A few weeks ago, I was procrastinating scrolling through the Writer Unboxed Facebook group and came upon a great question from Veronic Standish:
As usual, there were lots of supportive, helpful answers. Some people talked about starting with world-building, others about starting with characters. I added my own thoughts — either is fine, depending on the way your brain works — and moved on. I probably wouldn’t have given the question another thought if I hadn’t almost immediately come across this meme (h/t Valerie Chandler and Danielle Davis):
Those two pieces of social media crashed together in my brain and got me thinking. About what? About Star Wars and prequels and characters and world-building and the mish-mash of elements that lead to Story.
Dudes wrote it.
Look, I’m as happy as the next person to jump on the “men don’t understand what women want” bandwagon when it’s required, but, in this case, I don’t think that’s the problem. (At least, not the entire problem.) No, I think the issue with the prequels was simply that they were, well, prequels. So it was all about the plot.
Imagine being in a writer’s room, trying to put together the plot of a trilogy to precede one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.
- We need to tell the story of Anakin being trained by Obi-Wan.
- He has to turn to the Dark Side and have his body nearly destroyed.
- But first, he has to impregnate a princess so she can give birth to a son and a daughter and then die.
- We need cameos by Yoda and Chewbecca and R2D2 and C3PO because fan-service. Also, intertextuality.
- And we really should explain how the Force works. (Somebody save us from the stupidity of midichlorians.)
- Also, explosions! Magic! Droids! Glowsticks! Huzzah!
Nowhere in that mythical brainstorming session does the subject of authentic characterisation come up. Characters existed for the sole reason of hitting the necessary plot points. We need a kick-ass space-princess senator? Introducing Padme. We need a princess to fall in love with Anakin? Hello, Padme. We need the princess to give birth and then die? Sucks to be Padme.
Sure, it makes more sense for Padme to fall in love with young, hot Obi-Wan. But she couldn’t. Because plot.
Interactive Storytelling
Which brings me to the intersection of these two snippets of social media. See, when I answered Veronic’s question, I related my answer back to the way stories are created in roleplaying games; specifically in that old staple: D&D. (Dungeons and Dragons, for the uninitiated.)
I grew up playing roleplaying games (RPGs), and I can honestly say that I learned more about the nuts and bolts of telling stories from participating in RPGs than through any other source. For the non-geeks in the audience, rest assured that I’m not about to delve into the mechanics of rolling funny-shaped dice and killing monsters. That would be boring. Besides, that’s nothing but a bad stereotype of RPGs.
My favourite way to explain what it’s like to play a roleplaying game is as follows:
Have you ever read a book or watched a movie and thought: “Man, I would not do that.”?
Or: “If I was that character, I would <insert better plan here>.”?
Congratulations. You’ve mastered the basics of roleplaying.
Roleplaying games, at their best, are a form of interactive storytelling wherein players take on the role of an authentic character and follow a narrative that takes place within a well-developed world.
Being a Character
The majority of the players in an RPG (all but one) take on the role of a character. Depending on the game, creating a character may involve rolling some of those funny-shaped dice I mentioned earlier. But that’s just window-dressing and game mechanics. Really, creating a character for a roleplaying game is exactly the same as creating a character for any story.
Your character has a personality, a backstory, values, beliefs — and misbeliefs — and clear wants, needs, and goals. Then you take on the role of that character, interacting with the other characters and the events of the world as they arise.
What events? I’m glad you asked.
Being a Storyteller
One of the players in an RPG does not take on the role of a single character. She takes on the role of the Storyteller (also called the Dungeon Master, Game Master, or one of a dozen other titles, depending on the game). Her job is to create the world.
Now, I don’t just mean the physical landscape here, although that’s part of it. The world includes:
- The setting
- The rules of magic, science, etc.
- The political, social, and legal environment
- Every person who exists in the world, other than the player characters
The Storyteller creates dozens of authentic characters (called NPCs – non-player characters): the antagonist, the plucky comic relief, the police informant, the monster under the bed, the mafia accountant, and the manic pixie dream girl who sells the characters coffee embellished with foamy pictures of unicorns. And then she lets them loose to follow their dreams, goals, wants and needs.
