When characters hijack your stories

[M_Spencer]

Anyone ever have this problem where you have a story that you want to go a particular way, but you also have characters that you are trying to flesh out with complex and interesting personalities and it then becomes apparent that these people you created aren't going to do the things you had planned for them to do?

I'm dealing with a major issue along these lines. Two characters are supposed to end up together in some fashion - it's a central part to the main series I'm working on, and it also affects a half-dozen or so other stories - but some of the details about them have come together in such a way that makes it so the moment when this is supposed to happen pretty much can't happen. There's no way she's going to go for it; she needs more time. But that throws off the timing of the other spin-off stories, and it all gets messy from there.

It's frustrating, but kind of amusing at the same time.

I'm not looking for advice so much as commiseration from others who've encountered this.

 

[ElFewja]

I'll try to be brief. but I've already wasted a fair amount of time saying that I won't waste time. Great start, eh?

While I have encountered your issue before -- characters flowering/blossoming into a different direction than I had originally intended -- I tend to stick to one offs, so it's never been *that* much of an issue for me. I don't know where you're coming from, either: I don't know how many of these other stories are written already, or are planned to be written, or what your over all goal is.

What I would normally recommend is to let the characters dictate the plot and not the other way around. I used to do the latter and I think my older stories were weaker for it, not that I used to do much characterization then (or now, for that matter). I say favor the characters because the plot will potentially seem disingenuous if you force the people of your story to do something that wouldn't make sense normally, like they're just doing it to forward the plot. Characters are people, after all. They should act like people, not plot devices.

Now what I've said is not of help to you and, as I've said, I don't know much of your situation. Feel free to drop me a message and I'll help you where I can, give advice and what not, ask questions, or just shoot the shit. You can reply here but there's a solid chance I may miss oit or just completely forget. I don't get on the TMF so much, but messages hit me with an email so I won't miss that.

More on topic, I don't know. People are all different and react to different things in different ways. Maybe for some reason this character just acts differently than she normally would, or should, in this situation because of (I don't know, something). That's something people do, sometimes thinking things like I don't know why I'm doing this, this is dumb, this isn't like me. Temptation or desire, I guess? But I can't really give a solid recommendation without knowing more about what's actually going on, like this particular story but your entire goal(s) in general.