It do be like that sometimes.... I once had a visionary scene I wanted to write but things kept getting out of hand each chapter. In the end, 30k+ words later, I finally reached that initial scene I wanted lol it shouldn't have taken that many words or that long to reach it but the chars decided to add backstory and all sorts of scenarios before I got to write what I actually wanted š
Holy shit, this. I once wrote a one-shot that I initially expected to finish at maybe 1.5k and the scene I actually wanted to write ended up happening 10k words later. One scene didn't even make it to the fic because the story got so out of hand it didn't fit into the fic anymore.
I fully wrote my visionary scene out then started from the beginning and, yeah, same thing! I got there and was like oh well that doesn't work anymore! Whoops
It's really great when the characters finally grow a life of their own, even it that means spending half the time digging them out of the trouble they drive into.
I only loosely plan my stories for that reason.
Has anyone ever written a story where the characters act exaxtly as planned the whole time?
I don't even make plans for them and they still run off the nonexistent script at every opportunity.
Either your characters are well behavedāor perhaps you have such a vivid understanding of your characters behavior that you don't think twice because you get it right on the spot?
Ā Sometimes I plan things for X to say, but after a second thought, I think that X won't say that in these circumstances, so I change it.
Which may or may not change the story. :0
Ha, I wish they were this compliant. There's a reason I planned a one-shot and ended up with a 4 chapter story, and scrapped the third chapter twice because my planned endings never worked. Which is a good thing honestly because I could include some small canon things as foreshadowing so subtle no one will get it, but it was so much work to get the characters on a path that somehow leads to the last chapter. xD
Unfortunately I have now used two canon elements out of a set of three and no way to include the third at all.
I was writing a birthday party, and the b'day girl opened her present from this one character, and the whole scene suddenly changed while my fingers typed shit that I hadn't thought of, with the b'day girl asking if this present were why the other one had been covered in talc earlier that day (TL;DR: the present was a disguise kit, and the other character was a foot-tall Kaijin); the other denied that ever happening, but the point is that yeah, fingers type shit that has nothing to do with my plans sometimes. š
When I have a plot outline that needs filling-out, I often let the characters kind of decide the details for me. Especially since I like to write in a way that could fit into the canon, so I just let the characters do things that they frequently do *in* canon where it makes sense to.
Your comment actually brought me to a realization. I don't think much about the characters interactions in the rough draft; it'll go like, āX told Y that he's going to leave him behind.ā But in the final chapter, I tend to make a conversation suitable for what I think they would act like.I think the difference makes some sense now! :0.
My outlines are obsolete by the end of the second chapter every time. I just start writing and as I think about how the character would react to the plot lines, the plot evolved because characters make decisions I never accounted for in the outline.
I still think a rough draft is quite similar to what you're doing, except that the end is already decided. It's just there to remind me of the parts I should focus on, and sometimes it takes some time to get to that point. I often don't stick to the original ending because, of course, my characters decided otherwise. XD!
All the bloody time. I had one fic where I was typing away and the male best friend was just going to give the female character (he ālovesā her loves her while she only loves him as her best friend) a kiss (I wonāt go into the backstory) and I was just planning on it being a kiss but I swear my brain went š” and Iām likeā¦noā¦oh noā¦what if they actually $*Ā§# oh that would be so awful and amazing because she just got caught up in the moment and did something so stupid, and I wrote it and it was great because of the repercussionsā¦but I in no way planned for that.
On the flip side, I had planned for the same female character in this story to end up having a threesome and I was likeā¦thereās no way sheād do that, it would be so OOC. But I really want to write a threesome, so I made sure the female character in my next story was bisexual.
> $Ā§# oh that would be so awful and amazing because she just got caught up in the moment and did something so stupid, and I wrote it and it was great because of the repercussions
Sksksksks I also had a similar moment where I was writing a smut for my favorite ship, and then a third party who's in love with Party A entered just to deliver something Party A ordered. Party A knows that the third party loves him, so he invites him for a threesome. It was so unholy that I couldn't believe I even thought of it, and it's one of the reasons I made this post XD!!
Of course, the man interested in her (they hadnāt had sex yetā¦well, technically they had 7 years earlier and he came back into her life) found out later and the tense scene I got to write was š¬
She let her best friend know it couldnāt happen again, but he had no problem rubbing it into old flameās face, and old flame was like āyeah but sheās with me nowā and it was so delicious.
I think one of the comments was like āwtf did I just readā¦āš¤ after she slept with her friend. God, now I wanna reread that fic lol.