Characters + World = Story
The story (game) is afoot when the player characters intersect with the Storyteller’s world. A good Storyteller will create NPCs that specifically push against the beliefs of the player characters, forcing the characters to confront their misbeliefs and grow, but she doesn’t create a “plot”. The plot is merely the series of events that ensue as the story develops naturally; the milestones along the way as the characters’ goals crash against the NPCs’ goals, creating tension, conflict, successes, failures, and, ultimately, a resolution.
This is true of roleplaying games. But, more importantly for us, it’s also true of any other form of storytelling.
I use this perspective in everything I write. I am the player characters, taking on the role of the protagonist and major characters of the story. I am also the Storyteller, designing the world and all the denizens within it. I play all the parts of my story, and scribble their interactions on to the page.
Do you begin with world-building or characters?
And so, back to Veronic’s question:
It doesn’t matter whether you start your planning by being a Player Character or a Storyteller. Design your characters first if that appeals to you. Design your world first if that appeals to you. What matters is not the order in which you do those things, but the depth and authenticity that you bring to both aspects of the story.
If your characters are full-blooded, 3-dimensional people with hopes and fears, and your world is well-developed and full of authentic NPCs who have goals that intersect with and disrupt your character’s needs, you will have yourself a story — and the plot events will develop naturally.
Have you learned about storytelling through roleplaying games? Do you have a different answer to Veronic’s question?
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About Jo Eberhardt
Jo Eberhardt is a writer of speculative fiction, mother to two adorable boys, and lover of words and stories. She lives in rural Queensland, Australia, and spends her non-writing time worrying that the neighbor's cows will one day succeed in sneaking into her yard and eating everything in her veggie garden.
I have only a few times played RPGs — but now I want to play more! And I want to be Storyteller.
I can definitely see how shaping a world would be like writing a novel, and how it would help in learning how to tell a story better. As for Veronic’s question, I can only relate to the time travel story I wrote, which, granted, is not truly the same, but……for that, the world and the story and the characters were all intertwined in my mind, so I’m not sure I could say for certain which I developed first.
I truly do want to play a RPG. Tell me where to start! (The truth is ever since the UnCon, I’ve been a little envious of all you SciFi writers…) xo
Thanks so much for reading, Julia.
If you want to get started with roleplaying, the first thing you need a a group to play with — or, at least, one other person. If you can con someone else into playing with you, then the next thing you need is to decide on a game system, and to read the book/s. D&D is the most known game, but (being perfectly honest) one of my least favourites.
Depending on your preference, there’s a pretty good Firefly game (set in the Firefly universe), D&D is straight epic fantasy, there’s a Lord of the Rings roleplaying game (set, obviously, in Middle Earth), and there’s the World of Darkness, which sets up game systems wherein you play a vampire, werewolf, changeling, and other supernatural creatures. One of my favourite games is Amber, which is set in the universe of Roger Zelazny’s Amber series.
Maybe I need to see if I can organise a roleplaying evening at the next UnCon….
…this morning’s ‘AHA’ moment brought to you by Jo Eberhardt.
LOL Thank you!
Hugs,
Dee
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT (Gift of Travel)
You’re so welcome, Dee. Thanks for dropping by!
Thanks for that! I spent a number of years (mostly college) playing D&D, and have recently started what I plan to be an urban fantasy series after years of writing historical fiction. I went back to my D&D roots when world building for this first novel because it was familiar.
Your observations and comments were spot on with my experience. Thanks for the ideas and validation.
Thanks for commenting, Derek. I’m not a huge fan of D&D as a game system (possibly too many bad, teenage games), but the worldbuilding possibilities presented in the books are excellent to use for designing any fantasy or urban fantasy setting.
As a fellow urban fantasy writer, I’m right there with you.
Cheers!
I’ve been representing SFF for almost forty years. I can tell you this: SFF readers want to escape right away into a world not theirs, with different rules. That’s job #1.
Characterization has suffered, or used to. Today deep and authentic characterization is expected–and delivered. Padme? Nowadays we roll our eyes.
