Some novelists see themselves as character-first writers, while others start with the plot. Which is better? Does it depend on your genre? Are you making mistakes that are crippling your writing?
I asked DiAnn Mills. She is a bestselling Christy Award-winning author who has been a finalist in the Rita Inspirational Choice and the Carroll Award contests. She’s also a founding board member of American Christian Fiction Writers and the director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference.
Which comes first, plot or character?
Thomas: Which comes first, plot or character? Is there a best approach?
DiAnn: When I write, I need to start with a clear idea of what the story is about. Once I have that, I consider whether it would make a strong suspense story. Then I ask myself what kind of character would have the most to lose if they failed and the most to gain if they succeeded.
When I figure that out, I shift my focus entirely to the character. I set the plot or story idea aside and work on understanding the character fully before moving forward.
Thomas: I have been getting into telling stories at the most basic level to my 18-month-old daughter. I’ll tell her stories to try and keep her in her highchair during dinner so we can all have dinner together. She doesn’t really care about characters yet, but she does care about the protagonist wanting something she can relate to. She can relate to the puppy dog who wants to play in the backyard. Then I throw obstacles in front of the puppy dog as he’s trying to get in the backyard while I’m buying time for the rest of the family to finish the meal.
It’s the same approach some authors take when writing their stories. They start with the protagonist’s desires and invent obstacles the protagonist must overcome.
What would you recommend? Coach me on how to tell a better story to my 18-month-old.
DiAnn: We want those obstacles and roadblocks so the character can figure out whether they will go over, under, or through the roadblock.
I’m a pantser writer. However, before I start chapter one, I complete several pages about my character, including their backstory. That character sketch teaches me so much. I learn
- Why do I want to write this story?
- Who is the best character?
- What’s their name?
- What does it mean?
- What are their problems?
- What are their goals?
My favorite question is: What happened in the characters’ lives from birth to age 12 that impacted them and shows who they are? I take that in ten-year increments until I come up with a year before the story opens. Then, I write the six months, three months, four weeks, 24 hours, and ten minutes before the story opens. I’m already crazy about my story, but that process builds my enthusiasm so I can start in the right place. By then, I know who that character is so I can dive into where they are going.
Thomas: That’s a lot of preparation for a pantser.
What is a “pantser?”
DiAnn: Some writers rely heavily on an outline. They meticulously plan their story, chapter by chapter and scene by scene, until everything is mapped out. Then, they simply fill in the blanks. For me, that approach feels extremely boring. It drains my imagination and stifles my creativity.
Instead, I focus on getting to know my character as thoroughly as possible. Once I understand them deeply, I place them into the story and let the process become an adventure. My tagline, “Expect an adventure,” applies just as much to me as it does to the reader. I want the entire process to be exciting and filled with moments of surprise, so I’m constantly asking myself, “What happens next?”
If my character stumbles upon a dead body, it’s as much a surprise to me as it will be to the reader. That’s how I prefer to work, and it’s the method that keeps the process fresh and exhilarating for me.
Thomas: You’re writing by the seat of your pants rather than following an outline. Writers need to understand that there’s no right or wrong way to approach this. We’ve had guests on this show who have been very successful using either method. What matters is finding the approach that works best for you and your genre.
If you’re writing thrillers, for example, it can be harder to stick to an outline and still make the story unpredictable. It’s not impossible, and some thriller writers use outlines, but a big part of what thriller readers want is the element of surprise.
In other genres, readers may not be looking for as much unpredictability. Romance readers don’t want too many surprises. Even in fantasy or science fiction, readers aren’t necessarily looking for twists and turns in every chapter. A few surprises are fine, but not constant unpredictability.
Each genre comes with its own expectations. You write by the seat of your pants, but your process starts by building a detailed backstory so you know your characters inside and out. You’re not creating the character by the seat of your pants; you’re creating the plot that way, letting it unfold as you write.
DiAnn: Many outliners feel that their creativity is in that outline, and they receive a lot of self-satisfaction from that. I applaud them. That’s just not the way I work.
