Question The process of writing -- discussion

I am, as I have discussed here, (or maybe not) among other things, a discovery writer. I rarely go beyond the first scene of a story before starting to pound out a draft. Thus none of my story, not even the original Idea gets committed to electrons until I set it down. Often as not the story first occurs to me as I'm resting for the night, or while sitting and idling away an hour or so at video games. But without an outline, or at least some what of an idea of what the conclusion is that the story should have, I often find that I have a whole disk full of story starts with none complete!
I'm aware that I probably should jot down what I think of as my opening scene, then write at least a bit of why that represents a crisis worthy of a story, and what the resolution of that crisis should be before I go hammering up 23,000 or so words in a ramble such as I have posted as Nowherevile here and that in this one as with many others I failed to think through the title I gave it. I have this one on my disk as Vibes, and am not particularly enthused about that title either. So how many people get an initial idea here and actually analyze it and write an outline before they start hammering things down on their keyboard if that is where you do your initial work. If you don't work directly to the computer, how do you use a note book and when and why?

What's an outline?

Oh, I generally have an idea of where I want to go, but the trip is an exploration into the unknown. I've even had characters just take the reins and go where I wasn't ready for them to go.

Honestly, for fiction, a minimal outline of crisis and resolution would probably do. I just get scenes. I'm not even sure if the scenes are crisis, resolutions, or just slices of some character's life that is interesting to me at that moment.

Anne wrote: So how many people get an initial idea here and actually analyze it and write an outline before they start hammering things down on their keyboard if that is where you do your initial work. If you don't work directly to the computer, how do you use a note book and when and why?

Not me! Which is to say, well, not exactly. Let's start with two examples:

"Let's start with a different reason for a kid to end up at Whateley, and make it dark" became the initial idea for Abelyn Marie 'Smithy' Elliott. Later came the brainstorming regarding how a family could have gotten to that point and what could mean for the child, but we already had a challenge and a resolution.

Reading a bit online about Danish culture + a demotivational poster that amused me became "Rudolph the Danish Drill Sarge" as I thought more on what it would take for that photo to be taken, and what would happen after someone got their hands on it. How would the school react? How might his government react?

In place of an outline, I do have various notes and story fragments collected in text files here and there to describe the characters and what needs to exist or have taken place to get them where they are. I also have a few rough calendars of events for things that could impact the characters, or not. Beyond that, in my head I have a number of scenarios that might be interesting, but whether they get used depends on how the characters evolve along the way.

Anne wrote: I'm aware that I probably should jot down what I think of as my opening scene, then write at least a bit of why that represents a crisis worthy of a story, and what the resolution of that crisis should be before I go hammering up 23,000 or so words in a ramble

"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans."
-- J. Lennon (He's dead now, by the way)

The setting has defined challenges and milestones built into it. Whether they are crises or not depends on what the characters know and how they react. Sometimes the resolution is that the characters fail. Or, the logical outcome of the putting X characters in Y setting is that they would not put themselves in that Z situation.

Thank you for your input. I hope others are finding this either informative or helpful. It is somewhat good to know that my writing style isn't entirely unique. And that maybe if I can get just a bit further over the hump of finding the resolution for my stories, that I may actually be able to write something that more than half a dozen people read!

Honestly, I'm beginning to wonder if outlines or frameworks or overviews or whatever I plot out, are actually hurting my ability to finish anything.

I get an idea, muse goes crazy, stays stuck in my mind until I put it to text, and then she's satisfied because I wrote out the laziest of stories: a summary of the beats.

Yes, it helps me come back to things months or even years later, and occasionally I'll get another wave of demands from my muse to work on a specific story...but I'm not getting anything done. The middle never gets written because the setup, narrative hook, climax, and conclusion were written out.

