OokamiKasumi wrote:For starters, the meaning; the Premise, of a story is supposed to be the sum total of all it's parts, not just the characters and what they do.
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Anyway...
I teach storycraft from the Plot inward. Basically...
-- FIRST: Decide what you want to happen at the main crisis point; the Climax.
-- THEN: Add characters to Make that climax happen.
I disagree with this idea on principle. Perhaps if you're trying to use all the characters as symbols to apply to real life intentionally and use a "story" as a persuasive essay or parable (like Seuss does). But if you're just trying to tell a story and be entertaining, the ones I find far more enjoyable are the ones that don't start with plot and then add people that act as the plot decrees - they write their characters first. Here's why I prefer this.
The only "plot" that I start with, given a story, is a situation. A setting, a world, and established "powers" (governing forces, either natural, supernatural, or human, which shape the world), maybe a catalyst event. That's it. From there, I put interesting people in the world who will react to the situation provided to them in different ways. Essentially, each character has a motive (or several) which clashes with or supports the motives of other characters - and they each have a style and method with which they approach problems and rewards. From there, it's the characters themselves who decide what will happen in the story.
If you add the characters once your plot has been decided, it's very easy to end up in the trap of "but this character, with this personality, wouldn't actually DO that." Even if you try and force them to act a certain way to fulfill your pre-written plot and give them good reasons for doing so, you always run the risk of making them feel "programmed" and not really "alive." If you write the characters first, get a good feel for what they would do in certain situations...what situations they can keep their cool in...which ones make them divide by zero...what their motivations are, and where do they rank in importance to that character...the character will always be consistent, living, breathing, believable, and most importantly, engaging. From there, the plot practically writes itself.
And really, when looking at stories of all kinds - even if the plot is the same, even if a character happens to follow some kind of "archetype," consciously or subconsciously from the author's perspective, each and every character ever written (even one that doesn't engage readers at all) is unique, just like people are, and they aren't going to act the same way. That's where you get this "originality," even when you end up with a plot that goes back to ancient Greece. It comes from the people. (If we're using the term "people" loosely, if you have a living, breathing setting for those people to play in, it can come from your world, too.)
So, yes, the plot is the whole, not just the sum of the parts. But the "whole" IS the characters and what they do - and most importantly,
how they interact with each other and with the setting.
That's something they tried to teach me in HIGH SCHOOL. As a 10th grader. With Alice in Wonderland. That went over oh so well. /sarcasm
...Now, I know this is legitimate for a lot of stories ... and I do find it fun to look into the characters and the whys and hows and what it all really means, both as a reader and as a writer. But sometimes... not so much.
Literature is more than merely the symbolism hidden in some of it's parts. I've always felt that it's how a story makes you Feel, and how it makes you look at the world afterwards.
Another thing a lot of lit professors/teachers fail to realize is that most of those symbols are unintentional, just like writing "unoriginal" plotlines is unintentional (I did have one professor admit this, but say it was our job as scholars to point out symbolism and the like where the writers themselves did not). I realize a lot of times, AFTER I've written something with round characters and let them craft the plotline, that "symbols" and "premise" pop up everywhere.
In other words, the premise grows naturally out of the plot the characters have written. If/when I notice them, I highlight them and add in foreshadowing and all those other literature buzzwords to construct the premise around the living entity - like tailoring a dress to fit a living person (all of which are different shapes and sizes) perfectly, instead of handing her a mass-produced size medium machine-washable plotline and expecting it to fit like a glove.
Also, the author was on opium when he wrote Alice. He was, in fact, bitter for the entirety of his life, that Alice was his most popular work, when what he really took pride in was his work on mathematics (of all things!). Of COURSE hidden meaning slipped in there, unbeknownst to him - writing that was likely to him like dreaming is to most of us, where our brain just fires off random images in response to things that are happening in our lives. But he didn't MEAN any of the blue curtains stuff...it just happened to be how he felt at the time.
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This being said, I agree with the first post (Brian McDonald's) entirely. I just have a problem with going "plot first" and then trying to force characters into a mold. If you go characters first, you'll end up with an "unoriginal" plotline, surely, but the trick is not to worry about that, and just write something that makes people
feel, and something you enjoy.
Because story-crafting with plot first really just made all my stories feel awkward, but for others, it's the only way to go. I'm fine with agreeing to disagree here on what's "best," since...well, I guess I don't think there IS a "best" way, as long as it works for the writer. But there are definitely two distinct ways that work, and it seems there's not much in-between on the subject XD
Keeps things interesting.