Even though my characters are fictional, I want them to feel like my friends. Here’s a funny example: I used to be a church librarian, and one day, I went in to relieve the librarian before me. She said, “DiAnn, I didn’t sleep last night.” Naturally, I responded, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” She continued, “I decided to pray for everyone I knew, and then I realized I was praying for a couple of your characters!”
That’s exactly the connection I aim for. I want to feel that closeness, that friendship, or even that love-to-hate feeling if it’s a villain. I want my characters to live inside of me, to feel real and alive. The only way to achieve that is to spend time with them and get to know them deeply.
How do you create compelling characters?
Thomas: As you create these characters before you inflict the plot on them, how are you giving birth to these new individuals?
DiAnn: First, I want to understand my character’s outer landscape—how they look. I often start by finding a picture to represent them. However, it’s crucial to remember that every physical feature we give a character should tie into their motivation and self-confidence.
For example, imagine a young woman with big ears. As a child, her hair was kept very short, and the schoolkids teased her about her ears. Now that she’s grown and wears her hair long to hide her ears, those childhood experiences still linger and affect her self-confidence. This kind of detail can be woven into the story.
I once had a friend. She had one brown eye and one blue eye, and that always bothered her. Those are very important. They are vital to who your character is. When I go even further in developing a character, I use a Myers-Briggs personality testing that just works for me and my characters, but that just is a foundation. I haven’t even poured concrete with that. It just gives me a design.
Other questions I ask about the character are as follows:
- Where do they fall in their family birth order?
- Where do they live?
- What kind of school do they attend?
- What kind of education do they have?
- Do they have a job?
- How much do they make?
- Are they married?
- Do they have kids?
- Do they want kids?
I have the best time building that character and making it three-dimensional. I build them from the bottom up.
Here’s an example: Imagine a young man from Texas who grew up in a small country school where Friday night football was everything. When stormy weather hit, everyone headed to their tornado shelters. He was the golden boy, the star football player, a good student, and his mom’s favorite.
Now, let’s say he goes off to Harvard for college. Suddenly, he’s thrown into a completely different environment. He faces cultural shock and challenges he’s never encountered before.
The question becomes, what can we do with him in Boston that we couldn’t do while he was in his rural hometown? That’s the essence of character development. You have to stretch your character and put them in situations they don’t want to face, then watch how they grow and adapt. That’s where the story comes alive.
Thomas: So you’re building out what they look like, where they come from, and their physical bodies, as well as creating their backgrounds.
How do you figure out what the character wants?
Thomas: Motivation is an important element of creating good characters.
Sometimes, stories fail because the protagonist doesn’t act, they just let the plot happen to them. Walk us through figuring out what that character wants and how that relates to the rest of the story.
DiAnn: The wants, needs, goals, and challenges of a character all contribute to their motivation, which is essential for driving the story forward.
For example, imagine a young man who is head-over-heels for a cheerleader who won’t give him the time of day. She even has a boyfriend, likely the star football or basketball player. Despite that, his feelings for her don’t waver.
He begins to think, what can I do to make her notice me? How can I win her over and become her boyfriend? Then he thinks, “If I had a shiny new red pickup truck, she’d be all over me.” So, he decides to approach his parents for help.
Thomas: The solution—a shiny red pickup—fits perfectly with who he is as a rural football player. If he were an inner-city football player, that wouldn’t be his first thought because cultural expectations and the perception of pickups are entirely different.
For example, in a place like New York City, where parking alone can cost $300 a month, owning a large pickup truck would be more of a hassle than a status symbol. It would be impractical, difficult to maneuver in parking garages, and lack the appeal it has in rural Texas.
This goes beyond just understanding what a character looks like. A person’s cultural background shapes their decisions, motivations, and actions, influencing how they navigate their story. Once you’ve done the work of understanding that background, it becomes easier to write the story. The solutions they choose stem from the foundation you’ve built for their character and world.
DiAnn: Right. So he goes to his parents and says, “I’ve got some money saved, I have an after-school job, and I’ll be going to college soon. This truck would really serve me well. It could last me all the way through school and even grad school.” His parents think, “Wow, he’s really thought this through.”
