Character or Plot: What's your strength?

Which are you better at: creating characters or plot?

characters	48.0%	[ 61 ]
plot	12.6%	[ 16 ]
I rock at both	11.8%	[ 15 ]
about the same	14.2%	[ 18 ]
I suck at both	8.7%	[ 11 ]
just gimme goldz!	4.7%	[ 6 ]
Total Votes:			[ 127 ]

This poll closed on December 1, 2012.
No longer accepting new votes.

[Queen Lucia]

I'm equally good at creating both, because I daydream most of what I write. The characters materialize without much thought, and the plot unfolds naturally. I add bits and pieces of emotions together for each character, and they usually fall into some sort of dialog. My imagination is pretty sweet.

[Moose Plushie]

I voted characters, but now that I think about it I think I am better with the plot.

[Riant Hybrid]

Characters all the way.
I think it's from the ten years (so far. I have no intentions of quitting.) of roleplaying. xD

[Lazarus Larkin]

I'm definitely better with characters. I usually come up with pretty well fleshed-out characters and a pretty good overall plot, but I have trouble adding subplots and smaller challenges along the way to make the story more interesting.

[Sathael]

I can invent logical, dramatic, complex and twisted plots until the cows come home. I can also create quite a few excellent characters, but somehow rarely in the same work.

Bummer.

[PurpleDragonHatcher]

I don't really do any of the hard work my self redface
I usually start with a really weird dream and tweak the plot until its not so... you know... hard to fallow?
Usually this ends in the plot being nothing like the originally but the characters personality stays about the same, well in the beginning of the story anyhow, I try to make sure they grow and mature with time.

[Painless Pleasure]

Well...I'm pretty good at creating characters, major and minor, and I'm kinda happy that Ette and Reid are developing not only on their own, but with each other.

[Lady Lagomorph]

I'm so much better at making characters. In fact, I'm often way too detailed with ones I particularly favor, which can cause problems for the lesser ones and the story overall. If there's a character I really don't connect with or find interesting, I often can't continue the story properly. I'm having that issue right now. My main character's wife is coming across as underdeveloped. While i have some directions I want to take her (and the story including her), now I feel like I can't continue until I determine the finer details of how she acts and thinks. Her personality's going to be different than how I originally saw her, but I think the new Lucy will work better than the old.

Now, as for concepts for plots, I feel like I have some really interesting ones; I just have to avoid becoming long-winded and dragging my heels like I tend to do.

[FlickeringWitchlight]

It's actually kind of tough for me. I really don't know.

Before, it was all about plot. My stories were very plot driven and the characters were just there. Lately, it's kind of both, but my characters feel more real and they have been pushing their way through the plot so it's more character driven.

I think I'm better at coming up with plots, and the characters kind of come up with themselves.

[angel_baby_4]

I am definitely more plot-driven. I don't even attempt to write a story without a plot design that drives the story forward. I surprised myself with my NaNoWriMo story, however, and the characters ended up changing where the plot was headed. The overall story and conflicts stayed somewhat the same, but there was a huge twist 3/4 into the story driven by the characters. Maybe my character creation is evolving slightly? I found that I was able to stick to and distinguish between the characters' general personalities more this-go-round.

[consumed by wanderlust]

i think i'm stronger in character, only because i like to make my characters really mentally unstable. need lots of development for that.

usually my plot is led by the character's issues, rather than me making a plot and forming around the character.

[Vlll]

I actually get most of my novel ideas from dreams I have. So, whenever the awesome dream occurs, I have a kick a** plot to start off with.

Characters, on the other hand, really depend on what the story is for me. Sometimes, characters are very difficult to come up with. I had mild difficulty with the characters for this year's story, just because I wanted each of their names to have a meaning, so it took some research on my part. It's seeing how the character develops after you create their personalities, though. I know that my characters tend to act and think in ways I did not original intend, so my base characters compared to the actual character are always different.

I actually feel bad whenever I try to revoke my characters' self-proclaimed freedom.

[Dark_Lady_Jade]

I'm better at plots. My characters are only fleshed out because I've grown up with them.

[SecretAgentAmyy]

I can't write plots to save my life, they always end up incredibly far fetched and lack consistency and start to sound silly. I prefer short stories, they're easier to handle cat_whee

[Wild Magic User 16]

I have trouble with both during NaNo WriMo. So its always a lot of prep to make sure everything is going to be ok. This year my main female was a little hard to make, but I think I did ok.