Character vs. Plot

Early in my writing career, I would often start with a premise. A movie theater was set to be closed. There's something in the cellar terrorizing a kid. A jerk ticks off a mime.

From there, I would fill in the characters and maybe, hopefully, find their arcs within the story. Back then, I didn't hold characters on the same level as the plot. But writing is a muscle that you need to train, hone and constantly exercise. No one is born a good writer. And I had to learn that what I was doing was not exactly helping me build out strong characters.

Now, I'm not saying a good plot premise is not the way to go. But as soon as I come up with a premise that's plot-focused, my next question to myself is what kind of story do I want to tell with a character in that world?

Katie Kennedy didn't start with Katie. It started with the idea of creating superhero origin story set in the 80s, but on the local town level. But Katie Kennedy wouldn't be the story it is now, if not for the character of Katie Kennedy and her struggle with finding her place in a largely chauvinistic world. Katie's choices set forth much of the action in the story, and honestly, it makes the book much more engaging.

These past 12-18 months, I've been working on a story that started with characters, and it's been a struggle for a variety of reasons. One of them being, me fighting myself with this back and forth between character and plot. I'm still not happy with it. As I was writing the story, I kept coming up with other story ideas that I started forcing into the piece. I found myself writing three different plot-driven stories. I ended up going back into the draft, removing those plot points and trying to focus on one tale, one character, one journey.

Thankfully, I completed the first draft. As I dive into the rewrite, I'm already seeing the confusion in my writing. I don't even know if I'll ever find the story I wanted to tell, or worse, finish it.

It's a balancing act for me. Character vs. plot. I love writing, but I've never claimed it was easy. The battle continues.