: Re: How do I Build Stories Around Characters? I have a lot of characters I’ve spent time creating and developing, but I cannot, for the life of me, develop an overarching plot. Anyone got any

@Murphy332

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If your characters are good, you might not even need to develop a plot. But you do need to know your characters very well and have good imagination.

Have you listened to children making up stories? They don't have a plot, but they do have some well-defined protagonists (a princess, a knight, a superhero, a supervillain etc.) and a world where this story is set. If a child has good imagination and patience, this can become a very interesting, a book-worthy story. The plot elements are coming in on the fly, and author only has to keep "weaving" the story.

In adult authors, this approach is known as "pantsing". You don't build your plot beforehand, you just keep writing and see where the story would take you. And here is why I believe that good imagination is important. Without imagination, we might end up with some good interaction between the characters and good dialogue, but without a story. Imagination helps author create inciting incidents and unique situations which have a good change of growing into a solid plot.

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