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Fiction Friction: Beloved Characters That Nearly Weren't

Coiler said:
My go-to example for this is Wolverine originally just being a minor Hulk villain.
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The example I use from my own writing is Megan in Six East End Boys. Originally, I expected that she would fulfil the plot role of providing some technical expertise, and then getting killed off.

That's not how it turned out, and she became central to the sequels around Section D.
 
Charles EP M. said:
IIRC, his promotion was "hey we already have a Canadian, let's say he's a mutant and get Hulk readers to buy our international X team"
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Don’t forget the lucrative Tim Horton’s sponsorship that came with Wolverine.

“Cyke, bub, I’m the best at what I do and what I do isn’t pretty - but only after I have my usual medium coffee and donut holes from Tim Horton’s!”
 
Kimkatya said:
the funniest thing about wolverine being so canadian is that it makes marvel canada this strange kind of security-obsessed hellscape. say what you will about ottawa but they havent tried to give someone metal bones yet
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Given the recent explosion of genetically engineered super freaks in Canada’s southern neighbor in the last decade and all the problems that entails, I’m not shocked Marvel’s Canada started grafting experimental bio metals onto their First Nations Wolf People’s bones as a self-defense measure.

Really paid for itself when one of those American scientists with Virens Jekyll Syndrome rampaged across the border back in 2017.
 
Kimkatya said:
the funniest thing about wolverine being so canadian is that it makes marvel canada this strange kind of security-obsessed hellscape. say what you will about ottawa but they havent tried to give someone metal bones yet
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There were some big intelligence scandals in 70s Canada IIRC, but I don't know if that was part of the writing or a happy accident
 
More of a general point, as an evolver writer (aka pantser) I wonder if writers like me are more liable to create characters as they are needed or augment them beyond their original purpose, than plotter writers. Thus, if we know if an author is an evolver than we could expect this more.
 
Alexander Rooksmoor said:
More of a general point, as an evolver writer (aka pantser) I wonder if writers like me are more liable to create characters as they are needed or augment them beyond their original purpose, than plotter writers. Thus, if we know if an author is an evolver than we could expect this more.
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I might have an insight into this.

In my paying writing, the plots are very pre-determined, and the thumbnails of the characters likewise. What I have found here is that as characters get fleshed out in the writing process, they will develop quirks and so on to round them out from: "He; early 30s, very driven to succeed at work, private life takes second place to this. Trying to clear up mess brother made of family firm, and resenting it. Has focused to the extent he's lost sight of having a life."

These quirks are what bring the character to life, and they're more or less inevitable given that the character needs something to break them out of the straitjacket of the pitch premise.

In my hobby writing, I'm a pantser. Development of characters is more unpredictable. I don't know exactly how they'll turn out. Disappointingly, I find that where inspiration doesn't strike and the character is still struggling to emerge, I tend to fall into my familiar patterns.
 
Alex Richards said:
The odd thing with Kass's absence in Tears of the Kingdom is that plenty of other characters from BOTW are just sort of there in the background including Kass's wife and children.
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Yeah, it does illustrate Nintendo's relentless focus on gameplay mechanics, they just replaced Kass with Penn the journalist from a gameplay standpoint so, as far as they're concerned, there's no reason for him to be in there.

I just find it funny how stark the disconnect is between Nintendo's attitude of "COG A IN GAMEPLAY MECHANIC = insert name here at the last minute" and their fanbase's attitude of "let me do loads of Deviantart fanart about this soooo deep and memorable character".
 
David Flin said:
I might have an insight into this.

In my paying writing, the plots are very pre-determined, and the thumbnails of the characters likewise. What I have found here is that as characters get fleshed out in the writing process, they will develop quirks and so on to round them out from: "He; early 30s, very driven to succeed at work, private life takes second place to this. Trying to clear up mess brother made of family firm, and resenting it. Has focused to the extent he's lost sight of having a life."

These quirks are what bring the character to life, and they're more or less inevitable given that the character needs something to break them out of the straitjacket of the pitch premise.

In my hobby writing, I'm a pantser. Development of characters is more unpredictable. I don't know exactly how they'll turn out. Disappointingly, I find that where inspiration doesn't strike and the character is still struggling to emerge, I tend to fall into my familiar patterns.
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David, that is very interesting, thank you for sharing. I have always evolved my work and while sales have not been phenomenal, they have been decent, especially back in the mid-2010s, so I did not feel a need to change my approach. On one hand I do like the unpredictability of characters 'appearing' but then do worry if the characters are then simply 'plot devices'. Interestingly reading criticism of Season 8 of 'Game of Thrones' I saw people complaining that in contrast to the books, it was 'too character driven' rather than plot driven.

Writing is my prime hobby as well as a money-making activity and I like the fact that it does not feel the way writing reports or resources for my full-time job does, which maybe why I like spontaneity in where my books go as I get lots of 'highly plotted' writing in my day-to-day work with input far more critical than any editor of novels would give.

After reading this article, I did consider whether there were any characters who particular 'grew' as I wrote and in fact though I evolve my writing, in most cases I could think of - and I must say I cannot recall all the characters from my short story anthologies of the late 2010s - there was always going to be someone in their role, but perhaps not exactly the way they turned out. In Eve of the Globe's War which was filled with lots of parallel characters from our reality, Écuyesse Servane de Grimoard grew from being a minor character who was there primarily to show how lazy the MC was in challenging injustice to being a heroine and ultimately a love interest. Perhaps the character ironically that grew to be really significant in a story was in one of my non-AH novels, Folly. The Danish woman Hedvig Schmidt was meant just another of the MC's friends but ultimately her energy meant she effectively became the leading detective of the murder case and her role grew massively beyond what was originally envisaged.

These two examples lead me to think that while with evolving novels, characters can appear as simply tools for advancing the plot, if they develop strongly enough in your mind, they can begin to drive the plot, sometimes in unexpected directions or at least with an unexpected tone or focus.
 
Alexander Rooksmoor said:
These two examples lead me to think that while with evolving novels, characters can appear as simply tools for advancing the plot, if they develop strongly enough in your mind, they can begin to drive the plot, sometimes in unexpected directions or at least with an unexpected tone or focus.
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Definitely. I tend to start with a broad idea, and just write until I run out of steam. Only then do I start planning. That's when certain characters can start to take on a life of their own, becoming 'real' people, not just vehicles for the story. An example is Cassie in my current TL, The Three of Us.
 
IanBertram said:
Definitely. I tend to start with a broad idea, and just write until I run out of steam. Only then do I start planning. That's when certain characters can start to take on a life of their own, becoming 'real' people, not just vehicles for the story. An example is Cassie in my current TL, The Three of Us.
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Of course, this depends on the publisher. One I write for requires a very detailed plot summary before accepting a pitch. So detailed that there's never any plot surprises for the author. And if one drifts from the plot summary, then the publisher sends it back to be corrected.

That's writing for pay rather than fun.
 
Charles EP M. said:
Vimes just being meant as a background-setting secondary character?! Lord, the entire shape of Discworld changes if that happens
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Discworld does have several examples of promoted background characters. There’s Ponder Stibbons, who was introduced in Moving Pictures for the sake of a short scene where he takes an exam intended for his roommate Victor (who made a career out of not passing exams).

But my favorite is the Amazing Maurice, who went from a punchline in Reaper Man to being the title star in his own novel.
 
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