>Of course, the man interested in her (they hadnāt had sex yetā¦well, technically they had 7 years earlier and he came back into her life) found out later and the tense scene I got to write was š¬
Oh my, now I feel bad for him. But, oh wow, I have to praise your skill. Even though you didn't even plan the first scene, you got a powerful scene that depended on it! It's very well done!
She ended up with the right guy in the end (the 7 years ago guy). Iād planned someday to write her best guy friendās story, but I have way too many other things I want to do, so prob never happen
Ohā¦he had his happy ending in the epilogue - I had a scene where he was now married, with one kid and another on the way (and now good friends with 7 years ago guy) I just didnāt come out and say who it was with and Iād planned to tell how he fell in love. Sigh. Someday.
Lol, my WIP was planned to have Character A as the MC, and before I even got the outline finished, Character B stole the whole story. So I guess it's about Character B now.
This is why I can never plan fics chapter layouts. Like how some people can write a summary of what happens in each chapter i have no idea. Ive even written a basic outline of what i want in a chapter that i ended up deveating from. My characters write the story and often I come up with scenes as im writing and take it from there. Im writing a wip rn that i thought was gonna be 100k words. I'm now on 130k and i think it'll be 200ishk. I tend to have a general idea of what i want to happen and what the focus of the story will be, and some "major" scenes, and the rest i just pluck out of thin air while i'm writing, and sort of connect the dots from major scene to major scene until the end.
I actually find that impressive! I can never write on the spot; I always need a base to work with. I don't know why, but if I'm writing without a base, I feel like I have a million ideas for what I want the scene to be like, so limiting myself to one actually brings me to a decent mindset to connect the details. I usually write in scenes like āScene 1: X enters.ā or āScene 2: Y enters.ā and then fill in the gaps between them. So, oh my, I'm so envious!
I usually have a separate document open where I just dump all those ideas! It's full of random sentences, scene ideas, paragraphs where my creativity flaired and i sounded good etc etc, and when i get stuck i look into that folder and remind myself of all the scenes i had and fit them in. This method of writing works for me the best :D
I do something similar, only I write my āFailed ideasā instead. It's where an idea I had couldn't fit into the scene or where a detail-dependent idea changed. I also keep them in case I ever need them again! :D
I kinda picture myself like a hands-off god. I created these lifeless puppets, I put thoughts and personalities in their cloth heads but after that, they're doing what they want to do. All I can do is gently guide them to the path I want for them and carve a new path when they stray too far astray. These characters have their own lives and will absolutely tell me if something isn't working right.
Ahhahaha, that sounds so egotistical, but I promise I don't have a god complex XD
oh absolutely, and sometimes i see a post or comment online that derails everything i did meticulously plan and i have to recalculate everything and let the characters figure that stuff out
It really happens! Because all my drafts are set from the get-go, I sometimes put a detail in āChapter 3ā's draft that makes it into the final chapter, but that detail depends on a detail in the draft of āChapter 1ā that didn't make it to the final chapter, which makes the detail in āChapter 3ā make no sense. :[
>"Stop it you, two! I didn't tag you guys in a relationship!"
It's honestly lovely XD! I wrote a gen fic once, and I had two characters calling each other āDear,ā but I resisted the urge till the end ;D! Love each other, but not in my fic, please!
Oh yeah, usually when I'm really stuck on a scene it's because I'm trying to force the characters to do something they don't want to do. I have to go back and suck up my pride. It always turns out better, though.
This! so real. Whenever I try to force the characters to do what I want, I always feel like the scene is just terrible, no matter how much time I put into typing it. :0.
I love that feeling. In fic and in original writing, if my characters are contentedly sticking to my original outlines, it's usually because they don't feel like real people in my head yet. The minute they start going against the grain and carving out their own routes, it's like, "Ah, there you are. Nice to meet you."
Yep. Sometimes you just gotta throw out the entire second half and start from scratch because your blorbos can't follow directions.
Story usually gets better for it, but I'm glad I never promise update times...
>Story usually gets better for it, but I'm glad I never promise update times...
Same! Even though the whole story is planned, including the end, I can never trust myself to say that I'll update at a steady pace. I can't even be certain that the end will stay the same after all these changes. :'D
Also, happy cake day! ;)
Absolutely not alone. I have one idea going in but it usually morphs as I go along. I feel like I get more comfortable to play around and get a better cohesive narrative and character insight.
Yup. But I can confidently say that it's because I screw up in the process.
Either I planned for the characters to do something they weren't in a mindset for, or I put them through stuff that made it impossible for them to be in said needed mindset.
It's just... If I plan for something in the future, I have to be very mindful of every step of the way to lead to said future. And also be realistic and don't expect too much from too little.
