You know, I sat down to write a blog post about how I acknowledge my non-compliance with effective storywriting methods. But then I had an epiphany and so now this is a blog about that.
It all started with this tweet.
In this nifty guide, Jon Ponikvar mentions how creators can get caught up in character creation, and their stories suffer for it. Characters need to be made for stories, not vice versa. Upon seeing this, I completely agreed with him, but also stubbornly refused to change how I work.
This blog was originally going to be me mocking myself for this refusal. I don’t create to write stories, I write to build worlds, I told myself. My characters are my children no matter how poorly I treat them. Would my stories be better if I put the plot before the characters? Yes. Was I bothered enough to do that? No.
Which, in retrospect, makes me think about how incongruous that is with my perfectionism. I should be jumping at the chance to get my points across more clearly and effectively. That’s another topic for another time.
The way I have written for the past couple years is what I consider a “roleplay” format. I make a bunch of characters and throw them in a situation with a general idea of where I want them to go, but I have to “act” out the interactions to get them there. This “acting” or “roleplaying” then comprises all but the beginning and end of every scene.
Let me clarify here that I don’t think that’s a bad thing entirely. Any good author should ask themselves whether this action is fitting for the character, their history, and their personality. If not, then the author should ask, “Is this necessary to the plot?”. If so, the character needs adjustment, not the story. (Not that the plot is immutable either, but you get what I’m getting at. Hopefully.)
But back to my epiphany. As I sat down to talk about how I fail this test and don’t care, I thought: Levi, one of your main goals is to emulate the real world’s functions in a fake world’s settings. The way the real world works is that a story is being written and every person has their place in that. That’s a theme in your worlds...why not in your writing?
I couldn’t argue against that. My philosophy was outdone by my philosophy. This is what overthinking does to you, kids.
As I look forward to summer and maybe some time to write in earnest, I know I’ll be looking at my stuff and thinking how I need to rethink it. Maybe I don’t need to change anything. Who knows. Either way my existing core characters aren’t changing unless absolutely necessary, even if I have to push them aside to make room for more compliant characters. (Not even my perfectionism can touch Vae. Period. No one messes with the edgy wolf girl.)
Now that I’ve rambled for a while, let’s talk about what I am actually working on. Which isn’t much, with finals approaching and all the lethargy that comes with it. But I’m hopefully getting out a short short story before the end of the month, so, yay?
Thus concludes the first blog post of my website, I guess. As always, I don’t promise to update this regularly, but I intend to. You can look at the sum total of my published work to see just how valid my intentions are. But thanks for reading, y’all.