aren't interesting without the plot, and (in general) the plot doesn't matter if the characters aren't interesting. My own work tends to be character-driven, meaning I place more importance on the characters than on the plot, but the plot still matters.

I also agree that it depends on the author's personal creative process. Some authors prefer starting with plot, others prefer characters, and some can do both. I'd say it's better to not limit the creative process in following one way or the other.

StoryForest said:

I also agree that it depends on the author's personal creative process. Some authors prefer starting with plot, others prefer characters, and some can do both. I'd say it's better to not limit the creative process in following one way or the other.

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It also depends largely on the genre you're working in. Some genres are mostly character-driven, others are mostly plot-driven.

NINA28 said:

As someone who is new and still learning the craft of writing I wanted to share this statement someone made today because I don't think I agree with it 100%. It was no one on here. He said:

"Characters exist to further the plot. They are devised to fit the story. They are created for the sole purpose of inhabiting the created universe the author crafts."

I saw it mostly as a tied thing. But maybe I'm wrong. Just wanted to know other people's opinions.

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Since you asked for opinions—No, I don't agree. That's too definitive a statement; you can't separate the major components of story—character(s), motivations, plot, story world—as that statement suggests. A plot that doesn't affect someone and cause them to act is simply a sequence of events . . . and so what? It isn't a story. Having a fascinating world peopled with stick figures isn't a story. And simply having characters doing "stuff" isn't a story, either. Every story, whether character-driven or plot-driven, must have a certain balance and that balance is usually driven by genre conventions.

No. Not fully. I think it all depends on the kind of story you're trying to tell.

This is the accepted philosophy in MTS. However, I think the best action/crime/thrillers are ones that are also character-driven. My own personal belief is =: action drives character, character drives action. While there are many successful books that adhere to what you described, the best and most satisfying books (and writers that a reader returns to) are ones that are driven by strong characterisation.

Sometimes the character IS the story and what happens isn't so important. A good example is the novel Less by Andrew Sean Greer. Sure, there's a plot, and yes, it leads somewhere, but just about anything could have happened in that novel, any event could have been taken in any different direction than it did because it was really about this man coping with himself. What happens in that plot happens because of the nature of the character. In this case the plot exists to further the character. (Also, it won the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago.)

If you give the one ring to some wimpy kid, he'll stash it in a shoe box, and the only thing you write is his obituary.

I think plot and character go together. Whichever you start out with, in the end they're nothing without the other.

People may well be content to live a life unchanging. Although you hope anyone reading a book isn't so content.
Your plot is what drives the development of your character. The best of authors have a twisted, ridiculous plot that drives their characters in unexpected directions.
You can't have characters without a plot because they would just wander around aimlessly and by the end of the book nothing would have changed and there wouldn't be any reason to read the book. By the same token you cant have a plot without characters because each character influences the twists and turns in the plot.
It may well be that some people will fit their characters actions to shape there planned plot while others will use their plot to shape their characters but weak on either side of the fence will leave the story lacking.

I discount any opinion (usually presented as though it is advice) about writing that places greater importance on one aspect than another and is stated as fact. Anything with 'sole purpose' as part of the opinion is a dead giveaway.

That's my opinion, anyway.

NINA28 said:

As someone who is new and still learning the craft of writing I wanted to share this statement someone made today because I don't think I agree with it 100%. It was no one on here. He said:

"Characters exist to further the plot. They are devised to fit the story. They are created for the sole purpose of inhabiting the created universe the author crafts."

I saw it mostly as a tied thing. But maybe I'm wrong. Just wanted to know other people's opinions.

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I suppose I sort of agree in the sense that I did populate and de-populate my story world in order to give the story the right degree of realism.

EX:

An early version of a hospital scene was written with three nurses and a doctor. (And the patient.) Critique partners did not like so many people in the scene, even though it seemed closest to 'real' to me. So the doctor and one nurse were deleted, and another nurse remained but is no longer named. I was also advised that the named nurse 'needed to be in the story later' in order to make 'learning her name worthwhile.' I found that odd, but wrote a second scene for her later and I agree it is nice to have the re-appearance of the character later in the story.

EX:

The opposite happened in a different part of the novel. In the scene, I had no extraneous characters and critique partners felt the scene was too devoid of people. So, I added a man and his dog, and it works better.

...

I suppose a person could argue that setting, like character, only exists to further the plot. Or voice, or whatever. It seems like a silly thing to get too worried about, and generally I agree with you that they are balanced.

A person could argue that salt only exists to bring out the flavors of food. Maybe. But equally a person could argue that everything in a meal should be nicely balanced.

NINA28 said:

"Characters exist to further the plot. They are devised to fit the story. They are created for the sole purpose of inhabiting the created universe the author crafts."

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I think that this is true of commercial fiction, but with literary fiction it's the other way around. In commercial fiction, you have to have action, suspense, twists and turns, etc. And the characters have to support that and make it happen.

In literary fiction, it's the characters, and character development, that drives the story. So the purpose of the plot is to make the main character grow, change, adapt, experience, or go through some emotional thing. Whatever action or plot there is, it exists in order to create development in the character.

As usual, whether or not any writing advice is true depends entirely on what you're writing.

NINA28 said:

As someone who is new and still learning the craft of writing I wanted to share this statement someone made today because I don't think I agree with it 100%. It was no one on here. He said:

"Characters exist to further the plot. They are devised to fit the story. They are created for the sole purpose of inhabiting the created universe the author crafts."

I saw it mostly as a tied thing. But maybe I'm wrong. Just wanted to know other people's opinions.

Click to expand...

I disagree, wholeheartedly. While there certainly are plot-driven writers out there, and that's fine, it's really the characters that make a story. For example, a story about two rivals can be anything until you pick out the characters for it. Two rival teachers, athletes, mad scientists...and then you get into their personality types and it's a whole 'nother ball game. The author chooses to let the plot, characters, or the oft forgotten third characteristic, world, but at the end of the day characters are the deepest of the three. It's the reason why romances are so popular despite often having extremely similar plots.

In short, people will write with different techniques, but characters by their nature are automatically deeper than plot. People are deeper than their immediate happenings in both fiction and nonfiction.

NINA28 said:

As someone who is new and still learning the craft of writing I wanted to share this statement someone made today because I don't think I agree with it 100%. It was no one on here. He said:

"Characters exist to further the plot. They are devised to fit the story. They are created for the sole purpose of inhabiting the created universe the author crafts."

I saw it mostly as a tied thing. But maybe I'm wrong. Just wanted to know other people's opinions.

Click to expand...

Hi,

I think it is an extreme view.

Some stories only have characters without even having a plot!

Some people develop a character and then look for a story to put them in.

They are probably referring to plot driven stories.

My 2 cents,
Juggernaut