What Comes First: Character or Plot?

Hello Writer, and welcome back to my life. It’s Writer Wednesday, the day I give you my best tips and advice on the art and the business of writing, and tell you how I do what I do as an indie author.

Today’s question comes to us from my Patreon patron Zord, who asks:

What comes first, story or characters?

As per usual with Writer Wednesday, I’m going to answer this question by framing it around how I personally work. But I feel the need, especially on this topic, to highlight the fact that different authors work in different ways.

My very short answer is that I start with characters, first and always. But plenty of the best authors in the game start with story, and that’s okay.

Stephen King is rarely accused of having bland or two-dimensional characters, yet he often talks about how he gets the idea for the story first. His novel It began when he imagined what if there were still trolls under bridges in modern times. And then it turned into sewers, and from a troll into a clown…spider…alien…