He adds, “I can handle the maintenance, change the oil, keep it clean, and even pay for the insurance.” Convinced, his parents decide to help him get the truck.
Now he’s ready to impress the cheerleader. When he pulls into the parking lot in his big, shiny truck, heads turn. In the story, it looks like he’s on the verge of getting the girl and living happily ever after. But maybe not.
What he wants is the cheerleader. What he needs, however, is confidence. The story would have greater depth if he didn’t get the girl. That circumstance would cause him to grow, strengthen his inner self, and pursue a different, more meaningful goal.
The same idea applies even if the setting changes. If he were in Dallas and wanted a Corvette instead of a pickup, the underlying dynamic would still revolve around distinguishing his wants from his deeper needs.
Find out what your character wants, put obstacles in front of them, and make the goal seem nearly impossible.
Often, I think about Indiana Jones. He was always deathly afraid of snakes, but he always ended up facing snakes.
We have to put our characters where they are most afraid.
Here’s another example:
Let’s say we have an older man who, as a young boy, nearly drowned twice. Because of those experiences, he developed a deep fear of water. He never learned to swim, avoids boats, and stays far away from fishing or anything involving water.
One day, he’s walking with his three-year-old grandson, who says, “Pops, please, can we walk around the path by the pond to look at the geese?” The man doesn’t want to, but he loves his grandson, so he agrees. As they walk, they see geese fluttering near the water and a few goslings swimming close to the edge.
Suddenly, the boy breaks free from his grandpa’s hand, runs to the water’s edge, and falls in.
Now, the grandfather has to make a decision. He must overcome his deep-seated fear in order to save his grandson.
This is a perfect example of weaving character and plot together. We want the little boy to be saved, but first, the grandfather has to face and conquer his fear.
Thomas: Complex characters have more than one motivation, and sometimes those motivations are in direct conflict. Take the grandfather standing at the water’s edge. He’s facing a classic man-against-himself conflict because he wants two irreconcilable things—his safety and his grandson’s safety.
The same principle applies when you add other characters to a story. Each character has their own desires, which often clash with the protagonist’s desires. However, it doesn’t always have to be a direct, head-to-head conflict, like two people rooting for opposing football teams where one has to win and the other has to lose.
Take the high school football player who wants the cheerleader, for example. He wants to date her, but she’s focused on getting into Harvard. Her goals are entirely different from his, and he’s barely on her radar. He thinks she’s ignoring him, but she’s actually just studying hard to achieve her dreams.
Part of what makes a story engaging is the discussions and realizations about what the characters truly want. They ask questions like, “What do I really want?” and “Is what I’m pursuing actually the best thing for me?”
DiAnn: There are many kinds of obstacles and story conflicts. You said man-against-man, but it might also be man-against-society or man-against-nature. We’ve seen the big hurricane and tornado stories.
Thomas: I suspect man-versus-nature will be more resonant in the coming days. Nature has just gotten a lot scarier in the last three months. We thought we’d conquered nature, but we’re experiencing a pandemic.
DiAnn: But all of that builds strength and vitality. My three young grandkids have experienced major challenges. They’ve been through Hurricane Harvey with their home flooding and being displaced, and now they’re enduring the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some might say, “Oh, that’s so sad to have such difficulties during childhood.” And while that may be true, I also see how these experiences are strengthening them. They are being prepared to face future challenges and pursue their goals as they grow older. For that, I am thankful.
What Bible character encourages you as you put your characters together?
DiAnn: I like Peter because of his “open mouth, insert foot” philosophy. He always wanted the best for everyone, but he often tried to handle things on his own. That led to many lessons he had to learn along the way. Yet, through those lessons, he grew and achieved so much more.
I’m looking forward to meeting Peter someday because I can relate to him. My life hasn’t always been perfect, and I’ve made plenty of mistakes. But I hope I’ve learned from them. Those lessons, like the ones in a plot, prepare me for something harder and more meaningful.
