As mentioned in my story spark post, I don’t always start with the character. But I’ve learned from experience, you have to nail down the main character before you plot around them. I made this mistake recently with my Baggage outline. I plotted the entire story arc and wrote up all of my scene cards into my beat sheet/outline. When I sent it out to my first pair of critique partners, both came back with the same input.
My premise for my query letter did not match my character story arc, and they were confused about what my main character’s motivations were throughout the novel. This was because I got so excited to plot my novel, I forgot to define my main character’s goals, wants, needs, ghost, truth, and lie before the marketing materials and outline.
While do you need both character and plot for a novel, I am a writer that leans to character-driven stories. Readers like to empathize and connect with what they’re reading. If you have a plot but flat characters, this is exceedingly hard. That’s why I hone in and focus on characters when I’m starting my brain storming process. It’s also because characters drive the plot. If the characters don’t make sense, the plot won’t either.
This process is proving different for thriller writing. With thrillers, the plot has to match specific reader expectations, and there are a lot of tropes and structures it must follow. So while the characters must make the plot work, I’ve noticed with The Woodshed that my process is shifting a little to focus more on the events first, and then filling in the characters to make the events work (i.e. who would be the perfect red herring in this situation to produce this final climatic outcome?). I would love to hear from authors of different genres about the character versus plot debate.
For now, I’m writing contemporary fiction, so I’m working on character first. When diving into character development, I highly recommend KM Weiland’s character arc craft books. I use hers as a jumping off point and refresher every time I am in the brainstorming process. I also recently read GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon after my critique partner littered the margins of my outline with “GMC” and reminded me about scene flow (I’ll jump that hurdle in a later post.) It was a great, quick read that gave me homework for my outline as well.
To give a quick rundown of each of the main character bullets, I will use my current work in progress, Baggage, as the example.
CHARACTER ARC:
For Baggage, at least I remembered when building my scene cards to define my character arc from the start. KM Weiland goes into a lot of detail on this, so I won’t rehash everything here, but I will say that Ainsley has a positive character arc. Which means she hast to start out believing a lie, and come to learn a truth by the end of the novel.
THE LIE: this is what the character believes and, usually, will be proven wrong throughout the arc of the story. This is tied intimately to the ghost and defines most of the character’s motivations.
Ainsley’s Lie: she has to work to be loved / she has to offer value to other people in order to be noticed. She isn’t good enough / work being loved the way she is right now.
THE GHOST: this is the moment or reason in the past that has the character believing the Lie.
Ainsley’s Ghost: Her mother has always made comments about how she looks, told her she had to be pretty to attract guys. That she had to change who she was, bend her personality, to match what guys want.
THE TRUTH: this is what the character doesn’t realize but is pivotal to the character arc and the shift from want to need.
Ainsley’s Truth: Ainsley is worth being loved, but has been let down by the people who should have loved her most.
THE WANT: this is what she thinks is the arc of her story. This is the fundamental driver of her actions, at least in the beginning of the story. The want is the character’s true desire, though it’s hardly ever the thing the character truly needs.
Ainsley’s Want: Ainsley wants to fit in with her “friends”, to be someone good enough, worthy enough, of love and attention.
THE NEED: this is where the character arc actually leads to, which she discovers over the course of her story. This is the true thing that will make the character’s life better. The need ties the lie, the ghost, and the want together. They must all point in the same direction, which must flow along the character arc.
Ainsley’s Need: To cut the toxic people from her life and build healthy relationships.
THE FLAW: No one likes a perfectionist. Just look at how Hermione was treated in Harry Potter. The flaw, like everything else in this post, ties into the character arc, and is something that makes the transition in realization from the Want to the Need. By giving the character a flaw, you make them more relatable and build conflict into their internal struggle as they work to fulfill their arc.
Ainsley’s Flaw: She always puts other people’s needs before her own, even when it harms her. She is also very soft-spoken. She’s used to being quiet, of not speaking her mind. Which turns her into a doormat and allows people to walk all over her.
Internal and External GMC
But wait, there’s more! A story is (usually) more than just the main character. And each character must have their own motivations, goals, and conflict. Part of what makes stories memorable is when these characters’ drives and goals conflict. Indeed, scenes are built around characters wanting different goals, or wanting the same finite resource for themselves. We’ll spend an entire blog diving into this GMC next.
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