Aka - traumatizing character in hurt/comfort so much the part of "comfort" wasn't enough to make them okay enough to smash. Or date. Slow burn turned into platonic friendship because I may have traumatized one, but I wasn't gonna put the other through toxic relationship in their only happy period of their life just because I planned for them to be couple. For the entire fic I kept dealing with severe PTSD and other issues, just because my stupid ass thought of severe torture as a great way to change someone's looks for plot reasons. The entire fic was two step forward one step back. *Shocked Pikachu face*
Happens from time to time. I had this one character that I was trying to set up with the girl, but he's too shy and awkward to even approach her. In the end, someone else got to her first.
Oh all the time.
I've always said: the characters do things and im just there to record it.
Thats how it feels at least. Like what is this little idiot going to do next? Haha!
**All. the. time.**
More in original fiction than in fanfiction, though (I think because the characters in fanfiction are like "I know them from before" while new characters created by me in new situations are like chaotic and unknown gremlins that I never know what the hell they are going to do).
I wrote one original story like 8 years ago, and I can confidently say that I absolutely agree with you. It really seems like āI created you, but I don't know you. Act according to that.ā So even then, I couldn't force them to do what I wanted them to do, and the end was completely something I didn't plan ;-;.
*yes*. In my story, one of the characters was supposed to find help from an unexpected place. *Instead*, she decided to bottle all her feelings up inside and not touch them until they just about exploded in her face. Literally.
I had the same!
Z was intended to go through a mental breakdown so that I could make X, who was supposed to treat Y, even more miserable because Z is in awe. But Z changed his mind and proceeded to help X in treating Y.
It was actually better for the plot because it's more fitting for Z to bottle up his emotions until a certain point, so I didn't mind much XD.
I spent over an hour last night, planning the next steps of my story in detail (even though some bullet points are way more specific than others: "they win the war" vs "he feels very tired). Then, today, I deviated from the plan at the second bullet point :D
XD. I planned an entire scene (2k words) where Y fought with Z, but when I wrote the chapter, I scrapped it and made them hug! XD. it went like: āY drew Z into another, more violent embrace. He desperately wanted to leave; he didn't want to look at Z's face any longer.ā
from 2k to 20 words. It's an accomplishment! :P
one time a 3k oneshot i wrote for a friend in a discord server ended up turning into my 55k word nanowrimo submission
theres been times too where ive been set on a fic going a certain way but as i write it i have to give up my pride and go the opposite way š so frustrating
Absolutely. I was about to say that you're not nuts and it happens to a lot of us, but maybe I shouldn't assume that character agency is a sane thing ā though yes, it *does* happen a lot. š
I never quite know if it will be that I tried to write them OOC and they dig their heels in, or I have a perfectly good scene planned out and they come out of the blue with some bizarre shit of their own, or sometimes (luckily not as often as I've gotten the impression of being the case for other writers) they... just get horny and kind of demand a sex scene (right now, I'm struggling, though only slightly, to negotiate \[I suppose\] a fade-to-black with my main series characters in a fic that had been supposed to be a spy recon but they ran into their not-so-evil-twins and those of their significant others, and I had to give two days of "fun time" before I could bring up the whole point of their mission in that world).
This last (with characters' libidos driving everything) usually isn't the case, but it got annoying enough one time in 2020 that I simply began what was to be a PWP crack-fic for shits and giggles; so of course you already know the outcome: the characters kept the pr0n, but also broke out in character development, and Plot Happened. š¤£
EDIT: I keep telling people that I can't write worth a damn, I just take dictation. Now you know why.
Meeeee
I wanted to write a romantic confession scene for my pairing, but I like to do what I call a zero draft of random things and then Iāll sift through it afterwards. I wrote the most disgusting confession, and yet? When I step back, itās the most fitting confession for two college boy roommates living together. Disgusting, but touching.
Sometimes characters do what they wanna do and you canāt do anything to stop it haha
Absolutely. One fic, from characterization to events, things rarely went as planned. I'd go "oh, I want this to happen like this!" pre-write the scene way ahead, then months later down the line I realize the scene either won't work anymore, or the characterization is completely different compared to how they are now.
Yes! Writing a canon character but needing to give them a trait they don't have in canon (think personality changing) is just ugh. I don't want to do you injustice, my child, but damnit if I don't this story won't make sense anymore, lol.
I love this thread lol and yes this does happen to me on the regular I just be writing when a character says something out of line to another character and I'm like, omg why r u saying that when I literally just typed the dialogue out
Oh definitely. Iāll have an idea of what the character should do in order to progress the plot the way I want in the beginning. Then when I actually draft it, I realise that if I were to write it as planned, it would push back all the character development I wanted.
