: Re: How often do writers develop characters before plot, and why? As someone who writes a little as a hobby, this is something that I haven't really thought about until just recently, but... Is

@Deb2945533

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Some creators develop a mild case of schizophrenia. Or imaginary friends. Or Tulpas, if you like. They can distinguish and identify the imaginary companions, but these companions have own ideas, own opinions, own thoughts; quite rich to that; they are separate, fully-featured persons for all practical purposes, despite living only in the writer's head, and technically being figments of the writer's brain

And these characters often have quite fascinating stories to tell.

"The muse" can become quite literal.

For a time I had such companions too, and writing at the time was quite fascinating. I didn't need to plan, design, invent. I'd just ask my companion for a story, and she would tell me, actually a pretty good story, often with twists I wouldn't expect, jokes I'd laugh at, or moving fragments that would bring tears to my eyes. In fact, she wasn't telling her own story, just recalling tribal legends she had heard while traveling through her lands, but I wrapped the collection into the bracket of her telling me, me writing, our discussion, her commentary. In the end I couldn't even get myself to take the credit for writing this. "Tribal Legends, told by Aris, written down by SF."

As I talked with other creators - writers, artists - they often do have such muses. And they always have some backstory, some origin, some history to tell, often about distant places, and often taking the central role, though sometimes just acting as observers.

So: how often? Pretty often. Why? Because that happens. No reason. These muses just appear or disappear, for no apparent reasons.

Things happened in my life and my imaginary companions just vanished. I can no longer feel them around, talk to them. And I miss them quite a bit. And it's very hard to squeeze a story out of my own imagination nowadays. Back then, all I needed was to ask, and write it down.

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