That is interesting, everyone it seems has a different set of areas where they are weak. I don't know how well my latest effort has gone, I kind sorta got Kelly to Whateley now, but that is maybe the end of the first part of the story, what happens next? Shall I abandon her and Sally to tell other stories? Or shall I see how she interacts with people like Razorback, Diamondback, Imp, and the Secret Squirrels... Who would be about to lose their minds over her in some ways! The ultimate (since they don't know about Jade's actual power set) spy!
All I know is that where I am now is a weak ending, yet I'd like to be able to call the story done. Not because on the web we have any word limits, but because it just seems to me to be a fairly natural breaking point if I can pull it off, certainly I don't want to end up with in essence a wallatext while trying to summarize things to pull off the end of the story, which is what I usually end up with. Of course with the paucity of feedback I only know that right now some people have told me that the whole thing reads a little stiffly. Which, by the way I'm aware of, but what is posted to the forum here is at best draft .5... Which means that if I can actually get a fair ending on the thing, what I need to do, and need some help with is to help smooth things out and to break up the points where I start writing sentences that could compete with Paul in the Bible for complexity!
So while this thread isn't about that in particular, is anyone willing to come alongside me and help me past that set of humps?

I can't give good writing advice, because if I knew anything about writing long-form fiction, I would have managed to finish at least one of the... let me check... twenty ideas for stories I have sitting in my hard disk. A couple of them have been sitting there for twenty years.

But I can (sometimes) write short stories. That's because short stories are written around one single concept -- and, once I have that concept, the rest sorta fall in place around it. In a short story, lack of depth, backstory etc. can be a strength, removing distractions from the single core concept. That's in a nutshell how all my Whateley Micro-Scenes came to be; that's how my single TTH story, "Italian Passion," came to be; that's how a short Star Trek: TNG fanfic I posted to the lists a long time ago came to be...

But when I try to go into long form, I get bogged down in the details. Take my Whateley fanfic "Mezzo", for instance; I have way more than in most of my writing projects -- a well-defined protagonist, a rough outline of how Jana gets her powers, I know how the story ends (at Whateley, with her a student, natch -- it's a prequel, after all)... but I STILL seemingly can't make it flow. I keep adding stuff, and then figuring out that it doesn't work and having to cut it off...

But mostly, my main problem with writing is that I have trouble figuring out how the story should end. I think of an interesting setup for a story, and then... what? It's like I have an idea for a neat scene, but it's just a couple minutes in a movie. Like, say, if the only idea George Lucas had about Star Wars was the duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan. It's a neat scene, but how do I get from this to a whole movie? Sure, that scene implies a lot of things I can work from backwards to create earlier parts of the story where the characters are introduced... but going forwards is an entirely different problem.

Well when I first met Kelly (the story I'm currently working on) I wasn't even sure it was a Whateley story. It was just about a boy, badly injured, not even sure how he came to be injured, in the woods, knowing that he can barely see a landmark that dominates his home town. So, can he make it home? Oh! Oh! There's something wild and hungry in the woods! Can he think well enough to escape those? There's the landmark, it is certain that he has found that much, he's against the fence that defines it... but it is a long way around that fence, wait a minute, maybe he can get under the fence? Does he want to get under the fence? Oh! Oh! There are wild and hungry things even closer, but there might be a ghost at the house inside the fence. What should he do? Inside the fence and facing a ghost is better than inside something wild and hungry!
But now he's cold and wet, he needs shelter, but with his injuries can he make it to someplace sheltered? And even if he does, will he survive? Because as cold and wet as he is he needs a fire to get warm eventually...
Ah, there's the house, he arrives, not without struggle though. And then... He's burning out! Now he's too hot! Need to get back in the water. Good thing there is some close, and he's able to think of that.
That actually was as far as I was going to go, except that I wasn't sure about having Coyote there, and Coyote just happening to be a female shard, and then the story got away from me. But the first three sentences of this piece are about what I started with, that and the idea that the place he could see might be haunted.
So, considering what I have posted, how well did I do on conveying his struggle, his angst and his eventual winning through, though not without complications? Take the first 'chapter' and treat it as if it were the whole of the story...

I guess I look at it more as telling a story, is it to entertain, convey a message, get that nagging monkey off your back who won't let you sleep cause you can't think about anything else (that last bit might just be me). I like to have a plot as opposed to an outline, then have objectives / high points to achieve that plot, I will usually write the high points then mesh those into the story.
For me doing it that way helps me see if the build-up between objectives is good enough to satisfy and support that high point and keep writing toward that end goal - moving forward with a purpose: tie up loose ends along the way, prepare for the next hurdle.