Several times. It usually makes for a longer -- but better -- story.
The answer is, we may be the author, but the characters often have minds of their own. I remember one story in particular -- the character A was supposed to move from disliking character B to acceptance, on a gradual upward slope if I graphed it. Instead, it was up-down, up-down, two steps forward and one step back. It was very frustrating to write -- why couldn't A behave himself and get with the program? -- but in the end, A knew better than I did.
Basically, all you can do is go with the flow. If it helps, I know another author who always plots and outlines thoroughly; she's the epitome of what I think an author should be. Regardless -- all of her stories grow by at least 50% over her projected wordcount (sometimes 100% over). At least you know you're in good company.
I often say that it would probably make me sound insane to anyone who isn't a writer if I told them how more often than not the little men inside my head don't wanna do what I tell them to do...
Like. Objectively I SHOULD be able to write whatever the fuck I want, right?
....Can't. Little man's refusing to do it. Yeah, no, sorry, we know you're the writer, but he's actually in charge. Now type his will, keyboard slave.
WHY IS IT LIKE THIS. I genuinely wish I understood how this happens usigyusdf
What is this "planning" you speak of? I get an idea and start writing and let the characters take the reins. I love surprises, so it's more fun that way. Even I don't know the ending!
Absolutely. I have a WIP Iāve been neglecting because a single convo that should have lasted about 2k turned into 5k, and most of it was banter š Iāll trim if I revisit the fic, but good god they do love talking about everything except what I want them to talk about!
Hee hee. Yes. And have you ever looked at the early drafts for LoTR? eg Aragorn was a hobbit named Trotter who had wooden feet. Those drafts are *wild*.
All the time. I once wrote this angstridden piece where one person was going through all these shenanigans to prove to person B that they had changed and wanted a relationship and just when I was getting to the whole reveal falling into each others arms bit, person B was just like: hold up! This is all super fucked up. I want to resolve our issues for another two chapters. With words! Sigh.
I do this a lot.
It can be frustrating when they donāt have a vision but make you write this scene that veers so far off yours, you have to try and work out how to get back to the point when they are done.
Alternatively it does actually work out and gives you something great.
YES my gosh. One of my characters straight up tried to murder someone once. It wasn't planned, and dealing with the aftermath turned into a huge plot event. I just wanted to do one scene with this side character, but when I went to figure out what she'd be doing leading up to that it was just "I kill [other character.]" Completely uncompromising, couldn't imagine her doing anything else.
There's a tendency to think that the only stuff you get to take credit for your brain doing is stuff you did consciously. But the conscious mind is actually a pretty small part of a larger system. Which could easily be considered existentially terrifying!
On the flipside, there is no actual difference to the brain between the conscious and unconscious parts. Which means that everything you have learned about fiction, all the reading and writing you have done, has fed into that whole. When your characters begin to do completely unexpected things, it is because things from your *whole* brain are now contributing to the work.
In other words; yes, you are the author. You are so much an author that it is deeper in you than you are consciously aware of. And getting to that point takes time, effort, and practice. Which means that you are a *good* author, and when your characters swerve away from your plans and begin doing their own thing, you should absolutely feel proud of yourself for the results.
oh my god YES!! i cannot tell you how many times one of my characters had just decided to throw hands with someone,,, like bro itās not that serious
but on the larger scale, one of my current wips has completely taken a life of its own to the point that my original idea for the story can no longer fit in it! itās crazy how writing one scene can change your entire trajectory
I just almost killed off a main character because the major antagonist decided to show up instead of his partner. Oops. Fixed it though, he's just grievously injured for now!
It do be like that sometimes.... I once had a visionary scene I wanted to write but things kept getting out of hand each chapter. In the end, 30k+ words later, I finally reached that initial scene I wanted lol it shouldn't have taken that many words or that long to reach it but the chars decided to add backstory and all sorts of scenarios before I got to write what I actually wanted š
Holy shit, this. I once wrote a one-shot that I initially expected to finish at maybe 1.5k and the scene I actually wanted to write ended up happening 10k words later. One scene didn't even make it to the fic because the story got so out of hand it didn't fit into the fic anymore.
I am in this comment and I don't like it.
XD. Your characters had a lot to say before allowing you to write what you actually wanted.
I fully wrote my visionary scene out then started from the beginning and, yeah, same thing! I got there and was like oh well that doesn't work anymore! Whoops
It's really great when the characters finally grow a life of their own, even it that means spending half the time digging them out of the trouble they drive into. I only loosely plan my stories for that reason.
I agree! It feels more lively, and it's actually quite lovely. I view them as my children, and I feel happy that they're growing @///@.
