Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way.
I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write.
I usually start with an ending, then outline high points of things that happen, and kind of make up the rest as I go along. Occasionally, the characters surprise me, and I wonder how we got here. Other times, the characters are stubborn and won't do something I want them to in the story.
I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.
I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!
I'm constantly being surprised and finding unplanned things - because the writing is a process of experiencing things on the ground with the characters.
For me, plot always comes out of character, so I had to be sure of my characters.
I love to see how a character unfolds off the page in a project. I don't always know how the character is going to turn out, even with the script being there. It's not always clear where that character is going to take me. Or where I will take them.
So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.
I'm always writing about character first. Plot, such as it is, comes from the characters.