I probably actually mean a plot more than an actual outline for fiction. After all there aren't three cogent points I have to make, then draw a conclusion that draws all those points together and show how they support my conclusion. I guess I was hoping that this discussion would net me some people who could tell me gently but bluntly if my writing is failing. I know, I think, my weak areas. Lack of plot, Lack of resolution to go with crisis, lackluster crisis in the first place. So, I look at my writing and add it to my other utter failures of life and think that it is just one more thing I have proven that I do so poorly that people gag when they see my efforts.

I think that one of the problems for a discovery writer is that at some point the POV character(s) need to interact with people other than themselves. That point at which they become part of the story might not be the best point for a complete introduction to this new (to the current reader) character and cast.

If the currect sections of Nowhereville seem "stiff" to you, that could be part of the problem. Is this Sally/Tabitha's story, or Kelly's, or the dead person's? With multiple new characters trying to establish who they are and how they know each other, a story can easily become fragmented or even derailed by the new folks.

By all means, write down somewhere what you know about the new characters and new relationships so you can remember it later. If the past events are relevant to how the characters are acting now and help set future scenes, then maybe some of it belongs in flash-backs, new stories, or side aside as "noodle incidents" for the moment?

Seeing a story as a road with numerous forks, mergers, and intersections seems as good an analogy as any. So you have to stop, look for directions in a seedy part of town, and turn around again: that's all part of the scenic charm.

Honestly Anne your beating your self up over nothing When I saw your last post in this thread I thought I must have missed something because I have enjoyed all the chapters in your Nowhereville story So I have just re-read the entire story from the beginning and I believe it reads even better than when I read each chapter as you published them
Writing a story that finishes when your character gets to Whateley is fine, many a fan-fiction author has done that in the past and left it at that However if your muse inspires you to continue now, or later on, with Kelly’s life at Whateley that is also fine but don’t beat yourself up if that doesn’t happen please
Your writing is good, very good imo as a reader and I would be very sad if you just gave up completely
Maybe for you(just an idea) writing a different character of yours “Journey to Whateley” first before continuing with Kelly’s life at Whateley would work for you?

Well I do have Jazz who is about to do a scarper too, 'cause she's about to end up in foster care otherwise. Well, actually I'm going to have the doc get her an admission packet. But once she gets settled in a bit she's going to be a bit of a problem I think. She may be an obligate nudist, part of her BIT.
Nah Real life Really svcks a hurricane through a drinking straw for me right now. 9 months with hardly even a nibble at my job applications and I find that putting my personal information on the web is terrifying, yet that is how most applications are placed these days.

Having only written two books and the rest being short stories, not sure if I'm qualified to give advice on the process, but here's my two cents anyway.

I may be weird, but I'm trying to write my books like I used to run long epic roleplaying games, and I do mean long as one took twelve years to complete before it reached the final conclusion. The 'trick' was that the overall 'arc' of the entire story was known (by me) going in, so there was always an 'end goal' to aim for. With that in hand a smaller arc (like a single book's worth) could be dreamed up within that framework - even if all the smaller ones needed to get to the end weren't yet known in full detail. Taking just that smaller piece, the necessary NPCs and main drama/change plot points for the PCs themselves could be considered and put in place. When the motivations of the characters are known, plot 'pops' out of the conflicts inherent in them all trying to achieve them. Each game session individually was then not necessarily planned in detail, because the players needed the freedom to run amok, but the background material was: who the NPCs were, what they were doing, where did THEY want to go, etc.

So before each session, which would be like 1 to 3 chapters worth, I'd need to only contemplate the consequences of what the players did last, figure out how behind-the-scenes would react, and decide on dramatic encounters to drive things further towards the mini-goalpost already aimed for - all with an eye towards the the BIG FINISH many years down the road so the whole thing can hang together.

Doing this does require a lot of background work on the supporting cast, because they drive events just as much as the main protagonists, if not more sometimes because the 'main' characters often are reactive and not pro-active as they run about dealing with crisis after crisis triggered by everyone else. But once those are known the flow of what should happen is a lot easier to see, and off things go!

You do have to enforce patience on yourself to be willing to NOT reveal all the really awesome details and things you've had in your head for years on end... so they can come out at the proper time and be all the more dramatic when your players (or readers) go, 'omg!' as pieces finally fall into place before their eyes.

