Which motivates writers more? Character or Story?

[BuckyDuckman]

I'm not suggesting character trumps story or vice versa. An interesting character experiencing interesting events will always generate the best story.

No, I'm asking which element inspires you to start a new story or which element draws you back to the keyboard. Do you sometimes feel you're losing a story line because you feel in love with a character? (I have.) Have you ever abandoned a character you liked because the story wasn't up to the character? (Again, I have.)

When writing erotica, I'm often guilty of telling stories with relatively generic characters experiencing extraordinary events and maybe that's okay for the average Lit audience, I don't know. What about you?

 

[patientlee]

Story. I struggle with characters.

 

[ukstockinglvr]

I thought I could answer this immediately with story.

But then I realized I also have a particular attachment to certain characters I use often, based on reality and imagined. Those I just have to write about!

So to me, its a tough one!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STORY.

Characters are hired help.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I'm not very good at characterization. My characters are that in name only. There isn't any depth to any of them that I can think of.

Now that I think of that, I should work on that deficiency...

 

[Tio_Narratore]

My primary motivator in story writing is just that - the story. Stories write themselves through the minds of people, and the characters are the vehicles for the story. The story creates and defines the characters, whether they be shallow, deep, or merely ordinary. They're not just "hired help" to me, though; the characters' characters contribute actively to the details and nuances of how the story is realized.

I still write a bit in role playing (like my story-telling, mostly off-site and private nowadays), and there the situation is reversed. A back story sets up the situation and motivations which bring the characters together, and it is the characters, each having to respond to the others unplanned-in-advance actions, who create the story.

A bit of the one flows into the other always, but the emphasis in each is very different for me.

 

[lovecraft68]

For me the characters and dialogue drive my writing. If the characters are interesting the story will be as well.

 

[redzinger]

I'm struggling with my third novel as I'm not that fond of the main characters, they don't inspire me. I've only just had a breakthrough today which helps explain the male's behaviour. And I'm 15k from the end.
I can't wait to get this one done though, so I can start working on the fourth, which is so much fun, it almost writes itself.

As you can probably tell, I'm not the most organised of writers.

 

[JWren]

I'm struggling with my third novel as I'm not that fond of the main characters, they don't inspire me. I've only just had a breakthrough today which helps explain the male's behaviour. And I'm 15k from the end.
I can't wait to get this one done though, so I can start working on the fourth, which is so much fun, it almost writes itself.

As you can probably tell, I'm not the most organised of writers.

If the characters don't inspire the writer, can they inspire the reader?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Story...no, Character...no, Story...character, story, character, story...crap.

Both! Without interesting characters, how can you have a story. And without an interesting story...well there have to be interesting characters.

For me, it's tell the story, but make the characters interesting. Or try to make them interesting. I hope if they are interesting enough for me to write them, they will be interesting to the reader. If not, well I write for myself.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Story...no, Character...no, Story...character, story, character, story...crap.

Both! Without interesting characters, how can you have a story. And without an interesting story...well there have to be interesting characters.

For me, it's tell the story, but make the characters interesting. Or try to make them interesting. I hope if they are interesting enough for me to write them, they will be interesting to the reader. If not, well I write for myself.

How silly.

Headlines scream FIRE! EBOLA! CRASH! HUNDREDS DEAD!

 

[caramelheat]

Characters. I'll have a vague idea of where I want a story to go, but my characters will be fully developed in my mind and I will have already fallen in love with them. Good and bad ones. The story usually will write itself after that. And I love the feeling when I go back and read over it and say "well shit, I didn't see that coming."

 

[oggbashan]

I start with the outline of the story, but sometimes the characters demand changes to the script, or stories of their own.

Once I start writing the story, the characters should begin to form. If they don't, the story ends up in the incomplete folder.

But motivation? It starts with wanting to tell a story, but unless the main characters come to life for me - they might never do the reader - then the motivation to complete the story stalls.

 

[HeyAll]

To me, the character and the story go hand-in-hand.

If I want to write a story about a naive young employee who gets taken advantage of her boss, naturally, the character is going to be young, naive, and very ambitious.

