I wonder if anyone is beginning to notice a theme in some of my posts. I keep coming back to this matter because the consideration of inspiration versus planning is important to any creative endeavor. As I am going along on my writing journey, I, as could be expected, have come across both. Therefore, let me talk about the children’s book I have written and the novels I am writing, possibly including a practice novel that I wrote the first draft on some years ago.
During the practice novel, I mostly worked off of pure inspiration. In some ways, it had fan fiction elements. In other words, I had some basic elements I already knew I wanted because I was emulating previous characters that I simply put my own twist on.
As the story evolved, they began to build themselves. They took on traits that I didn’t expect. This is especially true of my villain. I had meant not to make him purely evil, but I hadn’t expected him to turn into a person my heroine could love if he wasn’t the perpetrator of heinous crimes.
For those who are new to the blog, let me give a brief recap. I believe you can’t force your characters into anything. Rather than forcing them, the author must shape them from the very beginning. Then, once they start to grow up, the author must allow the characters to begin making some of their own decisions. As the characters grow more mature, the author must begin to loosen their hold and allow the characters to become their own people. This is because we don’t want the relationship to become tense and forced, eventually estranging the author from their characters and vice versus, leading to a less than pleasant read for the audience.
For my children’s book, it was much less inspiration. There was the original story inspiration, the basic theme, the basic plot. Otherwise, I had to make decisions right away. I didn’t have time to allow my characters to grow. I needed to be very specific for the smaller word count. One character needed to be bullied. The other character needed to stand up for the first character. I also wanted the first character to be bullied for the reason that they didn’t follow the stereotypes that were laid down for them. These needs of my story, actually determined the types of characters I needed, and rather minutely at that.
Therefore, as you can see, my characters were already almost completely fleshed out. All that would be needed were a few extra details; what they looked like. That I left up to my imagination. The characters and the rest of the story was mostly cause and effect. That book was, as the saying goes, 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. It was mostly planning with a little inspiration to make it flow and engaging.
My current novel has been in the works for some time. I got the first seed idea years ago, so let me go back to the beginning. My first characters, the main two, I had already decided would be two females. That would be a good, natural basis for me to start from, rather than to put myself into the viewpoint of a male protagonist. I don’t know that I would be ready for that yet, though I do have an idea or two that I hope I will be able to write in the future.
Right away, I had my two main characters. I didn’t know anything about my supporting cast. I only had the core idea; two women from different cultures learning from each other. Mostly, I wanted to discuss the division between tough women and those that are considered girly-girls. I wanted to use comparison and contrast to show that there is no need for a division. That was my point. That was all I had. So, I had one frilly and one tough. These two meet and start talking.
Those were my characters and that was my plot. Oddly enough, the story didn’t go anywhere. It came to a shuddering halt not even halfway through one scene. Go figure. As I mentioned, I let the story simmer a while.
With the development of the story and the world, my characters began to take shape because characters are not created in a void. They do not appear fully formed out of nowhere. If you do manage that somehow, leave a comment below or email me to let me know how that happened in the first place and how it worked out. I would like to hear about it and love to learn from it.
Characters are shaped by their culture. Even if they don’t agree with their culture, it has affected them to some degree. Their upbringing, the crucial events of the character’s lives leading up to the point where the story starts, all mold your character. Therefore, once I got my plot figured out a little bit better, I realized, I had much more going on than those two divided cultures. I ended up with four main groups, which meant I had the potential for at least two more main characters if I wanted each group to have a voice.
I went with characters for three out of the four groups because the fourth group would have been unlikely to produce a character I could work with in my story. This idea was shot out of the water in one way (Spoiler alert. I drop some hints in other posts.) and in another way, when I realized I might have enough substance to manage two or more books where a new character might come in handy. Since I haven’t finished the first book and don’t know if the second or beyond will come to fruition, I can cross that bridge when I get there. I will say, however, both of those characters from the fourth group almost popped up on their own.
Keep in mind that, even with me saying it seemed like they just appeared, I still had the background for the culture they grew up in and the countrywide culture and the history that went along with both. When I had them begin to write me a letter explaining their pasts to me, they began to take form and began to get more fleshed out because they needed that background information to make them who they were.
Back to my main characters. My essential main protagonist has changed a few times since my second concept of her. Her essence has remained the same, but she has grown and evolved. A few things that shaped her from the get go was that I needed her to grow and develop. I wanted her to be from a more mellow group because I figured she would be more moldable. I needed her to be a bit yielding so that I could shape her along the way with the events that occurred, and so that the other characters could have a stronger influence on her. However, I needed her to be stronger than she would have been had I chosen to write her as being from the fourth clan. This, again, shaped her experiences. She did wind up taking on something I had not planned. At first, she began to lean toward being far too timid for me to work with, despite my intent. I had to give her some previous experiences that helped her be stronger. I gave her a good, supportive family and a mentor.
When I changed my kernel idea a little and gave some characters empathic abilities, I knew this would be something that would help motivate her because she would be sympathetic to the plights of others and would ache and chafe under the injustices done to others. This would motivate her to act when she might not otherwise act for herself.
Therefore, as you see, with this story, even though my character has been molding herself, at times a bit out of my control, the basis has been planning. The planning started the process, and inspiration and planning began to work together to form the character as she is. Will she remain the same? No, she will not. Depending on how she had decided to go, she could have become more timid, stronger, or angry (feeling that nothing would ever change.) However, I set down enough groundwork through her backstory, that she was early inclined to the direction I needed.
Building this character also built other characters because she and the story idea required certain things for her support. Therefore, the first character from another clan, being almost the antitheses of my main character; strong, bold, powerful in more than one way, made this character, who was going to be an intricate part of my main character’s development, need to be more than just rough, and gruff, and badass. That would have overpowered the more timid woman’s personality, and my main character would have wilted under this other character’s presence. I, therefore, needed to soften the secondary character a little bit. I gave her a gentle heart along with the value she places on strength and assertiveness. It is in her nature to be assertive, but she will be more gentle and supportive for my main character’s sake.
I hope this shows how planning and inspiration work together. The inspiration might come up with an original idea, but the planning helps to build from there, which in turn, creates more inspiration. It is an amazing process, so as you build your characters, remember to enjoy the wonder.
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