The other trick is to know when to let go of any preconceived scenes you may have had and throw 'em out the window if the characters are determined to go elsewhere along the way. You may have aimed for something specific, but in the moment of writing when creativity is flowing better ideas will definitely occur. Just make sure it's done with enough drama in some way, at least for gaming sessions. And I think that model works for these stories too due to the genre and setting - mutants, superheroes, magic lend themselves to action-based dramatic encounters.

An issue I've had with many authors is that while their early books are fantastic, but by about book two or three it starts becoming more and more apparent they have no idea where they are going. Those that do though and can bring it all together at the end of the entire epic? Those stories are simply awesome when you get there. Whether I can manage to pull it off in this medium is something I hope to find out in a couple years.

TLDR - Plot outlines should have targets to aim for in generalities but only defined in certainties as you go. And a more developed supporting cast of catalysts and antagonists will surprise with even better plots when you get there.

The only advice I can give anyone is that writing a plot and making the characters tromp through their paces doesn't work that well (I cite the Prequels as an example); what works better is 'XX, YY & ZZ find themselves in THIS situation- what do they do?' works a lot better. We've tried to make Whateley character-driven, which is why it's done as well as it has.

Besides, everyone knows that XX and YY have been feuding with each other over ZZ's affections, but no one knows that ZZ pines for AA, but knows that it could never work- consonants should never marry vowels!

Okay, let's look at a specific example here that I recently wrote. When I started, I just had Kelly, maybe lost in the woods. But he didn't get lost there because he went there on his own. Oh no, he's there because someone tried to kill him. But we only know they injured him, we don't really know to start that he was dumped for dead. So he has two obvious goals if he is to survive. First, and foremost he must find shelter. Me being a kind and benevolent god to my creation, I put shelter within his sight. But, he recognizes that possible shelter, and it is fraught with dangers, a ghost is rumored to live there. Still he knows, though maybe I don't make it clear, that the place of possible shelter lies between where he is now and his home. He can use it as a landmark if for no other reason.
Then I being a somewhat capricious god, add a bit of incentive for him to seek shelter before he gets home. Now he's stuck between the place with the ghost and hunting coyotes. So more conflict to his somewhat addled thought process.
Now, my real question: Did I carry off that suspense well? Did his survival (albeit changed) meet the conditions of suspense?
Did me having him (now her) leave his home town make sense?
Mind, I didn't start with all of those as goals. And I could have had Kelly forget that he had ever been human and just become the latest disappearance into the unknown surrounding the haunted house if anyone ever suspected he even made it that far...
Basically, what I'm asking is this: If I had chosen to stay with the Fin statement on the first part of the story, did I have a complete story? Or did I need to continue? I'm sure I didn't with the second part though I did put a Fin statement on it too. But really there was no doubt at that point that more needed to be told since I went that far.
Did I properly portray Kelly's motivations, fears and conflicts?
How has the whole of the tale developed for you all?
Do you think that I have it right?

You would have had a story. A short one, but a story nonetheless. There's survival, there's fears, and you do get attached, or worried for him. Him losing his mind to the Coyote is also an outcome of it, and him disappearing into the mansion as another legend is another outcome (although no one would know if he'd disappeared, or just died might be a factor), and it would have made more sense why the story is called Nowheresville.

Going further though does allow for a whole lot more development to happen. Kelly gets to develop,and become much more than just a disappearance. The shift going further on though does make it seem like Kelly is no longer the focus, but... Well, it's the position, and mental state she's in. You kinda wrote your position in there.

Usually, it is better to have a plan in mind, for sure. I've only more recently started writing it down, to make sure I have all the pieces together, before I actually start writing a chapter. But I always take a long time to daydream about what I want to do. Even if I start with a concept, what I can do with that concept, and then form a key scene I want to happen. From the point on, I just keep asking: "What can I do to make that scene happen? How can I get that outcome, and what pieces do I need to put together to reach that?" From there, you think up a web of what elements you need, and fill up as you go. You don't have to fill in everything in the plan, before you write, but having the main points and a good idea on your major characters are does help. As you write though, your plans may change, you might get inspired and some things might change. Keep flexible.

