Stopped forcing my characters through plot points and it fixed everything

For like 2 years I would outline a story and then FORCE my characters to hit each beat even if it felt wrong. Then I was writing this scene set in Portland where my detective was supposed to confront a suspect, but she just drove around for 3 pages thinking about coffee instead. That's when it clicked that I was treating my characters like puppets instead of people. Does anyone else let their story drift when a character wants to do something random?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_sullivan10d ago

Bro it's really not that deep, just write the story lol.

gracethomas10d ago

Yep, forcing characters is like forcing a convo at a party - @ray_sullivan, it's just weird and never works out.

ward.anna10d ago

I read a blog post by a writer who compared forcing characters through plot points to pushing a cat into a bathtub. The cat will fight you and eventually escape. But if you let the cat wander over to the tub on its own terms, it might actually stick its paw in the water. That really stuck with me. I had a similar breakthrough with a story where my main character was supposed to storm out of a meeting but instead sat down and ordered dessert. The scene went nowhere plot-wise but told me everything about how she handles stress. Sometimes those random detours are the real story trying to show itself.