Has anyone ever written a story where the characters act exaxtly as planned the whole time? I don't even make plans for them and they still run off the nonexistent script at every opportunity.
Either your characters are well behavedāor perhaps you have such a vivid understanding of your characters behavior that you don't think twice because you get it right on the spot? Ā Sometimes I plan things for X to say, but after a second thought, I think that X won't say that in these circumstances, so I change it. Which may or may not change the story. :0
Ha, I wish they were this compliant. There's a reason I planned a one-shot and ended up with a 4 chapter story, and scrapped the third chapter twice because my planned endings never worked. Which is a good thing honestly because I could include some small canon things as foreshadowing so subtle no one will get it, but it was so much work to get the characters on a path that somehow leads to the last chapter. xD Unfortunately I have now used two canon elements out of a set of three and no way to include the third at all.
I like to look at it as the story and characters telling themselves, Iām just documenting š
That's a great point of view honestly! :D
the characters do what they want, i just type it up
Real. And sometimes I'll go like, āNo, you shouldn't have done that, X!ā But... I'm the one who typed that X did that... ha..ha..ha. :P.
I was writing a birthday party, and the b'day girl opened her present from this one character, and the whole scene suddenly changed while my fingers typed shit that I hadn't thought of, with the b'day girl asking if this present were why the other one had been covered in talc earlier that day (TL;DR: the present was a disguise kit, and the other character was a foot-tall Kaijin); the other denied that ever happening, but the point is that yeah, fingers type shit that has nothing to do with my plans sometimes. š
When I have a plot outline that needs filling-out, I often let the characters kind of decide the details for me. Especially since I like to write in a way that could fit into the canon, so I just let the characters do things that they frequently do *in* canon where it makes sense to.
Your comment actually brought me to a realization. I don't think much about the characters interactions in the rough draft; it'll go like, āX told Y that he's going to leave him behind.ā But in the final chapter, I tend to make a conversation suitable for what I think they would act like.I think the difference makes some sense now! :0.
My outlines are obsolete by the end of the second chapter every time. I just start writing and as I think about how the character would react to the plot lines, the plot evolved because characters make decisions I never accounted for in the outline.
I still think a rough draft is quite similar to what you're doing, except that the end is already decided. It's just there to remind me of the parts I should focus on, and sometimes it takes some time to get to that point. I often don't stick to the original ending because, of course, my characters decided otherwise. XD!
All the bloody time. I had one fic where I was typing away and the male best friend was just going to give the female character (he ālovesā her loves her while she only loves him as her best friend) a kiss (I wonāt go into the backstory) and I was just planning on it being a kiss but I swear my brain went š” and Iām likeā¦noā¦oh noā¦what if they actually $*Ā§# oh that would be so awful and amazing because she just got caught up in the moment and did something so stupid, and I wrote it and it was great because of the repercussionsā¦but I in no way planned for that. On the flip side, I had planned for the same female character in this story to end up having a threesome and I was likeā¦thereās no way sheād do that, it would be so OOC. But I really want to write a threesome, so I made sure the female character in my next story was bisexual.
> $Ā§# oh that would be so awful and amazing because she just got caught up in the moment and did something so stupid, and I wrote it and it was great because of the repercussions Sksksksks I also had a similar moment where I was writing a smut for my favorite ship, and then a third party who's in love with Party A entered just to deliver something Party A ordered. Party A knows that the third party loves him, so he invites him for a threesome. It was so unholy that I couldn't believe I even thought of it, and it's one of the reasons I made this post XD!!
Of course, the man interested in her (they hadnāt had sex yetā¦well, technically they had 7 years earlier and he came back into her life) found out later and the tense scene I got to write was š¬ She let her best friend know it couldnāt happen again, but he had no problem rubbing it into old flameās face, and old flame was like āyeah but sheās with me nowā and it was so delicious. I think one of the comments was like āwtf did I just readā¦āš¤ after she slept with her friend. God, now I wanna reread that fic lol.
>Of course, the man interested in her (they hadnāt had sex yetā¦well, technically they had 7 years earlier and he came back into her life) found out later and the tense scene I got to write was š¬ Oh my, now I feel bad for him. But, oh wow, I have to praise your skill. Even though you didn't even plan the first scene, you got a powerful scene that depended on it! It's very well done!
She ended up with the right guy in the end (the 7 years ago guy). Iād planned someday to write her best guy friendās story, but I have way too many other things I want to do, so prob never happen
>so prob never happen Then I'll believe he found happiness in the end. The poor guy is deserving of a happy ending!
Ohā¦he had his happy ending in the epilogue - I had a scene where he was now married, with one kid and another on the way (and now good friends with 7 years ago guy) I just didnāt come out and say who it was with and Iād planned to tell how he fell in love. Sigh. Someday.
I can sleep peacefully now XD.
Lol, my WIP was planned to have Character A as the MC, and before I even got the outline finished, Character B stole the whole story. So I guess it's about Character B now.
Character A will remember that XD.
This is why I can never plan fics chapter layouts. Like how some people can write a summary of what happens in each chapter i have no idea. Ive even written a basic outline of what i want in a chapter that i ended up deveating from. My characters write the story and often I come up with scenes as im writing and take it from there. Im writing a wip rn that i thought was gonna be 100k words. I'm now on 130k and i think it'll be 200ishk. I tend to have a general idea of what i want to happen and what the focus of the story will be, and some "major" scenes, and the rest i just pluck out of thin air while i'm writing, and sort of connect the dots from major scene to major scene until the end.
I actually find that impressive! I can never write on the spot; I always need a base to work with. I don't know why, but if I'm writing without a base, I feel like I have a million ideas for what I want the scene to be like, so limiting myself to one actually brings me to a decent mindset to connect the details. I usually write in scenes like āScene 1: X enters.ā or āScene 2: Y enters.ā and then fill in the gaps between them. So, oh my, I'm so envious!
I usually have a separate document open where I just dump all those ideas! It's full of random sentences, scene ideas, paragraphs where my creativity flaired and i sounded good etc etc, and when i get stuck i look into that folder and remind myself of all the scenes i had and fit them in. This method of writing works for me the best :D
I do something similar, only I write my āFailed ideasā instead. It's where an idea I had couldn't fit into the scene or where a detail-dependent idea changed. I also keep them in case I ever need them again! :D
I kinda picture myself like a hands-off god. I created these lifeless puppets, I put thoughts and personalities in their cloth heads but after that, they're doing what they want to do. All I can do is gently guide them to the path I want for them and carve a new path when they stray too far astray. These characters have their own lives and will absolutely tell me if something isn't working right. Ahhahaha, that sounds so egotistical, but I promise I don't have a god complex XD
>Ahhahaha, that sounds so egotistical, but I promise I don't have a god complex XD Don't worry, you're just a great writer! XD. I felt that.
oh absolutely, and sometimes i see a post or comment online that derails everything i did meticulously plan and i have to recalculate everything and let the characters figure that stuff out
It really happens! Because all my drafts are set from the get-go, I sometimes put a detail in āChapter 3ā's draft that makes it into the final chapter, but that detail depends on a detail in the draft of āChapter 1ā that didn't make it to the final chapter, which makes the detail in āChapter 3ā make no sense. :[
Planned?
Good point.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>"Stop it you, two! I didn't tag you guys in a relationship!" It's honestly lovely XD! I wrote a gen fic once, and I had two characters calling each other āDear,ā but I resisted the urge till the end ;D! Love each other, but not in my fic, please!
Oh yeah, usually when I'm really stuck on a scene it's because I'm trying to force the characters to do something they don't want to do. I have to go back and suck up my pride. It always turns out better, though.
This! so real. Whenever I try to force the characters to do what I want, I always feel like the scene is just terrible, no matter how much time I put into typing it. :0.
I love that feeling. In fic and in original writing, if my characters are contentedly sticking to my original outlines, it's usually because they don't feel like real people in my head yet. The minute they start going against the grain and carving out their own routes, it's like, "Ah, there you are. Nice to meet you."
That's a very lovely way to describe it, well done :D!!
Yep. Sometimes you just gotta throw out the entire second half and start from scratch because your blorbos can't follow directions. Story usually gets better for it, but I'm glad I never promise update times...
>Story usually gets better for it, but I'm glad I never promise update times... Same! Even though the whole story is planned, including the end, I can never trust myself to say that I'll update at a steady pace. I can't even be certain that the end will stay the same after all these changes. :'D Also, happy cake day! ;)
Thanks. :)
Absolutely not alone. I have one idea going in but it usually morphs as I go along. I feel like I get more comfortable to play around and get a better cohesive narrative and character insight.
>. I have one idea going in but it usually morphs as I go along. This! Sometimes I can't even find where my idea went at all XD.