My only quibble is with your statement “plot events will develop naturally”. Uh…one hopes!
I had a professor who said once that readers don’t remember plots, they remember characters. I’ve found that what SFF readers really tend to remember are novel setpieces, systems, and props — but I don’t think that contradicts his point, because in SFF the world is a character, too.
I may have been too flippant in regards to that statement.
I stand by the sentiment, however that’s not too say that those plot events are perfect on the first go. They often need to be enhanced polished, and emphasised in the planning stage and during revision. Better to be working on enhancing a plot event that makes sense for all characters than trying to shoehorn characters into unrealistic situations because you came up with a “cool plot idea”.
I have to admit, Jo, that I felt sort of humbled by your reply in Veronic’s thread on the group page. You may recall, I had replied ahead of you, but all I did was briefly rehash some of what I had done at the onset. Your answer – even more fully delved and presented here – offered so much room for individuality and unfettered exploration. You’re obviously a better teacher.
It’s always difficult for me to convey what got me started, or what my initial idea was. After all, my particular story-soup was 30+ years in the stewing. That’s just a tad unusual, and absolutely no help to most any beginner looking for a solid step forward.
It reminds me of Meg Rostoff’s presentation at the first UnCon, about how 90% of our brain activity is subconscious, and how we collect what comes through to the conscious in a sort of memory and thought-processing colander. I’d been musing over the origins of myth, and the tropes of the fantasy genre, for years. And I recently found a sketchbook from my early teens that my mom had saved, and it was full of drawings and stories about Vikings and Romans, as well as female warriors and super heroes. So that stuff’s been in the colander even longer than the trope musing. Gather it all up, chop and blend, and slow simmer it for decades, and voilà!
In looking back, it’s sort of like D&D solitaire. Guess I just didn’t have enough geeky-cool friends back then. My loss. Thanks for being an excellent teacher, as well as a geeky-cool friend, Jo!
It’s been years, but now that I think about it, Padme may have been my breakthrough. A cleaner characterization would have been the mature characters falling into love, even if companionable, and unrequited. Followed by either a plot twist, which would have been a cheap trick, or a more satisfying growth in Padme, realizing that she wasn’t the infatuated young Queen any more. She’s forced into close proximity, security you know, with Anakin, and we have a much better movie, working out the triangle.
Sigh,
Why was this a turning point? Because this was roughly when my gray matter flipped from plot-driven memes to character-building ones.
What fires me is the slow but inevitable creation of a character pushed into my conscious mind with issues, loves, needs, and generally a hot mess. So, “all” I have to do is create a world where the character, normally a female, would exist, companionship, frenemies, story to mix them together to create and respond to the hot mess that they are, and when the early reader’s complain about all that relationship stuff, a grenade going off.
By starting with characters, I may not be commercial, but I love my characters. Some become novels, others, short story series.
OMG, the Star Wars prequels would have been so much more interesting if Padme actually fell in love with Obi-Wan. Anakin descending into madness and strangling her when she tried to bring him back from the dark side was narratively weak; I just rolled my eyes when I watched that scene as a teenager. But if Anakin knew about his wife’s childhood crush on his mentor, there would have been an undercurrent of distrust and jealousy in their relationship all along.
Then when the pregnant Padme was begging him to stop massacring children and Obi-Wan stepped out of the ship behind her, Anakin wouldn’t just have acted like, “Boo-hoo, you’re all against me, and I’m going to demonstrate to the audience how evil I’ve become by choking you!” It would have been like, “Faithless woman! You’ve betrayed me!” And then Anakin’s heartbreak would make him lose what little was left of his good sense, and he’d suspect the children Padme was carrying weren’t his. Instead of a kick-the-puppy moment, the scene would have been a tragic Othello moment.
It wouldn’t have taken much to add this little twist to the story–just a few tweaks in dialogue and expression in already existing scenes. All of the same plot points could play out just as they did. But adding complexity to the characters and their relationships would have given much more emotional weight to the story, IMO.
I like your revised version so much that I’m just going to pretend that’s what really happens in the movie from now on.