I believe I've seen a set of pictures based on tips from Pixar writers on how to write a screenplay, and although I don't agree on everything, one did stick with me: "Start with figuring out your ending. Endings are hard." I don't think it has to be the 'fin' mark, but what's your outcome? What did your main character overcome? What did they learn? It's a starting point there.

And if you have someone, talk to someone about your story as you plan it. A second opinion can not only give you feedback, see plot holes you might not see, or ideas you might not have thought of that you could find interesting.

Hope it helps!

Thank you very much for the feedback on what I'm doing. I thought I had the first part down pretty good as an exercise in short story writing. But hey we don't always pay attention to the messes our kids make so to speak, so another view of the issue is of incomparable value. I do value all the input I get from the others here, it helps me keep grounded so to speak.
I pretty much had to shift the focus off from Kelly (not entirely) in order to have much of a story. Oh I could have put another 3-500 words in part one about him disappearing but all of his attackers slowly going nuts over having an illusory coyote haunting their dreams! That actually would be a not bad finale if I had chosen to go that way!
But I didn't so Kelly set off for Whateley on her own, only guided by an internal sense that isn't talking to her very much... Now I've essentially reached the same point as before, that is an new somewhat natural breaking point and need my work evaluated. I'm inviting anyone who would like to read the whole story to send me a PM with their e-mail address.
Oh so far as I can tell, it will be worth your time to reread the whole of what I have now, especially if you've only read what is posted in the forums.
Thank you all for your kind attention!

With what I've written here, and the response I've gotten, I'm not sure what to think. Is there no interest among us in developing our ability to write? Or is there not much interest in discussing the process of writing. That is the how, the why and the wherefore of writing. I'm most interested in the how; that is how do I get from ideas like the few that I have placed here (see my sig line...) to complete stories that have drawing potential. I'm wanting to post, if people think it is ready, A Boy named Kelly to BCTS. But I (and I may be beating a dead horse on this) don't want to post something that is incomplete.
Again the correspondence I get here is treasured immensely.
Thank you for your time!

My best advise is to realize we are story tellers. And in as much, the mechanics are a good thing to keep in mind, there are only 3 stories:

Man Against Man
Man Against Himself
Man Against Nature

Now, hopefully no one is bothered by the generic male pronoun, they are used with effect. To look at the stories, we have two people who are fighting over whatever, bragging rights, a common love interest, a kingdom, a scrap of food, when ever someone is opposed by someone else, you're telling a Man Against Man Story.

Whenever we turn our mental gaze inward, we get into the realm of Man Against Himself. Someone trying to overcome their better or worse nature, fighting their inner demons or simply trying to better or worse than they were are these kinds of stories.

Finally, we have the stories of survival, Man Against Nature, and understand that 'Nature' can be many things, not just the great outdoors. Any unfathomable source counts as Nature. This includes epics like The Odyssey, as well as H. P. Lovecraft. And you're not locked in to just one! You could have a survival story of a man fighting his inner demons while shipwrecked by his greatest enemy.

For a good idea of who your hero is, I heartily recommend Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

So you're saying that Kelly is essentially man against man, plus man against nature? At least the first part of the story looks like those two. Then it is Kelly on a journey, but that could be man against nature, and man against man again. Yeah I think I understand those two ideas pretty well. I hope I do a good job of portraying them.
So Kelly at Whately might be Kelly against herself?
Against the school system? (Nature?) or is that man against man.
Against the bullies? (Man against man?)

E. E. Nalley wrote:
For a good idea of who your hero is, I heartily recommend Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

And after you figure out your Hero/Protagonist, then the next step is the Villain/Antagonist. Because after all they are people too. Just trying to solve their own problems in a unique way.

E. E. Nalley wrote: My best advise is to realize we are story tellers. And in as much, the mechanics are a good thing to keep in mind, there are only 3 stories:

Man Against Man
Man Against Himself
Man Against Nature

a.k.a "Who", "What"

This is a good starting point for the long-held idea outside of academia that the very nature of a story is an accounting of something happening. If there is an actor and an action, there logically should be an outcome (even if only implied), that may be positive, negative, or even neutral/inconsequential/other, from the point of view of the storyteller and the audience.

Even scientific reports, not commonly considered literature an not without reason, require an action by some actor that has a discernable outcome.

The outcome can be the action being reported. I can even be left implied.

