Reader Question: If my characters are taking over my first draft, should I rewrite Act One or keep going?
From Michael M:
Scott,
I have a question about getting out the 1st draft and hope you can enlighten me. What do you do when you’re writing a 1st draft and the characters begin to take over — but in the process of taking over they also force you to totally rethink what you have written about them up to that point. (Including how they even enter the story) Do you go back and adjust the first act accordingly or plow through the script with the new, living characters and just keep the changes in your head until you reach the end.
I hope this makes sense to you. I understand that everyone’s process is different but this keeps happening to me and I find myself working on 1st acts until I don’t like it anymore.
Michael, the first thing to acknowledge is this is actually a great thing. As a writer you hope and pray your characters come to life, so while disconcerting, even frightening to have them veering away from your outline or how you imagined the story going, at the very least you should follow them to see where they take you. Who knows? They may end up winding back to your original plot. Or creating new story angles you had not imagined. Or you may choose to wrangle them back toward your original storyline. But it’s almost a lock you will learn something of value in the process and more than likely the route they take you is a preferable narrative path.
In terms of your specific question, whether to go back? As much as I’m a stickler about always moving forward in a first draft, I think you need to decide this based on your instinct. The changes your character’s ‘new’ choices require may be so radical, you simply can’t move forward without addressing the set-up in Act One. On the other hand, you may feel like you can make a set of notes about what changes you will need to make when you do a second draft, and continue charging ahead through your first draft.
If push came to shove, I’d recommend moving forward. Why? Because there is only one rule about first drafts and that’s this:
Get the damn thing done!
Even if you feel like it’s the biggest POS in the history of literature, it will have one defining quality that an unfinished draft can never have: It will be done. And there is value in that on multiple levels not the least of which is the knowledge you made it to FADE OUT.
GITS readers, what are your thoughts for Michael? Have you ever faced a similar situation? What did you do?
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