Which comes first: character or story?
By Chris Lindberg
Every author has a different way he or she goes about
building their novel. It’s a
brick-by-brick process,
after all. You start with the story arc
as foundation, then take the raw materials of character, scene, detail, and
dialogue … then bond them together with the mortar of storyline and plot twist,
and at that point, you have most of what can be called a novel. (After that, the real work of editing and
revising begins, but that’s an entirely different story.)
A common question writers often ask (and get asked) is:
where do you start? Most of the time,
we start with one of two elements: character or concept. In the case of character, you somehow get an
idea for a character in your head, and decide they are fascinating enough to
build an entire story around. Think
Harry Potter, Batman, or Jason Bourne as a few examples. In the case of concept, you dream up a high
concept for a story, build a storyline, and weave in characters that will push
the story along. Think “Twilight”, “The
Hunger Games”, or pretty much all Dan Brown novels.
Again, each writer’s method is different. Some probably switch back and forth. When I began writing my debut novel, Code of Darkness, it actually began as an entirely different
concept (and too long to talk about here).
But I opened it up with a character whom I found fascinating: an
alienated, weaponized young man, with a chemical imbalance baked into his
altered DNA that makes him want to do very bad things. He becomes a vigilante in order to channel
that fury into his own brand of justice, but he has inner demons to battle. And unknown to anyone, there are others out
there like him …
While working on this first draft of Code of Darkness,
I also spent time doing character studies, to broaden my comfort level with
writing different kinds of characters.
In this process I created many new possibilities, including a widowed
Chicago cop, and a small-town social worker who’d recently moved to her new
home in the big city. After writing a
few short stories about both characters, I decided to retool Code of Darkness into more of a modern
thriller, with these three characters (vigilante, cop, social worker) as the
foundation. I began revising the story
to include them from the beginning. The
cop could be on the vigilante’s case, closing in to make the arrest. The small-town social worker could provide
his moral compass, and possibly be a love interest.
So in the case of Code
of Darkness, I switched mid-stream, starting off with a concept, but then
scrapping that original concept and building a better one, based on the
characters I’d created. I’d love to hear how any of you built your stories – did you
start with character or concept? Leave
a comment below!
Trimming Down: to cut or not to cut?
One Author’s Experience
Quite awhile ago, I began writing the main character for
what is now my novel Code of Darkness:
a mysterious loner-turned-vigilante known only by the name Rage. I had recently graduated from college, was
living in the suburbs with my parents, and commuting on a train to downtown
Chicago. I decided the train would be
my “writing studio.”
I remember coming up with that first line: “Rage walked into
the shadowy bar with one thing in mind: vengeance.” The line contained a lot of angst, energy, and foreshadowing for
what would be the first chapter of my writing life. I wrote the chapter in a few days, happy with the result, and
moved on to write other chapters, getting about a hundred pages into it.
About a year later I moved downtown, and suddenly found a
lot of other things to do with my time.
Without the long commute to give me a “studio” in which to write, the
book project was tabled for a long time.
Five years ago, I moved back out to the suburbs and started
a family. I was back on the train, so I
thought I’d try picking up where I’d left off.
I found the old manuscript and began to put down new material. But I decided to go an entirely new
direction. I scrapped old characters
and storylines, and wove in new ones: a Chicago cop, a rogue NSA agent, a
government conspiracy. My goal was to
make the story more of a page-turning thriller.
But through all the changes, the chapters that centered
around Rage stayed mostly intact. That
first chapter, the one in which I’d first introduced him, and most importantly
that first line, was always going to be my starting point, I’d decided.
I finished the novel at a whopping 198,000 words. Yes – 198,000. I was advised to get it down to about half that. Half my creation was going to be on the
chopping block? No way was I going to
do that.
But it quickly became clear that I was going to have
to. So I began removing chapters,
storylines, characters. In some cases I
was simply trimming fat. Two revisions
later, at 123,000 words, I discovered an angle that would probably cut another ten
to fifteen thousand words easily: introduce the three main characters together
in the same chapter, putting them in a perilous situation that would set the
tone for the book. The problem with
this was, what would this mean for my cherished original starting point?
I tried to find another home for it: the second chapter,
maybe later in the story, but nothing worked.
It just didn’t fit into the story anymore. And the problem was, the new first chapter didn’t just cut the
word count, it also gave the story a much better starting point.
So after much deliberation, I said goodbye to that original
first chapter, and my story became a thousand times better for it. It will always have a home in the first
draft of Code of Darkness,
and if enough people are interested, maybe I’ll post it on my blog
someday.
So now you now the rest of the story. I’d be curious to know what all your
experiences were with your first novel: how long the first draft was, did you
cut anything, and if so how much … and most importantly, what was the biggest
or most difficult change you made?
_____
Chris Lindberg’s first novel, Code of Darkness, was released in August. You can find out more by visiting www.codeofdarkness.com, or visiting
Facebook and searching on “code of darkness.”
To purchase Code of Darkness in paperback or e-book edition,
please check out: http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fListingClass=0&fSearch=code+of+darkness
Or search “code of darkness” on Amazon or BN.com.
Have you read Code of Darkness yet? If not, clicked over to my review and find out more about it!
It was great having Chris share what happened while he was writing his first novel, don't you think? But even after all the advice...hey, I think I'm just going to continue reading all those great novels that you writers produce! Much more fun and NO frustration about changing, cutting down, whatever! LOL
Chris, thanks for visiting Book Reader's Heaven!lated articles