"Jesus wept."

More or less context may need to be provided, depending on how much of it the audience can be safely presumed to know. Some of what the audience "knows" from the outset may be wrong from the actor or storyteller's perspective.

"When", "Where", "Why", and "How" go on to establish the external and internal settings of the story.


In the end, maybe it doesn't matter that the imagery in "A Cruel Angel's Thesis" still works with the song "Science Fiction/Double Feature" ? At their core, both source stories are "about" a "Fall" from some idealized but impermanent situation, some conflict leading to a final (for now) reconcilation with Self, Shadow, Anima/Animus, leaving the hero(s) able to function in the imperfect outside world where his future had always lain.

I'll let you in on a big secret. When I write Essy and company, I have general goals I want to establish, but 90% of what goes on in the posted chapter is written as I am writing. For example, what I'm likely to post tomorrow... I only really know the characters I plan to use, what I want to do with the chapter, and
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. Anything beyond that will be filled in as I go. >_<

Well beyond Kelly and Sally, (they're rooming together...) I'm not sure who I'd put in a story with them to continue A boy named Kelly. Though I can say that I'm considering whether or not Dump Truck and co'y have had enough lessons in leave the weak kids alone. Then there is the whole (all too serious about themselves) Bad Seeds, Spy Kidz and Capes... So who will gather Kelly up to play Frisbee, other than Sally, and who will be her antagonist, other than Blood Wolf?

Anne wrote: So who will gather Kelly up to play Frisbee, other than Sally, and who will be her antagonist, other than Blood Wolf?

You might want to read "The Devil's Dance" , where Bloodwolf talks to Jimmy T and Chimera:

“You are both Shifters,” he shrugged, “odd ones, but shifters. No one ever messes with shifters,” he added in an odd tone.
A light slowly clicked on, “Your um, fights would not be tied into that, would they?”
“Sometimes,” he half sneered, half growled, “sometimes I just like to fight.”

Hence, one of the reasons I write Bloodwolf as getting along with Metro.

Likewise, someone's sure to find a part-time frisbee-chasing coyote cyute. There just has to be a reason for them to meet in the first place. Other people may be a bit squicked by the whole "is she an animal pretending to be a human, or vice versa" issue - a reaction sure to get Coyote's attention, no?

It helps to fully know your character's personality, interests, and quirks. From there, you can get an idea of how established characters or groups with their own personalities and stories might react in a common situation. Maybe that can give an indication of what kind of OC would make a good foil/antagonist for them, if that's needed.


Most of the established cliques don't fit most of the student body anyway, so it's no big deal if a character doesn't get in with the Capes, or whoever. Can you picture Metro in the FSHA?

Well, if you are trying to think of who would get along with Kelly, think about how it works with Danny. "So fuzzy and cute, I just want to pet him"

Yes, you could have wondercute on his ass, wanting to play with him. He could get drafted into unwitting playmate territory for Buttons, adding Clover into the mix. Certainly there could be walks where Kelly joins along with a certain corgi.

Rose Bunny wrote: Yes, you could have wondercute on his ass, wanting to play with him. He could get drafted into unwitting playmate territory for Buttons, adding Clover into the mix. Certainly there could be walks where Kelly joins along with a certain corgi.

Picture Parents Day 2008: "Oh, hey, Kelly! Let me introduce you to my half-brother... er... once he finishes chasing down the jerk who joked about playing fetch. I'm still debating the wisdom of leaving him in Razor's company for a while."

Bek D Corbin wrote: The only advice I can give anyone is that writing a plot and making the characters tromp through their paces doesn't work that well (I cite the Prequels as an example); what works better is 'XX, YY & ZZ find themselves in THIS situation- what do they do?' works a lot better. We've tried to make Whateley character-driven, which is why it's done as well as it has.

If following this method, is it better to develop out a list of the actors, and then one or two situations you'd like to see them land in and deal with and mature the story naturally from there?

A good story in my mind always has growth. It doesn't have to always be positive, but it is a change in a person.

Katssun wrote:

Bek D Corbin wrote: The only advice I can give anyone is that writing a plot and making the characters tromp through their paces doesn't work that well (I cite the Prequels as an example);

Aside from forcing the characters through The Hero's Journey, the Prequels also suffered from snorting too many lines of the original trilogy's symbolism, plus inserting the merchandising tie-ins they wanted to make without finding out what kids would want. I'm almost certain the writers had no understanding of the demographics they were deliberately targeting.

