: Re: What should come first—characters or plot? I'm starting a new fantasy story, and although I had a loose idea of plot, I began sculpting my characters before writing anything. Creating images

@Dunderdale623

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Characters and plot are deeply connected, and should be considered together so they can best feed off each other. For example, character decisions will create the plot in most stories; if you have a conflict in mind the characters need to have personalities that would actually have this conflict, and if you have characters that are going to have innately different beliefs, this should show up in plot somehow, even if they are allies.

Also, in most good works of fiction characters develop throughout the story - they shouldn't have the same personality and goals at the end as they did initially. Since you have characters but not a detailed plot it might be best to think of your current characters as starting points - don't get so attached to them that they can't change. In that way the end state characters and the plot are built together, as you work out how the cast could develop and what plot points would bring that about.

Think about what would need to happen to a character for them to make specific decisions: What would make them break and be prepared to give up? What would make them decide to help someone they previously hated? What would make them step up into a leadership role that they'd normally avoid? Interesting developments like this can be created organically by putting your characters in particular situations.

I'd argue that creating character and then plot (or vice versa) is not going to lead to the best possible story - when coming up with the plot you might realise an event would be much more dramatic if a character had a particular trait, and rewriting the character a bit would probably be a good decision. Try to interleave your plot and characters, switching between them and willing to tweak them both together until they converge, and reflect each other well. It probably doesn't matter which you start with, as long as you're reasonably flexible with them.

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