I wouldn’t be ready to tackle those challenges if I hadn’t faced the earlier ones. Just like in storytelling, we build on the lessons learned, the pitfalls encountered, and the victories achieved.
Thomas: Peter is such a big personality, full of desires and energy, that he really drives the plot forward. The gospel writers focus on him quite a bit. But no one ever picks Thaddeus as their favorite. It’s hard to connect with Thaddeus because we don’t know much about him. He was just as much a real person as Peter, but since he doesn’t appear in the story as often, we don’t feel like we know him.
This highlights an important aspect of writing stories: you have to decide which characters are your main characters and which ones aren’t. We’re not writing Victorian novels where every character’s backstory is explored. And this isn’t a Marvel series where every character gets their own movie or book. You could do that, but it’s a huge amount of work and it’snot something you’d tackle with your first book.
We’ve talked about creating the protagonist—the person who wants something and drives the plot forward, ideally someone the reader relates to (unless you’re intentionally playing with that dynamic). Then there’s the antagonist, whose goals directly conflict with the protagonist’s, creating the central tension of the story.
How do you build good secondary characters?
Thomas: How do you create the kind of characters that are around your protagonist and antagonist? You don’t have as much screen time, so to speak, to build those out. How do you build good secondary characters?
DiAnn: I want secondary characters who support and a secondary character who opposes. I often refer to the setting as a secondary character that is an antagonist, but that’s for another discussion.
I want characters who provide wisdom and others who don’t. This forces my protagonist to change and grow, developing into their own person capable of making meaningful choices about life. I want my characters to face decisions that move the plot forward.
I especially enjoy putting my characters in situations where they have to choose between two bad options and then deal with the consequences. To me, characters initiate action. They aren’t passive victims. While they may have been victims in their backstory, that’s where they gained their strength.
When they decide to climb a mountain, they strap on their boots, pack their backpack, and prepare as best they can. They know what to bring, but they don’t know whether they’ll face wild animals, sharp rocks, or unpredictable weather on their way to the summit.
Thomas: That’s a great point because one of my biggest pet peeves when reading a story is when characters act unnecessarily idiotic just to move the plot forward. It feels like a lazy crutch. The writer needs an obstacle, so the author makes the character make an obviously wrong decision.
Wrong decisions can add depth, but the problem is when the decision is so blatantly wrong while there is an obvious better choice. A good wrong decision is one where the character looks at the facts, makes their choice, and the author takes us through their thought process. Even if readers disagree with the decision, we can understand why the character made that choice. It feels consistent with their personality, motivations, and backstory.
What I can’t stand is when a character does something outright stupid. For example, I was reading a spy story where the bad guys had planted a spy on the protagonist’s ship. The protagonist didn’t immediately spill all his secrets to this spy, even though he was suspicious of the person. And I was glad. It would have been so easy for the author to have the protagonist spill all the beans.
By avoiding that lazy trope, the spy became a more interesting character. The spy had to work harder to uncover the secrets instead of having the protagonist vomit everything out. All your minor characters are the main characters in their own story. That security guard your protagonist walks past has his own life goals and story, which is easier to protray in a book than in a movie.
In many action movies, the heroes often fight faceless bad guys. These enemies are usually masked or obscured in some way for good reason. Most films only have about ten stunt performers, so when heroes or villains are fighting large groups, they’re really just fighting the same ten stunt performers repeatedly. By making the enemies faceless, filmmakers can reuse the same stunt crew without needing a larger team.
For example, in The Lord of the Rings films, most of the orcs were played by the same 15 stuntmen and one stuntwoman. They wore different orc makeup and costumes, but the same performers were used over and over again as they were killed by the heroes.
Books, however, allow you to give even minor characters distinct personalities and backstories, making them feel more real and unique.
DiAnn: No bad guy gets by with all of his crimes unless he’s pretty much a genius. When they do something stupid, it just deflates absolutely everything. In a book, you can give your small supporting character a bit of something that makes them identifiable. They don’t have to be faceless.