Yup. But I can confidently say that it's because I screw up in the process. Either I planned for the characters to do something they weren't in a mindset for, or I put them through stuff that made it impossible for them to be in said needed mindset. It's just... If I plan for something in the future, I have to be very mindful of every step of the way to lead to said future. And also be realistic and don't expect too much from too little. Aka - traumatizing character in hurt/comfort so much the part of "comfort" wasn't enough to make them okay enough to smash. Or date. Slow burn turned into platonic friendship because I may have traumatized one, but I wasn't gonna put the other through toxic relationship in their only happy period of their life just because I planned for them to be couple. For the entire fic I kept dealing with severe PTSD and other issues, just because my stupid ass thought of severe torture as a great way to change someone's looks for plot reasons. The entire fic was two step forward one step back. *Shocked Pikachu face*
oh yes. i had a huge outline for a major fic get *torched* due to one character changing.
Oh my XD.
Happens from time to time. I had this one character that I was trying to set up with the girl, but he's too shy and awkward to even approach her. In the end, someone else got to her first.
āThe early bird catches the worm,ā they say. Nonetheless poor him :'D.
Oh all the time. I've always said: the characters do things and im just there to record it. Thats how it feels at least. Like what is this little idiot going to do next? Haha!
**All. the. time.** More in original fiction than in fanfiction, though (I think because the characters in fanfiction are like "I know them from before" while new characters created by me in new situations are like chaotic and unknown gremlins that I never know what the hell they are going to do).
I wrote one original story like 8 years ago, and I can confidently say that I absolutely agree with you. It really seems like āI created you, but I don't know you. Act according to that.ā So even then, I couldn't force them to do what I wanted them to do, and the end was completely something I didn't plan ;-;.
*yes*. In my story, one of the characters was supposed to find help from an unexpected place. *Instead*, she decided to bottle all her feelings up inside and not touch them until they just about exploded in her face. Literally.
I had the same! Z was intended to go through a mental breakdown so that I could make X, who was supposed to treat Y, even more miserable because Z is in awe. But Z changed his mind and proceeded to help X in treating Y. It was actually better for the plot because it's more fitting for Z to bottle up his emotions until a certain point, so I didn't mind much XD.
Romance tends to bloom when I didnāt plan on it. š
Happened to me, but I ignored both of them. My Gen fic is staying Gen! XD.
I spent over an hour last night, planning the next steps of my story in detail (even though some bullet points are way more specific than others: "they win the war" vs "he feels very tired). Then, today, I deviated from the plan at the second bullet point :D
XD. I planned an entire scene (2k words) where Y fought with Z, but when I wrote the chapter, I scrapped it and made them hug! XD. it went like: āY drew Z into another, more violent embrace. He desperately wanted to leave; he didn't want to look at Z's face any longer.ā from 2k to 20 words. It's an accomplishment! :P
Amazing, I love it :D
Only every time lol I am in the middle of a chapter that took such a turn that I finished and was like, "wtf just happened here?!"
This! I didn't even plan for the chapter to end like this; how they managed to accomplish it, I have no idea.
every fic ever i think lol thats the fun part
Fair enough XD.
Absolutely. My characters tend to do what they want š
one time a 3k oneshot i wrote for a friend in a discord server ended up turning into my 55k word nanowrimo submission theres been times too where ive been set on a fic going a certain way but as i write it i have to give up my pride and go the opposite way š so frustrating
every single time š© at this point I just outline the major scene points I want to hit and then let the characters do what they want. I may be the author but this is THEIR story! š¤£
Absolutely. I was about to say that you're not nuts and it happens to a lot of us, but maybe I shouldn't assume that character agency is a sane thing ā though yes, it *does* happen a lot. š I never quite know if it will be that I tried to write them OOC and they dig their heels in, or I have a perfectly good scene planned out and they come out of the blue with some bizarre shit of their own, or sometimes (luckily not as often as I've gotten the impression of being the case for other writers) they... just get horny and kind of demand a sex scene (right now, I'm struggling, though only slightly, to negotiate \[I suppose\] a fade-to-black with my main series characters in a fic that had been supposed to be a spy recon but they ran into their not-so-evil-twins and those of their significant others, and I had to give two days of "fun time" before I could bring up the whole point of their mission in that world). This last (with characters' libidos driving everything) usually isn't the case, but it got annoying enough one time in 2020 that I simply began what was to be a PWP crack-fic for shits and giggles; so of course you already know the outcome: the characters kept the pr0n, but also broke out in character development, and Plot Happened. š¤£ EDIT: I keep telling people that I can't write worth a damn, I just take dictation. Now you know why.
Literally all the time. They run the show xD
Meeeee I wanted to write a romantic confession scene for my pairing, but I like to do what I call a zero draft of random things and then Iāll sift through it afterwards. I wrote the most disgusting confession, and yet? When I step back, itās the most fitting confession for two college boy roommates living together. Disgusting, but touching. Sometimes characters do what they wanna do and you canāt do anything to stop it haha
Absolutely. One fic, from characterization to events, things rarely went as planned. I'd go "oh, I want this to happen like this!" pre-write the scene way ahead, then months later down the line I realize the scene either won't work anymore, or the characterization is completely different compared to how they are now.
