Trialectic?

[Mad Swede]

In another thread skip.knox wrote the following:

The thread here reiterates for me the dialectic between discovery and planning. Plot drives setting and setting drives plot, and character informs both and is in turn informed by both. Trialectic?

And this for me raises an interesting question. How do we set up our stories? I suppsoe you could divide this into several sub-questions, along the following lines. Do we use the plot to drive the setting or do we use the setting to start the plot? Or do we start with our characters and an event in their lives, and then use this to kick off both the plot and the setting around it all? Or is it some combination, the trialectic as skip refers to it?

I've never given it much thought when I set out to write a story. I just think the story through then write it down. The combination of characters, setting and plot just seem to be there, without me having to deliberately think about it. This might be because so many of my stories build on things I've seen and done, but then again it might not be.. No, I don't know how it works for me...

But what about the rest of you? How do you set up your stories before (or during) writing them?

 

[Insolent Lad]

I can say I've never come up with a plot without first having a character to build it around. Only then can I figure out something for them to do.

 

[Ban]

I have tried other ways, but when it comes to stories and short stories I've succeeded at finishing, the dynamic between plot and world is like the Caduceus. One snake crawls upward and the other does so in parallel until at the end I have concocted a developed plot mirrored or backed by a developed world. It is all incremental and iterative, and thus rather inefficient and slow. The characters exist somewhere between. Perhaps they are the staff itself. The whole process is one of pantsing, although I do often trace a possible path forward, which a part of me instinctively strives to diverge from the moment it has been laid out.

 

[ThinkerX]

With 'Empire,' I started with the setting - the heartland of a tottering empire in the wake of a devastating war. From there, I moved to the plot (which changed several times)...and then the characters took over, each providing a different perspective of the chaos. Subsequent stories in that world started with character concepts that were worked into the setting.

'Exiles' also began with the setting, coupled with the 'pilgrim' premise. And again, the characters took over.

Both worlds began as AD&D settings.

 

[skip.knox]

One reason (of many) I don't develop as much as I might as a writer is exactly because each new story is a new working experience. I do learn lessons from the past, it's just that many of them aren't applicable to the next book.

My very first story, a short story, began with an image and not much more. Just a kid hitchhiking at night in the California desert. Gets picked up by an old man driving a Buick Roadmaster. That was it. I did know that it was set in Altearth, so I knew it would have fantasy elements, but that's all.

My first novel, which I was actually writing at the time of Roadmaster, was quite different. There, I had an event: the invasion of the Roman Empire by the Goths. It was really some worldbuilding done as a novel. One core concept of Altearth is that history was as given up until magic started being a real thing and monsters invaded the Empire. So I swapped out the Goths and took that event as unalterable. Then is when Altearth began. It was a way for me to explore what I meant by monsters, what I meant by magic, all that sort of thing. As I worked through how the invasion would play out, I started trying out characters, and that got me fairly far into story development. There's more, but that gives an idea of how very differently that novel progressed.

The next one started with the title and a place. Seems ridiculous to start with a title, but as soon as the phrase "a child of great promise" entered my head, I knew I had a story to tell. And as soon as I discovered the Camargue, I knew I had a place to start. All the rest came after.

When working with alternate history, setting plays perhaps a bigger role than in other genres. Constantinople. The Camargue. Sirmione. The place and time set some parameters, especially since in my world, magic and the understanding of magic evolves over the centuries. A story set in the 7thc will have some things that can be known and others that cannot.

But pretty consistently the story doesn't take off for me until I have one or more characters that interest me. They are the elements that make that specific story the only one that could be told. The rest is context, the stage and props.

I'll close with this: one thing I have definitely learned. As the author, I absolutely must pay attention to all the elements. I do not need to have setting, plot and character detailed or even sketched at the outset, but I had bloody well better give them my attention as the work develops. No one aspect is more important than the other. I was oblivious to that back when I was writing Goblins at the Gates and The Roadmaster.

 

[Prince of Spires]

For me a story always starts with an idea. A story seed which gets stuck in my brain and makes me want to tell that story. And this story seed can be anything. It can be a single scene from the story. It can be a concept. It can be a setting. It can even be an image.

For instance, the first novel I completed started with the concept of a hidden emperor. If a countries ruler is always hidden behind a mask, would anyone even be able to tell if the emperor changed? How would anyone know who the emperor even was? That gave rise to a story where a random guy (who happened to be the correct height) gets tasked to pretend to be emperor because the previous guy died.

My most recent novel started with the idea of a guy going on a pilgrimage to do pennance. That was the idea and it came with the scene where this guy wakes up to find his home destroyed.

The list goes on. But it always comes back to some idea which gives rise to a lot of questions. How did we get to this idea? And what are the consequences?

From there, the most important thing for me is conflict. Conflict is what makes a story. Not setting, not character. Conflict. You can have the most interesting character in the world. Without conflict there is no story. So what is actually the plot? What is the conflict? Back to the first story I finished about the hidden emperor, part of the conflict that suggested itself is that someone has to select the guy to play emperor, which creates an obvious antagonist, and there's conflict between doing your duty to your country while also going against the belief that the emperor is appointed by divine power to rule etc.

Once I know the basic conflict, I get an idea of what kind of characters and setting I need. And it all spirals out of control from there.

Though it must be said that the actual process is a lot messier than this. And there's a continuous feedback loop, where the idea usually comes with a plot, setting, or character, which then informs the others. And then it gets refined by what other ideas I come up with. Which then feeds back into the idea. The whole thing evolves until it's unrecognizable and its own thing.

 

[pmmg]

I've never given it much thought when I set out to write a story. I just think the story through then write it down. The combination of characters, setting and plot just seem to be there, without me having to deliberately think about it. This might be because so many of my stories build on things I've seen and done, but then again it might not be.. No, I don't know how it works for me...

This is pretty much my experience. I would prioritize characters over setting, and often just let the setting form organically, but...where I am at now, the three of these are pretty much grafted together. I think, for me, character came first, and then conflict, and the rest started to paint itself. I suppose, if I was really digging down, I would say, I found I wanted something I could not find, and thought others might be looking for it to, so...my brain started to churn. Why it landed on writing...I dont know. Maybe something else would have been quicker and easier, but its where I ended up.