If I want to write a story about a powerful woman, naturally the female character is going to be powerful and dominate.

As the story goes on, I think, "How would this character realistically react in this situation?" That's how I move the story forward to the next plot point.

 

[Over_Red]

I find that I usually start with a premise, with a story. Something like, "interdimensional alien invasion. Also, magic."

I make characters to play roles in the story. Gotta have a main character. Gotta have someone that gets them involved. Main character has family, gotta have them. Main character has antagonists, gotta have them. Characters come into existence to play their parts.

So, my premise suggests natural roles, and then I make characters to fill those roles.

Inevitably, though, the characters themselves outgrow the roles established by the premise as they develop, and then they begin to drive the story into new territory. Ultimately, the story becomes not so much about the premise, but about the conflict between the characters that the story spawned.

So, the premise is like fertilizer, and the characters are like plants. At first, that makes a lovely green mat of new shoots. But then they mutate into sentient carnivorous plant-monsters and start brawling for supreme command of the lawn.

That visual metaphor makes me want to write a book about warring plants, but I think I'll put it on the backburner for now.

 

[desertslave]

I want to say "both" but I think I'm more plot-driven than person-driven, both as a writer (rarely, these days) and a reader. I've always been more interested in "what happens" as opposed to "who it happens to" and rather dislike psychological profile-type stories.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

How silly.

Headlines scream FIRE! EBOLA! CRASH! HUNDREDS DEAD!

Yeah, that's the title of the story, but if anything inside is lacking...bye.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Yeah, that's the title of the story, but if anything inside is lacking...bye.

But is 'character' what you'd be looking for under that title?

"Hundreds Dead in Police Rampage"

Yesterday's rampage saw the death of hundreds. The first recovered was a superficial young man named John. His brief life was spent solely in pursuit of beer and internet porn. The next body bagged was very different. A mature woman, Sally, a woman who had long pondered life and its multifarious meanings. She even had backpacked to Nepal in search of the meaning of life, but finally found it in her own backyard, in a small village outside of Manchester where, one morning last July, she met a devout Pythonist...

 

[sheablue]

Both, depending on the story. Sometimes I'll think, I want to write a story about a person who is this and does this and feels this ... and I have to think up the story to support that character.

But other times I want to write and story about a dystopian world where everyone is genetically altered to resemble past celebrities of the golden age. So then I have to people that story with interesting characters. What kind of people would live in that world? What is important to them? What drives them? Who do they love? Etc.

Depends on the inspiration of the day, I guess.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yeah, that's the title of the story, but if anything inside is lacking...bye.

My point is: the story attracts readers before anything is known of the characters.

 

[sheablue]

My point is: the story attracts readers before anything is known of the characters.

As far as readers go, that is probably true. No on reads the back of a book and thinks, Oh! a rouge cop and a beautiful woman with a troubled past! I love stories with those characters!

 

[Tio_Narratore]

As far as readers go, that is probably true. No on reads the back of a book and thinks, Oh! a rouge cop and a beautiful woman with a troubled past! I love stories with those characters!

I don't know, Shea ... I'd be intrigued by a cop with rouge and a woman with a troubled past... and if you threw in a schizophrenic midget ninja, you'd have me hooked.

 

[sr71plt]

The hook (which could be one of several things). But, between story and character, story.

 

[SamScribble]

I think all engaging stories are character-specific. And that applies just as much to when you are writing as when you are reading,

 

[MSTarot]

Conflict. I have to find that issue (what ever it is) that is going to be the major stumbling block of the story.

There is a story in my list where a guy falls for his older brother's ex-wife. that was the be all and end all of what I had when I put down a working title and started to write.

The characters and the way they interacted all came about due to them having to deal with that white elephant. She was married to his brother. She took him to the cleaners in the divorce. His family hates her.

How he dealt with his family, his nephew, his growing love and lust for her (his brother's ex) all of these elements came together and built the story.

All in all it was one of my more fun to write stories. It, and its two sequels have done well.

I've been asked to continue the story but I now feel that i can't... because that conflict was solved.

MST