My thoughts exactly, Joy. And kudos, Terry. From now on, this is how I’ll choose that particular embarrassing stretch of Star Wars lore.
I played tabletop RPGs off and on for twenty years, including GMing my own long running campaign. That’s how and why I initially developed the world of Eneana, the setting for all the stories I’m writing now (shameless plug: and posting on my blog, if you feel like checking them out). I love what you said about the interactive storytelling aspect of playing — when the game works, that part is just magical. My favorite parts were always when the players would be faced with some decision where they had to decide between the action that would most likely result in dice roll success, and “yeah, but what my character would *actually* do is….” Those scenes ended up being the most touching and heartbreaking — or at times, the most hilarious.
My gaming group has scattered and I’m devoting my former gaming time to writing now, but boy, I wish I had a few more hours in the day. You’ve got me jonesing for it now!
This was a helpful post to me, as I’ve been contemplating writing a historical fantasy for a LONG time and never seem to get very far (or far enough: I have a decade’s worth of notes…).
I’ve also been thinking lately about how difficult it is to create a story that combines all the right elements in the right amounts. It’s so easy to write the mystery that relies too much on the puzzle at the expense of characterization. Or the fantasy that has world building that merely bogs down the narrative. And so on.
What a timely post. I’ve been pondering world building a great deal recently. Setting has always been important to me, serving more as an enveloping presence than merely backdrop for character and plot. But with my first book, I was working within recorded historical events, which naturally set some (welcomed) boundaries. I even adjusted details as I learned more about the particular history of the locales depicted fictionally in my tale.
My new wip, however, allows much freer expression since it takes place in the near future, my take on a not quite distopian but certainly darker period which might unfold if events unravel badly in the coming years. So even as I delve into the characters of the small community of my story, I find myself having to understand the state of the world around them, and the events that led to its downfall. In a sense, I suppose, it is my first attempt at comprehensive world-building.
What surprises me is how delving into those details is actually making it easier to find the characters, to understand their motivations. It is as if I, as the writer, am experiencing what I hope translates to the page, a series of what-if questions such as these – How would I behave if this were the town I had to navigate after a catastrophe? Who would I become if I had to face the tragedies of my protagonist?
It’s not that I didn’t do that with my first book; in many ways it was my main motivation for writing it. But there are no guidelines on this new world, and rather than find that frightening, I am – at this point at least – finding it incredibly freeing. The challenge is to craft plausible characters responding to a realistic environment, even if that environment is one woven of fresh cloth.
You had me at “Sucks to be Padme.”
Great article, Jo.
Jo,
Fun post, and certainly relevant to non-SFF writers. Although I was off being a single mom when RPGs developed, I certainly participated from an absurdly young age in a version of them.
Alone or with a friend, I would concoct elaborate stories that developed over months. If with a friend, then we would take turns telling each other the next part of the story, debating details of the world and characters. If alone, I would convert bits of it into plays and persuade (force) my younger siblings to act them out with me. Sometimes the current friend and I would pretend to be our characters as we went about our normal lives.
Later, reading about the Bronte children’s elaborate worlds and stories of Gondal and Angria, I delighted in this historical precedent for my story-telling games.
I never really stopped. The form and content of the stories simply morphed over time. To your question, the world was so much a part of who the characters were that I cannot say one came before the other.
Huh. How much better characterization the prequels could have had if Padme HAD been in love with Obi Wan (unrequited) so settles for Anakin–creating more insecurity for the young padawan, driving him further (farther?) toward the darkside. A Jedi love triangle scored by New Order.
Love this, Jo! I hadn’t given much thought to why the Star Wars prequels were so much less satisfying, but I think you nailed it.
And I’m enjoying the alternative endings people have suggested. ;-)
I don’t write fantasy–and sadly was never introduced to RPGs–but I find that whenever I’m stuck in my writing it’s because I’m making the characters do something because *I* want them to, not because it makes sense for who they are and what *they* want. Thanks!
I played RPGs a few times, couldn’t really get into them.
I always start a story with the characters. The world is experienced through their eyes and perceptions, not my own, so I waste no time on world-building .