E.S. Raye

I’ve seen this question come up several times among writers: do you think of characters or plots first?

I can’t speak for every writer, but for me, it’s both–and sometimes neither.

Character First

The story idea that inspired me to become a writer (and is still rattling around in my head waiting for me to get around to writing it) very much started with the character.

I am referring, of course, to the epic, 7-book scifi/cosmic horror/superhero/alternate WW2 history series I often refer to as “The Cobalt Fist.”

I’ve been a comic book fan since I was a kid and as I got older and became interest in World War II history. I noticed that the DC superheroes didn’t go overseas in their comics during the war. Superman never fought in France, nor Batman in Belgium.

This made me ask the question, “What would a real ‘golden-age of comics’ superhero do if World War II broke out in the heyday of their superhero-ing career?”

In order to answer that question, I created Gorman Durnin, AKA The Cobalt Fist, a superhero from Boston who enlists after Pearl Harbor. He is recruited into a special division of the Airborne and gives up his superhero persona.

He’s changed a bit from my original image of him to fit the story I’ve built up around him, but he definitely came first.

Similarly, for the first draft manuscript I just finished, Shallow Trenches/Open Skies–a sci-fi set during World War I–the story sprang from the character. In this case, my background/world building notes for The Cobalt Fist.

*Minor SPOILER Alert*

The main character of Shallow Trenches will go on to become Gorman’s superior officer.

When brainstorming characters for The Cobalt Fits, I needed a superior officer with the proper expertise. Once I knew his story, I wanted to write it.

Plot First

On the other hand, the story I stopped working on The Cobalt Fist to write instead, Gas Giant Gambit: A Tall Tale From Beyond the Cygnus Rift, absolutely came to me as the plot first.

I knew I wanted to write a space-western about greed and power. I also knew I wanted to write a story that was so “western” that you wouldn’t have been surprised to see John Wayne or Clint Eastwood as the main character. And then I wanted to drop it into a science fiction setting. I also knew I wanted to subvert as many tropes as I could along the way.

(Additionally, I knew I wanted to pass the Bechdel-Wallace test, something I keep in mind with every project.)

And so, because westerns are overwhelmingly male led and are often quintessentially and heterosexually masculine, I chose to write a female LGBTQ+ lead character.

Character vs Plot

This woman with no name I call Gus was created to fit the story, not the other way around, like Gorman. But I think they are, together, my favorite characters that I’ve created. One a space-faring gunslinger with a chip on her shoulder, the other a guilt-ridden superhero trying to atone for past mistakes in a world gone to Hell.

They’re very different from one another, both in how they were created and the stories they exist in (though both are in the same universe and both carry the pink-beamed ray-gun Delilah!), but I really don’t think it matters.

I don’t think plot or character coming first is important. I believe they are two halves of the same whole. If you try to shove any character into any story, it usually won’t work. It has to be the right character for the right story. When they’re combined they feel real, and their message feels true.

Neither Character nor Plot?

Lastly, there is one more option: that neither plot nor character come first.

This is actually where I find myself now.

With the first draft for Shallow Trenches/Open Skies now complete, I am shifting into brainstorming mode once again to outline my third novel.

I’m so early in this phase that you could reasonably say I’m at the point where either plot or character should be inspiring what will come next. But in this case, I had a concept first.

I’ve had this idea in my head about a meteor crashing to Earth, and at the very moment it makes impact, a small group of people who all have something in common (even if I don’t know what that is yet), get shifted into an alternate reality. Everything there is basically the same–same structures, same geography, etc.–but it is empty of life except for these newcomers.

I also know that the “real” world has some influence on this other reality, and time does not pass the same in the two.

But that’s the seed from which the story will grow, not character nor plot–although those this are coming together nicely already.