Character or Plot?

So. There are a few things floating around about this now (see end), and honestly, I think the attitude in some of them is just downright counterproductive.

It's a chicken and egg question.

Personally, I go with character. It's just what happens. The idea for a particular character comes to mind, and then the setting forms around that, and then the situation (or several situations) materialise out of that. I have conversations with my characters. I yell at them when things aren't going the way I want. I praise them when they are. I also do all three with computers, printers, cars, phones, and pretty much any other inanimate object that performs a function.

Do I think my characters are real, three-dimensional beings capable of sentient thought? No. (The computers, cars, phones and other inanimate objects I'm not so sure about, though.) I have favourites among my characters. I get fond of them. I get fond of characters I read about, too. That is kind of the point, darlings.

A majority of the things I write are character-driven. Hell, in the shorter things, quite frequently plot only makes the briefest cameo appearance, if it shows up at all. But it works.* I would also say that a good 90% of the time I only have a very loose idea of what is actually going to happen, and those rare cases I start out with a more solid plan, I am usually surprised by where it goes at some point. Flannery O'Connor wrote a whole essay on how she got surprised by what her characters did. 

Example 1 : "Detox"

I had a character (Magpie), the idea of sin eaters (if you don't know what they are, look it up) and 1500 words to play with. I actually started with the idea that Magpie was going to die, and it would have some sort of repercussion on the narrator, blah blah etc. I didn't have any clue the narrator was going to kill Charley until I got to that point in the story. I could just be dense or a little slow, but I didn't. Looking back at everything leading to that point, I realised I'd been setting it up all along, and that, really, it was the only thing that could happen. But I didn't expect it.

Did my characters take over and dictate how the story would go? No. They're little voices in my head; they'd have a rather difficult time forcing me to do anything. Then again, they're little voices in my head, so by extension, they're little versions of my own thought processes, so even if they did stage a revolt, it would be one part of my consciousness rebelling against another. That's another little tangent, though.

Example 2 : The Great Never-Ending Epic Novel

Somewhere along the pile of drafts, I found myself stuck because there wasn't sufficient motivation for the protagonist to do what he needed to do. Gradually after I came to that conclusion, I realised the solution was the kill off the universal favourite character. 

I was not happy about this. In fact, I was quite sickened by the idea of doing it, so much so that I wasted a lot of time scrabbling around for some alternative just so I wouldn't have to kill that one character. In the end, I accepted it. He has to die to get to point X. And yeah, that scene was fucking hard as hell to write. Most emotionally intense things are because I'm a kinesthetic writer, so I have to feel what's happening to write it. Method acting for the wallflower, so to speak. But again, this was not something I planned from the beginning. In fact, the theme of these two examples is that I always think the wrong person is going to die. 

I know there are people out there who plan out every little detail before they start writing. They have an outline and little summaries and everything all figured out before Once upon a time even graces the page. Fantastic. It doesn't work for me. I don't plan a damn thing out. The plans I do make, I never write, and for my long projects, it's only about halfway through that I start making notes about things just so I have a reminder without having to sift through thousands of words to find a particular description or spelling or whatever. I also, generally, don't go through a lot of physical drafts; I do an awful lot of writing in my head. There are certain pieces that I have done entirely in my head and only written down the final product. But I know other writers who go through draft after draft after draft because that's part of their process. 

And that's the thing I find a little disturbing about the things being said around this realness of characters/importance of plot (my word; 'story' is the one being used, but 'story' is character + plot + themes/subtext so I'm going to be more correct). 

Your experience does not entitle you to dictate another writer's process.

Sorry, but it just doesn't. So you start with a plot and build characters around that.  Or you have a setting and work up. Or you do some other combination. Great. Cool. If that works for you, go with it. That doesn't mean every writer has to write the way you do. It doesn't mean that people who choose a different method should be condescended to, or are less valid for whatever reason. It's just different. 

So, come on, grown up writers - start acting like it. You know a lot, but you don't know everything. I don't know everything. We only know what works from our personal experiences, so stop making it sound like there's this big mandate of the One and Only Way. 

Oh, don't going smirking yet, kids, 'cause you're not off the hook, either. One thing that is definitely true: when you talk about your characters the same way you talk about your friends or, y'know, any other corporeal entity, you sound like an idiot. And for every grumpy grown up writer ready to flay you for that, there's a good number who are just too polite to say anything, but do silently roll their eyes and sigh, 'Oh, children...' 

Linksies: How Real Are Your Characters? (SilverInkBlot) | i'm totally convinced (raspil) | Your characters aren't real. (neurotype)

* I'm not saying it works when everyone does it. I'm not even recommending that beginning writers going playing without a net. I took the time to learn the rules before I started breaking them.

Dear Teen Me: Ghost Writing

Written for this contest based around this book, which is an anthology of letters from authors to their younger selves. Check it out. It's a worthwhile read. 

The Title: My two predominant nicknames as a teenager were Spook (don't remember where that came from) and Ghost (because I reminded someone of the Poppy Z Brite character); both are still used occasionally, but not as much, and Ghost has metamorphosed into a verb for a particular state of being I exist in from time to time.

---

Slow down.
You’re going to be an adult for a long, long, long time. There’s no need to rush it. You can be irresponsible. You can make stupid decisions. Trust me, you’re going to do it later, so better get some practice in now.