Thomas: Authors have the freedom to give characters a few lines of dialogue, while movie makers often can’t. In movies, few minor characters have speaking roles because the moment a character speaks, their pay changes to a higher bracket due to union contracts. This is why you rarely hear any dialogue from the nameless enemies or background characters the heroes are fighting. It’s a cost-saving measure.
As an author, you’re not bound by those limitations. You can give otherwise faceless characters a word, a line of dialogue, or even a bit of description. This small effort can breathe life into them, adding depth and interest to your world. It enhances your story, giving it richness and color that captivates readers.
DiAnn: On the other hand, having too many characters can overwhelm the reader, making it unclear who to bond with and who to focus on. This confusion risks pulling the reader out of the story, which is something we always want to avoid.
We also need to be cautious with the number of point-of-view characters we use. While some epic stories might have five or more points of view, that’s not my style. I typically stick to two or three, depending on whether the villain needs a point of view.
I want to emphasize here that every time we switch points of view, we ask the reader to step into that character’s world. They have to put on all the character’s clothes, mindsets, and experiences. It’s a mental shift, and readers can only do that so many times before they lose interest in the story.
Finding the right balance depends on your genre and the ultimate goals of your story arcs. Consider how many points of view are necessary to serve the story and how much your reader is willing to invest in making those transitions.
Thomas: Some genres naturally lend themselves to multiple points of view. Epic fantasy, for example, often features many point-of-view characters, and to a slightly lesser extent, science fiction does as well. In contrast, genres like romance with more than two points of view tend to frustrate readers because they expect a more focused and intimate story.
Military science fiction often includes multiple points of view out of necessity. These stories usually depict large-scale wars spanning entire galaxies. It’s not realistic to have one character jumping from solar system to solar system to narrate everything.
However, even in genres that allow for many points of view, use caution. Too many points of view can make a book feel overwhelming or impenetrable.
How do you know whether to add more characters or consolidate them?
DiAnn: The plot determines what has to be accomplished. I evaluate how vital the antagonist’s or villain’s point of view is. If the setting is antagonistic enough that I don’t need a third point of view, then two points of view may be sufficient. But suppose the antagonist’s point of view is sympathetic (because every antagonist believes they are doing the right thing). In that case, I ask whether that “right thing” can have a positive or a negative effect on my reader. If I feel the antagonist’s story is valuable and vital, I will put them in. If not, then we may never get to know them until the tough, dark moment. We must have a solid reason to bring in another character, and they must add depth to the story.
I recommend looking at the story idea and character to see if it is enhanced by adding someone else. On the other hand, if a well-meaning critique partner says you have too many characters, look at your cast and see how many you can assign multiple roles to help weave the plot and make the motivation more intense. There’sWe can always do something, but we have to weigh our story. As Stephen James says, “Story trumps structure.”
Thomas: There’s a moment in the Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo and Sam are leaving the Shire and walking across a field farther away from the Shire than they’ve ever been before. And it’s really interesting how this moment is captured differently in the book than in the movie. In the movie, Sam makes a comment like, “This is the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.” He takes this dramatic step, and it’s an okay movie moment.
But in the book, Tolkein goes into the point of view of a squirrel that’s observing, “Wow, there are hobbits here. There aren’t normally hobbits in this field.” You get a paragraph from the point of view of a squirrel that you never visit again, but it gives grandeur to two hobbits walking across a field. It’s a big character moment. Tolkien did it by going to the point of view of a squirrel pondering the curiosity of the hobbits far from the Shire. Then the squirrel goes back to chasing nuts, and you never see him again.
He didn’t add a squirrel’s point of view for grins and giggles. He did it on purpose to impact an important character beat. It wouldn’t have felt important for humans, but for hobbits, being far from home was a big deal; such a big deal that even the animals notice when hobbits leave the Shire. It’s a sign of strange days.
- Connect with DiAnn Mills at her website.
- Download DiAnn’s Advanced Characterization Sketch template.
- Book: The Dance of Character and Plot (Affiliate Link). Create amazing characters and put them in a plot that will keep your readers reading.
- Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference