Characters that take on a life of their own
There are definite advantages to writing comprehensive character maps, but one downside that I've found is that when a character is fully fleshed out, she/he tries to take on a life of her/his own and sometimes this can be to the detriment of the story that I have carefully plotted.
When a character in my (my, gosh-darned it!) story wants to do one thing and I want her/him to do something else, how should I handle the situation?
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That's a thing I read often about on Twitter from colleagues. The most common approach is: Let your character do what he wants. There is a reason that your character developed this way and make way for a very interessting approach on your story. Maybe the way your character takes on situations is way more statisfying than your approach.
The other approach is to force the characters in your story. The major problem in that approach is: The characters tend to seem out of character. The reader can't relate to the made decision, cause it seems off. Like an actor, who plays a role and starts to smirk a bit.
You see: There are 2 approaches, but the first one is my personal favourite, cause a story lives with it's characters and it is better to fit the story around them. But what you do is totally your decision in the end
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Taking a life of their own is exactly what your characters should be doing. They should have enough of a "character" that a reader can predict how they would act in a given situation. That's what makes the characters "come alive" for the reader.
Consequently, a reader can easily spot when a character is acting "out of character". And it is extremely jarring. When I read such passages, I feel the author forced the character to do something they never would. From this moment on, as far as I'm concerned, the story lacks integrity, I have lost my trust in the writer, I no longer enjoy the story.
So how do you proceed? You've got two choices.
- Scratch the scenes you've planned. See what the character would do, and where he would lead you, how the story would proceed. That's more of a "discovery writing" approach.
- Consider what would make your character act in the way you've planned for them, end up in the situation where you want them to be. Add that to the story. That's a more "planned" approach.
Most likely you'd be using some mix of the two, that would eventually satisfy you. Most importantly, however, Don't bludgeon your character into acting "out of character". Don't make them fall in love with a person they'd never fall for, don't make them say things they never would - keep the truth of who the character is.
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Change one of your givens. Either change the plot to fit the character or change the character to fit the plot. It depends on which one is more important to you.
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My personal opinion is, don't make that mistake. I consider that similar to "world building disease". It is one reason I am a discovery writer, I first failed as a plodder.
The error is that it is too difficult to devise the perfect "personality" for a tightly constrained problem (an over-specific plot). You are better of with neither of those, the whole point of writing is to make the plot real and plausible and the characters real and plausible, and that is going to take 300 to 500 pages: No outline can possibly do that justice.
Thus if you feel like you must plot, the outline must necessarily be vague; and the turning points it makes must be applicable even if your character develops their own personality. So, for example, you can devise a good twist, or a surprise ending. If I were writing a romance, I would probably have a good idea when I began what causes the "all is lost" breakup moment, or the major crisis.
If you are going to plot heavily, keep your characters vague so they can do what must be done to accomplish the plot. When they cannot, that can only mean you have a conflict in your plot: Points A and B cannot be accomplished by the same personality. For an extreme example, at A they show mercy to an adult stranger, at B they have to shoot through a child.
If you are going to characterize heavily, set your characters loose to do what they want, they just need a driving trait of not giving up.
Without a plot, you can't get to a point where the characters cannot execute it; they make their own decisions and that's it. The plot will pop out as a result of writing their story (although you might have to backtrack and have them make different decisions that are still within their character, if the first decision you thought of them making leads you down a rabbit hole).
As others have said, you want your characters to take on a life of their own. Don't make the mistake of straight jacketing yourself on both characters and plot. It is a recipe for failure, as you have learned. In the process of writing, you need wiggle room for one or the other, and we can produce good stories with lots of wiggle room for both: Stephen King is 100% discovery and one of the top selling authors of all time.
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