Don’t listen to what everyone tells you. They have their own dreams and they think you’re the one to realise them. They see you’re intelligent, talented and ambitious and know you can get the hell out of that town if you want to. They’ll encourage you, but to a point. Truth: they don’t want you to leave town. They’ll settle for you not leaving the state, but their encouragement isn’t about you. It’s about keeping something good for a place that has far too little.

Talk to Greg. When you’re nineteen and sitting in a pub on the other side of the world, you’ll wish you left things differently.

Talk to people. Tell them you’re not okay. Tell them who you really are and don’t try to be what you’re not. Amazingly, every one of them will surprise you. You have the chance to reinvent yourself so take it, kiddo, and let yourself be you.

Talk to your father. You don’t know it yet, but you’re already almost out of time. You started running out of time from the very beginning. Ask your questions, and when he won’t answer, ask them again. And again. And again. And don’t care how much he yells or storms off or drip-feeds those half answers, keep asking. Make him tell you who you are and who you come from. Make him tell you why he never chose you. Why he lied. Why you were a secret. Because if you don’t find out now, you’re going to be repeating that pattern over and over for a long, long time. You are always going to let people put you on the back burner for this reason or that reason; you are always going to be someone’s dirty little secret. At eighteen, you’ll promise yourself to never be someone’s secret again, but I can’t even tell you the number of times you'll break that promise to yourself.

Don’t break promises to yourself, even if it means breaking a promise to someone else.

You hate him right now; I don’t blame you. Sometimes I still hate him, too. But you are running out of time, and you need those answers.

When you’re 22 and living on the other side of the country, he will almost die and you will be able to do nothing. You’ll have to go to work twenty minutes after finding this out, and spend the day juggling customers and phone calls to nurses in West Virginia asking questions that you can’t answer about things you should know. You’ll never really find out what happened on that trip, but it will change you.

You’ll learn to swallow your anger, and you’ll learn to smile every time someone says what a good man he is, and you’ll not tell them what a shit father he is. Not for his sake, but for them. You swallow a lot of things for the sake of other people. It’s not healthy, kiddo.

(By the way, somewhere around this time there will be a boy who can talk the stars out of the sky. You’ll want to save him. He’ll think he wants you to save him. But you can’t, and he doesn’t know what he wants, and that is far too heavy for you to handle.)

Avoid strays.

He’ll finally be put into a home when you’ve migrated even further south, and you’ll feel guilty about not being there to take care of him. You’ll feel obligated to do that. The dutiful son. Don’t. You’ve got a lot of life to live yet, kid, and you are still a kid, and all of this is well beyond your years. Remember when I said to slow down? This is going to be when you wish you had.

(There will be another boy here, more charming than the first, and more appealing because he’s just so normal. Listen to your instincts here. They’ll tell you how it’ll all play out well in advance.)

By the time it’s over, you’re going to want those answers I told you to ask for. You’re going to need them. A few months after the funeral, you’re going to realise all the questions you still have and that the only person who can answer them is gone.

(The boy in this era will break your heart over and over and over and over with a graceful ease that almost, almost disguises what is happening. In the beginning, you’ll dismiss him and deem him unimportant, but he’ll do something to you. This one, you’re better off not knowing at all.)

Forget about responsibility. Forget about money. Forget about settling down. You’ve already got twitchy feet, I know, and they will get so tired your soul feels like it’s thin-to-breaking. But you’re always going to be that square peg, kid, and it’s never going to be easy for you. So don’t bother trying to please them; you can’t, you won’t, and you’ll only hurt yourself.

Just do it your way. Because even after you’ve tried all the things they wanted you to do, that’s what you do anyway.

The anger will go away. Mostly. You’ll spend a week sitting by a bed with too much to say and not enough words and the thing you’ll regret most is not speaking enough. At the funeral, you will provide comfort to others because it’s in there. Beneath the mental problems, the quirks, the bad habits, you are stronger than everyone you know. Allow yourself to be selfish because they will take every last piece of you they can get.

Do not hide your heart in other people. They lose it far too easily.

Do not be embarrassed by your faith. Yours is stronger probably than his ever was, even if he did wear the uniform. Don’t let it go just because the kids you’re running with don’t think it’s cool. Churches (but only the big, proper old ones with arches and painted windows and candles everywhere) will always be your sanctuary (but only when there’s no one else in them) even though you stop going to them so much.

Something will get broken in you the year he dies. You won’t expect it, because even then you think that you hate him too much to care. You don’t realise that bearing witness is just as important for you as it is for him. You don’t think about any of this until it happens. Something will break in you. I can’t tell you when it’ll be fixed because it still isn’t yet. Maybe it never will be. But that’s okay. There’s no shame in being a little broken now and then.

The night it happens you’ll know, and you’ll have a choice. You’ll choose to leave, and you’ll feel guilty afterwards. You won’t tell anyone this. Because you feel guilty. Because it sounds crazy. Because you don’t think they’ll believe you. But you’ll know. Staring at his face in his bed, and the nurse assuring you that it’s safe to go home and sleep for the night. You’ll know it isn’t and you’ll leave anyway. You’ll carry that with you for a long, long time, kiddo.

So slow down.
There’s no rush to see and do and experience everything. Go to parties. Skip class. Allow yourself to do less than perfect work. Talk to strangers and dance with bubbles on the street.
Enjoy the moment.