What came first, the Chicken or the Egg?

[image error] When writing a novel do you start with a plot or develop characters? It's a chicken or egg question that I recently asked my friends on Facebook. It’s interesting how many different answers I received. Since I write in two different genres, I tackle my projects from two different angles. My sci-fantasy novels center around the difficulties my characters face on the distant planet Drako, a world I imagined but the place seems real to my crazy writer’s mind. I know where the story is heading but I let it develop as I write about the characters. My mystery novels center around the difficulties characters face investigating a crime on the high seas. In both cases I write about people facing problems in unusual settings.
I considered my writing process as I planned my new mystery, Murder for Glacier Blue. Although characters drive my actual writing, the planning of a mystery novel starts with the plot. In this case I decided that an art heist (leading to a murder) takes place during a two-week Alaskan cruise. My two main characters also plan to marry during the voyage so that is added to the storyline. It sounded like a straightforward plan.
When I don my “mystery writer’s hat,” I must decide how the story ends before I begin writing. That should be easy. If my writing was plot-driven, it would be simple but characters interfere. They misbehave and balk at cozy solutions to the crime, often causing trouble along the way. My husband asks me what will happen in the story. He’s an architect so he’s used to creating blueprints where all the numbers add up to construct a solid building. It’s difficult for him to understand why I allow characters to change the plot and why the “ending” I imagined might not occur.
Last August I took an Alaskan cruise to firmly fix the book’s setting in my mind and diligently prepared a timeline, inserting events that should occur during the voyage. The locations are real so I charted the course of the novel’s cruise ship. Since I’ve published two books in the series, a handful of familiar characters reappear. I keep a cheat sheet describing those characters. Next I “imagined” new characters, their background stories and motives for the proposed crime, so I added them to the cheat sheet. The ongoing lives of established characters must evolve as the plot unfolds so I made sure those ideas appeared on the timeline. My architect husband approved of my plan.
Problems usually start when I flesh out the pesky new characters and introduce them into the manuscript. They interact with each other, have conversations, and move around the ship. Trouble looms as one character becomes more interesting than I planned, meddling with the nice orderly plot. No! The plan is already formed! I grow to like this particular character, so he/she gets more page time.
It’s usually a villain who interferes with the plot. Don’t you just love to write the villains? The last time this happened I introduced a minor character half-way through the first draft of a sci-fantasy novel and needed to rewrite the whole beginning of the story. I’m lucky I work on a computer! Imagine how hard it was for writers during the days of manual typewriters and white out?
I enjoy developing my characters so much that I seldom crack the whip and make them behave. Some authors will nod their heads in understanding while others frown (or laugh). Real life never runs smoothly and the hiccups make it more interesting. Why not let the plot change? The next time I answer the “which comes first” question, I’ll say, “It doesn’t matter if all the pieces fit together in the last chapter.”
As I proceed through the timeline of this new manuscript, I’m sure that new characters will intrude into my dreams and offer suggestions. Some of their ideas might sound intriguing…so who cares if they mess up my plans? I’ll wait to see how everything fits together in the last chapter. What an adventure!