I was just wondering...
When you start a story, do you base it on a person that you know? Do your main characters have a lot in common with the people you know? Do your villains if you have any, freakishly resemble someone that you don't like or does someone in your story get a spanking because you're in a mood... Maybe you just wake up with new people in your head.
As I've said before I started out writing Fan fiction. With Fan fiction, you start off with most of the characters already developed for you. I have been know to use and expand upon real life situations but that's usually just a tiny seed that inevitably grows into something much bigger, if not something else entirely.
When I was writing Becky's Last Chance I just woke up with the characters in my head. Odd the way that happens. It wasn't the whole story, just the main characters. I had to really think about what I wanted to do with them. It was almost like they were family members, people that I knew. They didn't though resemble anyone that I DID know. Once I figured out where I wanted the story to go I had to create a few more characters along the way to get to that end. Those are the characters I think I may have injected a little of people I know or may have known in the past into.
When I was writing An Unexpected Husband, I woke up with a seed of the story itself in my head. The plot. I had to come up with the characters early on and they were fresh to me. I didn't already KNOW them. I did get to like them a lot though as the story continued. That's where editing helps. When you go back to the beginning you can change things that don't fit so well with the characters you've become more in tune with by the end.
Now I've just finished the sequel to Becky's Last Chance and I enjoyed going back and developing the characters even more.
So how do you start a story? What comes first?
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I consider my fiction to be more character-driven than plot-driven, but for me, a scenario, a germ of an idea, comes first. What if a young woman married a man not knowing he practiced domestic discipline? What if domestic discipline wasn't private, but was practiced by an organization...Unexpected Consequences!
ReplyDeleteWhat if a wife and husband celebrated their anniversary with a little role play... Intimate Submission (though after I wrote it, that's not what it turned out to be!).
Once I have a scenario, I think about the type of person who might be involved in such a situation and I develop the characters.
My characters are purely fictional, figments of my imagination, but on occasion I use little tidbits of people's personalities or quirks in my characters.
From the characters, I draw the plot.
Thanks Cara :)
ReplyDeleteConstance, would you like to do an author interview on the Blushing Books blog site?
ReplyDeleteYeah sure. I sent you an email I think :)
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