Katssun wrote:

Bek D Corbin wrote: what works better is 'XX, YY & ZZ find themselves in THIS situation- what do they do?' works a lot better. We've tried to make Whateley character-driven, which is why it's done as well as it has.

If following this method, is it better to develop out a list of the actors, and then one or two situations you'd like to see them land in and deal with and mature the story naturally from there?

Not always. Ideally, each character that you add to your cast should have their own personalities, quirks, limitations, and motivations. Understanding those things, the author should start seeing other characters and events fall into the "Not likely", "Nope", and "Hell No" categories. Using them anyway is how a lot of fanfics fall on their face.

i.e., If XX and YY are on the scene, and ZZ would rather chew glass than go there with them, ZZ is now auditioning for Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film.

Ex. "Pejuta, Generator, and Bloodwolf are hiking through the quarter-acre of the Reservation that isn't Class X"
Reader 1: "One of these things is NOT like the others; one of these things just Doesn't Belong."
Reader 2: "I don't know, Brain. Just because Jade is a city girl, that doesn't mean she can't enjoy nature."

Double-check how you use established characters, because protagonists are built to be the objects of projection and misidentification.

Ex. : One reader was enamoured with Metro's story as a rebel leading the fight against a corrupt and soul-crushing authority.
Author: *chokes on drink*


It's very important that it makes sense for XX and YY to be involved in the event. It doesn't matter that their power set is perfect for resolving the conflict if there's no reason beyond that for them to be involved.

Ex. "The German Club's macguffin is missing! Luckily, the Spy Kidz just happen to be sharing the meeting room..."
Reader 1: "what."
Reader 2: "They can barely manage English comprehension!"
Reader 1: "Two out of the seven junior spymasters can understand a foreign language, and German isn't one of them."

So the story might need more setup to the desired events than initially planned, just to get the cast in place without killing each other and to give good reasons that any other people who should be there aren't. If you need them to act OOC, then show why they'd be acting in such a way.

It was more of a question for my writing outside the WU, but thanks for the great examples. As the ideas are bouncing around, they're already helping.

A few other examples for fun, based on the discussion:

- A character with a background in sports medicine isn't going to take up ownership of a banana plantation, but someone with a finance background might.

- An average looking, self-reflective misfit finding herself in a beauty queen body won't suddenly lose all of their old interests and focus solely on fashion, shopping, and dating, but they might want to show off a little more than they used to. Vanity and the power that comes with that kind of change can get to anyone in the end.

- The likelihood of someone forced into classical piano lessons for many years switching to the euphonium in marching band is not great, but also not impossible. However, joining a rock band is not far-fetched and an easy logical jump.

- A subway attendant has a good reason to be in a collapsed tunnel or witness the setup for an elaborate bank robbery. But a retired Navy SEAL also ending up on the same passenger train (instead of just taking a plane between to major airport hub cities) as two high-ranking Pentagon officials who are the only ones with codes to a secret weapons satellite is pretty far-fetched.

- Who is more likely to know how to build a quality zombie fence? A ranch-hand, a gardener/farmer, a police officer, a roadie, or the jewelry boutique clerk who was also in the National Guard? One is an obvious setup for convenience, where the others are equally capable of putting something reasonable together without so specific a background.

Katssun wrote: - A character with a background in sports medicine isn't going to take up ownership of a banana plantation, but someone with a finance background might.

Actually... the sports-medicine person might find themselves in the unwanted role of having to care for the banana plantation. Consider inheritance, sentimental attachment, legal entanglements that make selling it difficult...

There's a Ridley Scott sorta-romcom, A Good Year, that's pretty much about this sort of situation. A high-stakes financial-markets guy inherits a French vineyard where he spent his childhood summers. His first impulse is to sell it and return to his job in London, but as his childhood memories surface, he finds it harder and harder to let go of it. (The fact that he had a finance background is pretty much immaterial in this case)

There are several films referenced through my post.

If you want to remove the foul taste after watching A Good Year, I recommend Under the Tuscan Sun instead.