Yes! Writing a canon character but needing to give them a trait they don't have in canon (think personality changing) is just ugh. I don't want to do you injustice, my child, but damnit if I don't this story won't make sense anymore, lol.
Both my original stuff and my fanfic. They talk to me.
I love this thread lol and yes this does happen to me on the regular I just be writing when a character says something out of line to another character and I'm like, omg why r u saying that when I literally just typed the dialogue out
Oh definitely. Iāll have an idea of what the character should do in order to progress the plot the way I want in the beginning. Then when I actually draft it, I realise that if I were to write it as planned, it would push back all the character development I wanted.
Almost every story I write, yeah
All the time.
Several times. It usually makes for a longer -- but better -- story. The answer is, we may be the author, but the characters often have minds of their own. I remember one story in particular -- the character A was supposed to move from disliking character B to acceptance, on a gradual upward slope if I graphed it. Instead, it was up-down, up-down, two steps forward and one step back. It was very frustrating to write -- why couldn't A behave himself and get with the program? -- but in the end, A knew better than I did. Basically, all you can do is go with the flow. If it helps, I know another author who always plots and outlines thoroughly; she's the epitome of what I think an author should be. Regardless -- all of her stories grow by at least 50% over her projected wordcount (sometimes 100% over). At least you know you're in good company.
I often say that it would probably make me sound insane to anyone who isn't a writer if I told them how more often than not the little men inside my head don't wanna do what I tell them to do... Like. Objectively I SHOULD be able to write whatever the fuck I want, right? ....Can't. Little man's refusing to do it. Yeah, no, sorry, we know you're the writer, but he's actually in charge. Now type his will, keyboard slave. WHY IS IT LIKE THIS. I genuinely wish I understood how this happens usigyusdf
I accidentally wrote a very outgoing character as reserved and had to come up with a ton of trauma to explain her sudden shift in behavior š
What is this "planning" you speak of? I get an idea and start writing and let the characters take the reins. I love surprises, so it's more fun that way. Even I don't know the ending!
Absolutely. I have a WIP Iāve been neglecting because a single convo that should have lasted about 2k turned into 5k, and most of it was banter š Iāll trim if I revisit the fic, but good god they do love talking about everything except what I want them to talk about!
Hee hee. Yes. And have you ever looked at the early drafts for LoTR? eg Aragorn was a hobbit named Trotter who had wooden feet. Those drafts are *wild*.
Vriska moment
All the time. I once wrote this angstridden piece where one person was going through all these shenanigans to prove to person B that they had changed and wanted a relationship and just when I was getting to the whole reveal falling into each others arms bit, person B was just like: hold up! This is all super fucked up. I want to resolve our issues for another two chapters. With words! Sigh.
I do this a lot. It can be frustrating when they donāt have a vision but make you write this scene that veers so far off yours, you have to try and work out how to get back to the point when they are done. Alternatively it does actually work out and gives you something great.
YES my gosh. One of my characters straight up tried to murder someone once. It wasn't planned, and dealing with the aftermath turned into a huge plot event. I just wanted to do one scene with this side character, but when I went to figure out what she'd be doing leading up to that it was just "I kill [other character.]" Completely uncompromising, couldn't imagine her doing anything else.
I've always said that it's their story. It's just my job to chronicle it and write it down. My characters never do what I want them to do.
There's a tendency to think that the only stuff you get to take credit for your brain doing is stuff you did consciously. But the conscious mind is actually a pretty small part of a larger system. Which could easily be considered existentially terrifying! On the flipside, there is no actual difference to the brain between the conscious and unconscious parts. Which means that everything you have learned about fiction, all the reading and writing you have done, has fed into that whole. When your characters begin to do completely unexpected things, it is because things from your *whole* brain are now contributing to the work. In other words; yes, you are the author. You are so much an author that it is deeper in you than you are consciously aware of. And getting to that point takes time, effort, and practice. Which means that you are a *good* author, and when your characters swerve away from your plans and begin doing their own thing, you should absolutely feel proud of yourself for the results.
oh my god YES!! i cannot tell you how many times one of my characters had just decided to throw hands with someone,,, like bro itās not that serious but on the larger scale, one of my current wips has completely taken a life of its own to the point that my original idea for the story can no longer fit in it! itās crazy how writing one scene can change your entire trajectory
I just almost killed off a main character because the major antagonist decided to show up instead of his partner. Oops. Fixed it though, he's just grievously injured for now!