I figure if I present my characters with a compelling problem, they'll come up with a compelling solution. This has happened to some extent in short stories I have written before. Sometimes I hear authors complaining that their characters are taking over the story and going in their own directions...and I just don't see how that's a bad thing. Maybe your characters just know better than you what should come next.

HOWEVER, there is also good advice from published authors who submit that you should know where your story is going before you even start. Have it all charted out! But also know your characters.

I wonder if in the process of charting out their story they're also creating their characters and in the process of creating their characters, the characters play a major role in creating the story. So maybe there's no conflict at all.

I suppose this all would be different if you have a very specific plot line you already want to do and you need to create characters to fill it. But for me, the characters are the most compelling part of the story. The plot is important, too, of course, but without characters you have nothing.

So, what do you think? Do you write your stories or do your characters write your stories?

Mostly, I'd like to know what people here prefer... what works for them.

So you're not going off on a tangent. Besides, tangents are good. Let the thread write itself... See? It's like a character!

I generally know what my main character is going to do, and have an outline for the book. Within that, the other characters and the world throw out a great deal of stuff I wasn't expecting (and from time to time the MC, although I identify closely enough with them as my vp that them coming up with something feels very much like me doing it). No major changes to the plot, but major plot enhancement and details I never found on the rough draft.

OK. I see the writing of a novel as a river. You know where the headwaters are and you know that it HAS to eventually end up at the sea. You know where the sea is too. In other words, you know how the story starts, you know (for most of us, but not all) how it's going to end.

However, I give leeway to my characters. If they decide to make some minor changes I don't care.

When they want major changes I often give in, but only after thinking about it and working the details out myself.

Cool! I love your analogy! Makes perfect sense and solves my little dilemma. I like having things fit together so nicely. (Because I like both approaches to writing.)

Speaking of babble... I find I can imitate "typical" dramatic style pretty well in my writing. But that kind of writing doesn't ring true to me. When I say typical I mean what amateurs usually fall back on--high drama and head monologues. It is fun to write, though. My creative writing teacher in college gave us a few pointers and handouts in writing the form romance novel. Not as serious creative writing, but as a way to make a few bucks...but hopefully under a different name. I wouldn't to earn a reputation like that..

Off topic, I know.

-Siena

Some romance stuff can be really good, though. Like Christine Feehan and Sherrilyn Kenyon. I'm sure I got those names wrong even though I got up to look at some book jackets. Oh well... They do some pretty cool vampire-themed love stories. (I will admit, though, that the sex parts get QUITE tiresome after a while. But, the fact that both authors promote monogamy is cool.)

I think it is a myth that the characters write their own stories. As the man said, characters are but bags of bones. As complex as they are and can be, a character exists for one purpose: to tell the story. The characters, in essence, are tailor-made to the story.

The story must come first. Characters develop and gain depth as you force them into confrontations. Put them in trouble, and they might develop a reaction that is surprising to you, or lead you in another direction, but before he can react in that surprising way, he has to be subjected to something, even if it is just his own backstory.

Create your characters as you will, but you will always be in control. You are going to decide the character lost his father when he was two, started smoking when he was twelve, rescued a man from a car accident when he was twenty and fell in love with his secretary at thirty-five. There, you have an idea of that guy's character sketch. What I did was tell his story.

So I do not believe you can create a character and let him tell a story, because in the process of creating the character, you are already writing his story.

I'd put in a disclaimer that everything above is only my opinion. This discussion might now devolve into a "chicken or the egg" type of debate, which is unwinable, but my point was not to start such a discussion. But this is what we all do here, write down our impressions and opinions.

Well, I would say that it's different for all people. I would compare it to roleplaying--which is the example I couldn't think of earlier.

A long while back, I used to roleplay stories with some friends online. There are tons of places you can go for this. You create a character (often in a fantasy setting) and then you let your characters interact and see what happened. Now there were lots of people who set up a plot beforehand, and there were people like me who let it all unfold naturally. There was a GREAT deal of me just becoming my character. Kind of like acting improvizationally. Once you understand your characters background, personality, and motivations, it becomes natural to just let that character be herself--or himself. That was all part of the appeal of roleplay.

Not into it anymore. I'd much rather write for real.

I don't want to get into a fight, so this is all I have to say.

I am familiar with that sort of roleplaying, but I've never done it. I mean where there is a DM... kinda like tabletop RP and D&D themed stuff, right?

I was talking about getting together with other people like me who like to make up characters in a world and do some free roleplay. It's not unheard of... it's done for the story's sake and for fun. Not to further a larger plot or to further a game. Perhaps it would be called tinyplots by some. Free roleplay by me.

And actually, I find it a little preposterous that you would think we could fight over something as insignificant as this topic. I asked for the sharing of ideas. I'm not interested in refuting anyone's method, rather I'm interested in learning varying methods.

Just you know... don't assume that there's only one kind of roleplay out there. The world is bigger than that.

I'm sort of a mix, I guess. Mostly, I have a good idea at where the story is going to go. It spends a few weeks tooling around inside my head and I come up with as many different scenarios as possible; combine them, rearrange them, etc. Simultaneously, I work on the characters in the story and start thinking about their history and how they got to be where they are during that story. Knowing that, it's far easier to write a story.

Then, once all of that is concrete, I write the story. Sure enough, as I'm writing, my subconscious kicks in and the story changes on its own. I have no idea how it happens, but it's almost always better than what I orignally intended it to be (consciously).

Don't know if it's the characters or me changing it. I suspect the latter. Still, I don't always know how I'm going to end a story before I write it. I have an idea, but that doesn't mean I follow through with it. More often than not, I have alternate endings. When it's time to finish it, whichever one seems the best is used -- sometimes none of them.

I do subscribe to the "know-everything-about-your-main-character(s)" philosophy. And the minor, bit players are often wild cards -- who knows what will happen with them?

Whatever works for you is what you should do...

I recently wrote a ghost story where I had the idea for the plot and had it completely planned out, and then created some characters to perform it.

I am currently trying to get a novel published where I invented the main character first and then created a plot for him to react to.