For me this seems much like chicken and the egg question, in that nobody really knows for sure. We also know it's impossible to tell a compelling story without a strong presence of both. And the creation of both of these aspects of a narrative further complicate each other since strong characters push a plot forward and well crafted plots reveal character. So, when designing a story, where does one begin? The plot or characters? I know whenever I have a new concept in mind for a narrative, it nearly always begins with me getting in idea of a compelling character or an interesting character dynamic. After I get a good idea of the character, I start working a plot around them which can reveal their traits in interesting ways. So, how do you design your stories? Do you think of a great plot with spectacular set pieces and then think of what kind of characters would exist in a story like that. Or do you create unique characters that drive plots forward simply because of their personality traits. Is there a time-tested method that proves plots must be created before characters (or vice-versa). And finally, are there any other considerations you think of before you create characters and your plot?

I read a great story once about Stephen King. The rumor is he has a drawer full of interesting characters that he's thought up at one time or another. Whenever he was writing a story and he needed a character, he'd just reach in his drawer and pull out whomever he needed.



I think your question is a question best left up to the writer.

Do you feel more comfortable creating a character and then developing a story around them, or creating that story and then finding specific interesting characters within it to focus on?

There is no right way, but if I were you I'd try it out both ways, and see which you like more and what produces a narrative you're happier with.

Quote: Original post by Sulphix
For me this seems much like chicken and the egg question, in that nobody really knows for sure. We also know it's impossible to tell a compelling story without a strong presence of both. And the creation of both of these aspects of a narrative further complicate each other since strong characters push a plot forward and well crafted plots reveal character. So, when designing a story, where does one begin? The plot or characters?

Depends on genre, audience and writing style. However, most (successful) novelists will tell you that a compelling character is usually remembered far more than any plot details. Some even go so far as to assert that plot is what happens when you throw interesting characters together and force them to interact.

That said, this subject of "character vs. plot" is usually a sign that you want to write stories, not _write for games_. Games are about letting the player *tell their own stories* -- i.e. forge their own plots -- using the elements you have given them.

The more plot you force down a player's throat, the more linear the game and the more it resembles any other linear story, such as a movie or TV programme. A classic illustration is a game like "Monkey Island". LucasArts came as close as it is possible to get to the notion of an interactive movie with their graphical adventure games. These are, in essence, little more than extensions of the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that were popular during the early '80s. Instead of the book versions' explicit choices -- "If you want Tim the Barbarian to choose the Dangerous Mountain Pass, turn to page 19; if you want him to venture into the Caves of Doom, turn to page 25!" -- the LucasArts games hid that aspect in the game's user interface and increased the granularity of choice.

The more choice the player has in your game, the more stories he gets to tell. It's up to you, the designer / writer, how _interesting_ those stories are. (Computer-based RPGs tend to allow only a certain, rather narrow, genre of story: the "Quest". Compared to their original table-top counterparts, the computer versions offer lots of very, very similar, rather clichéd storytelling 'grains' for the player to use, which is why the gameplay is very thin stuff indeed.)

Quote:
I know whenever I have a new concept in mind for a narrative, it nearly always begins with me getting in idea of a compelling character or an interesting character dynamic. After I get a good idea of the character, I start working a plot around them which can reveal their traits in interesting ways.

There is -- and I really do want to stress this -- no "One True Way" to approach writing. However, if you intend to make a career in the games industry, you should take a good hard look at the concept of narrative in an interactive medium.

That said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with your approach. There's at least one successful novelist I know of who claims to work in much the same way.

Our team starts with the plot. 'What would seem interesting and how could we get to it?' Then we start building around the plot with towns, the history behind certain locations, the smaller situations, then lastly the characters. So not only do you know have a 'world', you also have an already defined twist to the story that you can build up to.

Quote: Original post by stimarco
That said, this subject of "character vs. plot" is usually a sign that you want to write stories, not _write for games_. Games are about letting the player *tell their own stories* -- i.e. forge their own plots -- using the elements you have given them.

