{"id":1697,"date":"2012-03-21T06:00:04","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T11:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2012-03-21T06:00:04","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T11:00:04","slug":"character-vs-plot-the-chicken-or-the-egg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1697","title":{"rendered":"Character vs. Plot: The Chicken or the Egg?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The simple answer to whether plot or character is more important is that it depends on what genre you\u2019re talking about. If you write literary fiction, character is king. The plot is secondary.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t write literary fiction. In genre fiction, specifically urban fantasy for me, both are of equal importance. A great plot with lousy characters is just as bad as great characters walking around with nothing to do.<\/p>\n

Characters drive the story. And the story herds the characters into becoming richer and more fully formed.<\/p>\n

So, the question becomes, which comes first?<\/p>\n

Usually, a \u201cwhat if\u201d strikes me first. A premise hits out of nowhere, asking a question or giving me a weird scenario. Looking at it that way, you might say plot comes first.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d be mistaken.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For Monster in My Closet<\/em>, it began as a vision of a closet monster sitting at someone\u2019s kitchen table, reading the newspaper. From there, I knew that monsters came to the kitchen owner\u2019s house for help. Hijinks and danger would ensue.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a plot. That\u2019s a premise. The plot came later. Much later.<\/p>\n

The most important thing for me from that point on was to find out who<\/em> these things would happen to. I didn\u2019t care about the what<\/em> until the characters were in place. I could see the monster at the table. Who was standing there in shock, looking at him with me?<\/p>\n

I knew all about Zoey and her back story long before I\u2019d mapped out what was going to happen to her. Her personality and her reactions informed the plot. If I don\u2019t know who my main characters are before I write the actual story, it\u2019s going to veer off in the wrong direction and dead end.<\/p>\n

I know this because it happened last year.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m working on a second series about a djinn. Kam is completely different from Zoey, but I started writing her story before I\u2019d really nailed down who Kam is. The first 3000 words or so went really well. The next 20,000 words went so off course, I have to start from scratch. That first scene can stay, but the rest is complete nonsense. She was too nice. She was too helpful.<\/p>\n

She was too Zoey.<\/p>\n

So, which is more important, plot or character? I guess I\u2019ll have to change my original answer and say character. In genre fiction, if the character isn\u2019t good, the plot\u2019s going to suck. But if the character shines, she\u2019ll take the plot right where it needs to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The simple answer to whether plot or character is more important is that it depends on what genre you\u2019re talking about. If you write literary fiction, character is king. The plot is secondary. But I don\u2019t write literary fiction. In genre fiction, specifically urban fantasy for me, both are of equal importance. A great plot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[162,851,1066],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-character","tag-plotting","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}