Friday 22 November 2013

Plot vs. Characters

This is something I’ve wanted to write for a while now because as a writer it’s a battle I often come across. What is more important to a story, the plot, or the characters? This is a question without a straightforward answer. It’s clear that regardless of the medium – prose, films, etc. – some are more character driven while others rely on the plot. The best, for me, will have a nice mix of both.

The focus depends on the nature of the story and the person writing it. In terms of my own writing, I think I’ve discovered which is best. Often, when it comes to the initial concept, I’ll either have characters with no plot, or a plot with no characters to fill it. Most of the time for me, the characters come first.

I find it really easy to create characters. I’ll start with a basic idea and then I’ll have a whole character develop from it, with a highly detailed backstory. That’s my bad habit in writing. Of course, you have to have good backstories for your characters. Even if they don’t show up in the story, it’s useful for the writer to know how their characters became who they are.

My bad habit is that when I have a good backstory for a character, whether I came up with it on the spot or spent days thinking about it, I want to put it into the story. This is okay, but there has to be a good way to go about putting it in, otherwise it will just be annoying. If the present is supposed to be the focus of the story, you don’t want the past overpowering it.

At the same time, it’s common knowledge that the character influences the plot. They’ll react to each situation differently from another character, and that will affect the outcome. Things you decide when about a character when developing them may also play a role in the plot.

Another problem I occasionally get is that I create really great characters and then can’t think of a plot to put them in, or the one I come up with either doesn’t make sense or isn’t what I wanted. Plot is the part that usually takes a lot more work for me.

Occasionally, I’ll come up with the idea for a plot first. Sadly, it rarely pops into my head as detailed as my characters do. Then I’ll have to develop it a bit more and look around to find what sort of characters would best fit into this plot to make it a good story.

Plot holes can be a big problem for a lot of people, things that don’t make sense, aren’t developed enough, or seem to be missing from the story. Some of these can be really hard to fix and often the solution turns out to be simpler than originally thought, for me at least. Sometimes either the characters or plot will have to be changed to work with the other.

The worst part for me is an exact setting, but we’ll talk about that another day. For me, the best part is when I’ve already developed a storyline and, even when I’m not thinking about it, new details about the characters or plot will just reveal themselves. This is especially good when it fixes a problem I’ve been having.

For me, I like character driven stories and I prefer ones with more psychological elements or deeper meanings. I love characters with a lot of internal problems in addition to external ones, characters with dark pasts. That’s probably why I love writing them so much. Plot is great too though, it all just depends on how it’s written. My favourites are still the ones with the twist endings.

Of course, that's just my approach to and thoughts on this part of writing. If you've read this far, I'd be interested to know what you think. What is more important in a story, good plot or good characters? Or are they equal, or even the same? If you're a writer yourself, what's your approach?

Wednesday 20 November 2013

NaNoWriMo is Hard


NaNoWriMo, one month to write one 50,000 word novel. It’s easy, right? I mean, I once wrote a 10,000 word fanfiction within a week, so something like NaNoWriMo would be nothing for me… right? Ever since I learned of this beast, I’ve wanted to conquer it. For the last three years I’ve been trying, I really have. I am a novelist dammit. So then, where are my novels to show for it?

I can’t blame my university work on it, because lots of university people do NaNo and they succeed in it. At the same time, I can’t say my failures have nothing to do with the fact that it occurs in the month before deadlines. At the start of next month I have assignments due for three modules, and that isn’t just three simple pieces of work. Then there’s the pitch for the screenwriting class I have to give on Monday. I wouldn’t say any of them are that hard, they just take a lot of time.

Even so, it can’t take up every second of my time, can it? Of course not. Does being in a writing class make me want to write outside of it less? That has been true at times, there is such thing as too much especially with multiple projects going on. Am I just lazy? Of course, I am trying to balance university work with having a social life and maintaining other hobbies, which I think I’m doing pretty well at, but that seems to be leaving me with less time to write a novel, or even this blog at times.

I think the most annoying part this year is that next semester I was hoping to write a novel chapter for prose rather than a short story. We have the option to do either and they recommend going with the short story as there’s arguably less to consider, but for people who would prefer to write novels I think it’s better to work on improving in the area you’re interested in.

In a way I think they can be easier to write than short stories as you have more time to develop plot and character. Of course, novels are longer and as such can require more planning. My plan when we started in September was that I would use NaNoWriMo to come up with a full first draft of a novel so that I’d be able to work on it through the second semester and pick out the best chapter for workshopping. Clearly, as we are now two thirds of the way through the month and I am even closer to my deadlines, that is unlikely to happen.

I truly have so much respect for the people who can successfully do this and full time education/work. Of course, this is a busier month. Which brings me to my next plan. It’s the same as getting on a self-improvement kick in any month other than January, you don’t have to wait until the New Year to make resolutions. You shouldn’t. Goals like this should be taken as they come, or as you have the time for them, while you’re still excited about it. At the very least, the planning stages for such a goal should begin.

I know a number of other people have started doing NaNoWriMo outside of the official month, at all times throughout the year, and I think I shall have to become one of them. Writing for the sake of writing isn’t something I want to do, nor do I want to continue putting off something both fun and beneficial to me. Therefore I have decided to spend December and the start of January creating a full draft of a novel. Seriously, hold me to it.

This gives me the rest of this month to at least decide on a concept for the novel. I also have a number of posts planned for this blog to keep the writing going.

As for those of you who are still participating in NaNoWriMo this month, I wish you luck. Enjoy the feeling of having a project that actually gets completed. And, if you can’t, remember you’re not alone, this is a hard challenge to take on, especially with a lot of other stuff going on, and there are other months you can finish in.

For those of you who have read this far, I thank you for sitting through my little ramble.

Tuesday 12 November 2013

My Halloween 2013

Well, this is a bit late coming but I wanted to talk about the week of Halloween. Holidays like this are special to me and I haven't really been able to celebrate it for the last couple of years, so this one was especially fun.

It really started the Sunday before Halloween. We started decorating by putting up our spiders, Quentin and Tim. Quentin, the bigger one, came from a pound shop and we had to put him together ourselves. Tim came from Tesco and was inflatable.
After they went up we still wanted to do something, so we built a blanket fort, the first real one I've been part of. We then spent the rest of the evening in the fort, doing work and playing Xbox.
 

 
It started again on Wednesday, when we carved our pumpkins. We'd settled on the theme of moustaches. I based mine on Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas. Hers came out looking like the Pringles guy. Both were awesome and shall be missed.




 
I don't remember what I did all of Thursday, if anything, but it went very quickly. Then we started setting up the room and making cupcakes. To celebrate Halloween, one of my flatmates wrote a murder mystery for the three of us and two of their friends. The whole thing was great and the story was brilliant. Let's just say I was very happy with my role. Afterwards we played a drinking game.
 
 
So that was my Halloween week, the best I've had in a while. I look forward to the next one and though I'm sure I won't be able to spend it with the same people I'm always looking for ideas to make events like this great.

After Halloween, it was fun playing with other people's costume pieces.