While I don't disagree with this, I wanted to point out that this mainly applies to stories where the main character is the protagonist, a proactive do-er who makes decisions and then works to put his plans into action. But there are a lot of great stories where the main character is more reactive - for example a disaster happens and the story is not the disaster but how the main character reacts to it, emotionally as well as in terms of actions. For another example, the main character is running away from a pursuing enemy, reacting to the new scenery and props they encounter as they progress and attempting to use these to gain distance on the pursuers. Even in traditional hero monomyths the hero often spends a lot of his time reacting to the villain's nefarious plots rather than coming up with his own plans to storm the villain's stronghold.

My point is in the maximally exciting interactive story you should be actively giving the player new elements over time, not just creating a mechanical world and abandoning the player inside it.



I've gone into my personal take on the 'character first or plot first?' issue else where, so it would probably be pointless to repeat myself. But I think one point bears repeating: regardless of whether you start with character or plot or worldbuilding or whatever, no one does all of one kind of design before starting another kind of design; instead human creativity works by bouncing back and forth between topics, using one to spark ideas off another and weaving threads between them. It's very common to do something like: idea for 2 archetypes of characters in a relationship, 3 ideas for vague plot, a lot of detailed ideas about one character, 4 semi-detailed plot ideas, new character inspired by the demands of the plot, lots of detailed plot ideas, one main character's design is altered to make a theme more clear, etc.

I'm going to side with Sunandshadow in regards to the debate over whether great stories can be interactive or not depends greatly on the type of story that is being told. Many of the greatest games ever made feature story lines in which the main character takes a reactionary role instead of a proactive one. The first games which come to my mind are the Legend of Zelda games. Even though they contain specific plots and (sometimes) well developed characters, they are still well created games (arguably among the best).

And, inversely, games like World of Warcraft rely on their worldbuilding strengths to drive forth an "anything's possible" mentality which encourages the user to make their own relationships and develop their own stories.

And it's not a sign of weak literature by having the main character and the protagonist be separate entities. In Great Gatsby, even though the audience saw the story through Nick's eyes, Jay Gatsby was still the story's protagonist. Therefore, Nick took a reactionary role instead of a proactive one.

The same is also true of nearly any horror story. Most horror consists of something happening to the story's main character and their reactions to this new threat. And, even though in horror the main character is just a participant of the story and not the cause of it (generally speaking), the genre still puts out well crafted and uniquely developed characters.

Quote: Original post by "Sulp Hix"
Which comes first, character or story?

It depends. Every project is different. One project begins with character (like a movie license), and another begins with story (like "let's make a sequel to the last one we made that everybody liked").

Well, I made my characters first, but built a story around a situation that was likely to happen to them. But the problem is, as I developed the character, the story had to change a lot. So I kinda made them both at the same time. As the characters were more developed, the story had to change around that.

But there are times where there were missing character holes that I just quickly filled, so in that sense, the story came first. It really just depends on the writer.

Um, a story involves characters in a plot. A story is about characters doing stuff. You can't have a story without characters period.

However, if you mean plot, character's are far more important. Many literary stories are character sketches, or narratives with no sense of permanent growth. It is possible to have a story involving only narrative and characters, but those are just boring. The plot is what ties the story together. But without as character, there is no story. At all.

They're just as important. Order is not an issue.

Yeah, I probably should've said plot instead of character, my bad. But, we digress.

I don't think anyone ever said that a narrative can be done without plot or character. I don't really know how you got the impression that anyone was trying to say one can be complete without the other. If I did, well, my bad again. Without a plot, characters can't grow or be revealed bit by bit. And plots can't be driven forward without characters to push the action.

Each is very important, but what do you personally develop first and why. For me (as I said earlier) it's characters and their dynamics with other characters. Of course, these characters are nothing until they have plots to to present them with decisions. But, nonetheless, I find I always think of a character (or characters) before I think of a plot. While a plot follows quickly, I can't complete a character without a plot, I consistently think of a "who" before I nail down how to reveal "what" and "why".