#handsomeluke

Specifically regarding main story vs characters, the nature of how The Nameless came to be meant I knew the characters first, and I have always connected more with developing them and their relationships. That being said, it didn’t really kick off until I fully dug into designing the world (and had my SO and a friend lovingly poke holes all over it, which they still do regularly haha). 

Once I knew the big overarching story and background driving force for the series, other things started falling into place. The character traits felt more natural as I was able to better solidify the goals that would guide them. And that’s not to say I have every single nitty gritty thing figured out in the world for sure! But having the end goal/result of the story you want to tell early on is extremely important to help develop everything else and will make it a hundred times easier. Which, writing “out loud” sounds like very silly and obvious advice haha, but I've definitely fallen into a trap of developing characters without really knowing what their motive in a story will be.

Some other great advice I’ve received is probably going to feel like a cop-out, but honestly it is just to do it, do the writing, do the thing. I very much struggle with this, of wanting to only put out high-quality polished writing the first time I put something down and sort of falling into this analysis paralysis of getting caught up in the thinking without actually doing. 

But every time you write doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, and it doesn’t even have to be related. Write some fanfiction, write some random prompt with characters you made up on the spot, but I think just getting into the flow of writing and setting aside that time will help kick up those creative juices. And even if you don’t have the end goal or overarching story yet, just start writing about the world or its characters in snippets (and then watch a Google doc get unwieldy and unorganized)

This is just my newbie two cents though, and there’s a billion other bits of great and better advice out there by much more experienced folks! If IF is what you’re interested in, the CoG forum is also a wonderful place to put WIPs and get great and honest feedback.