Characters - are they real or am I insane?

Peter Graham said:
but we are all rather too old to still have imaginary friends.
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Speak for yourself -:eek: I've never been too old. Mug of coffee and an imaginary friend or two in their various worlds save this Mum's sanity on a regular basis. And actually I have a story very much like the one you suggest about a story fairy it was where my children's stories came from, oh and my adult naughty fairies.

I see no good reason to change the way I write. How you write is your business and how I write is mine.

We need to take responsibility and ownership for what we produce, rather than seeing ourselves at the gatekeepers to another world which is not of our making.
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Again YOU need to take responsiblity for that which YOU produce rather than seeing YOURSELF as the gatekeeper to another world which is not of YOUR making. - you can take me out of that sentence.

How you write clearly works for you and you are happy with it. I'm equally very happy with what I do and the results. What I also love about my work is the productivity - I'm as enthralled with it as I am reading a book. Writing for me is above all fun, however a good character deserves a great story and I will make it the very best I can.

I was an archaeologist once upon a time and writing a story is the same buzz of uncovering the unknown. Part of that job is letting the past come alive. I couldn't force those stories, because they happened as each layer of dirt was removed. If I didn't allow the characters to be real as I wrote that buzz would be a lot less strong and not as addictive. Writing, rewriting, editing is a buzz. Rewriting and editing are like the thrill of polishing and restoring something to its former glory. When writing history as I was learning the key word drummed into us was empathy, and to me those 'ghosts' were very real as I worked.

Why do I NEED to change the way I write? What terrible thing is going to happen? Surely the worst is I continue to put my work online and self publish. That's fine - for me the reward is the old combat soldier crying at the death of Little Chick, or a straight man concerned about how he is rooting for my gay couple, the teen girl or boy that has a crush on my characters, making someone giggle or laugh. I love getting that kind of feedback - I even get a kick out of those that hate what I write.
 
:confused::DLOL that is what I get for not reading the rest of thread. I already participated in November. Which will explain the weird deja vu feeling I had writing the above post.

I've written two first drafts since then and my views haven't change an iota ;) My characters are constantly surprising me. As the song I posted goes I'm nothing without them and vice versa.
 
Hi AK,

You misunderstand. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to write. Each to their own. All I'm saying is that characters do not have lives and thoughts of their own (as postulated in the OP) and any attempt to pretend otherwise is just that - pretence. I have also argued that maintaining the pretence can harm, rather than help, the finished product.

If anyone had really found a way to create independent, free-thinking human (or fairy) life through writing, we are going to need to seriously rethink a few basic scientific laws.

And actually I have a story very much like the one you suggest about a story fairy
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Sounds good. I love that sort of playing with the form.

I see no good reason to change the way I write. How you write is your business and how I write is mine.
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It is, but if you choose to discuss how you write on an internet forum full of strangers, you can't really complain if folk respond.

Again YOU need to take responsiblity for that which YOU produce rather than seeing YOURSELF as the gatekeeper to another world which is not of YOUR making.
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I'll only take you out of that sentence when someone can show me that Storyland exists as a separate, freestanding magical world which can only be accessed by writers recruiting characters for their next work. Mind you, the writers of Shrek have played around on the edges of this idea and the results were quite excellent, in my view.

Writing for me is above all fun, however a good character deserves a great story and I will make it the very best I can.
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Couldn't agree more.

Why do I NEED to change the way I write?
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You don't. No-one said you should.

Regards,

Peter
 
AnyaKimlin said:
:confused::DLOL that is what I get for not reading the rest of thread. I already participated in November. Which will explain the weird deja vu feeling I had writing the above post.

I've written two first drafts since then and my views haven't change an iota ;) My characters are constantly surprising me. As the song I posted goes I'm nothing without them and vice versa.
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At least you were consistent! I enjoy my characters, sometimes I play out different scenes with them and I couldn't write about them if they didn't seem to be pretty well rounded and alive. But I do try now to tame them a little when I'm writing, otherwise I get pulled up for them being inconsistent.

But we're all different, we all have different modes of working. You are so creative, with so many original ideas that I could never think up in a million years (lice bands? Wilf and Doris?), it obviously works for you. I'd never get anything finished if I took the same approach! So, mine works for me.

And my main protagonist was my imaginery friend for years when I was a teenager and needed someone to escape to, but crossing him over and making him a real protagonist did require me to let that go a little.
 
@Springs - you just won the challenge ;) There is nothing wrong with writing the way you are comfortable. The lice band was a logical progression from the original flea circus, if you had been writing about what was beneath a hat you may have thought of it ;) It came from my daughter dressed as a pink Dolly Parton with her cowgirl hat. (She doesn't have nits thank goodness). Wilf and Doris came out of nowhere - they are the kind of characters I am talking about with a life of their own, they just appear and know what they are. Most of my 'original' ideas are really just recycling of something I have read or seen or even computer games I've played.

I posted this song at the beginning and it pretty sums up the way I interact with my characters:
You're Nothing Without Me (from City of Angels) - John Barrowman and ???

The words aren't exact but I have one with a similar attitude, I've since discovered he responds well to bribery. I am seriously regretting giving him a snot phobia. Others are better with threats. Personally I find third person characters whilst still commanding the story and surprising me are much less argumentative than first person. Probably because with first I am spending months living in their head, and they are living in mine. When I write I am being the character, rather than writing about them. It is probably more akin to acting than writing in someways. They are also more draining to write emotionally.

Peter Graham said:
I'll only take you out of that sentence when someone can show me that Storyland exists as a separate, freestanding magical world which can only be accessed by writers recruiting characters for their next work.
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I'm happy for you to make comments doesn't make them any more valid or more comprehensible than my own ;) I admit we are probably saying the same things whilst talking two seperate languages.

I should imagine each writer's adventures in Story Land are different. Mine is a place somewhere in the subconcious part of my brain that writes the stories, I often access it by meditation. Whilst it may not be seperate, it is also not part of my concious decision making process either. The story tends to spill out as fast as I can type.

This is how my children get there (admittedly it owes serious homage to Jamie and the Magic Torch and the Faraway Tree ;) )

Together, Billy and the children shout, 'STORY-FY.' A rainbow of light shoots out of the end of his super duper-triple-trooper-shiny blue-three whistles-four bells and a shining widget-spanner shaped wand.

Ellie and Gabe are shooting down the hurly-burly-curly-whirly-zooming-booming helter skelter slide inside a tree. Down! Down! Down! Their ears are popping and both children yawn to help them feel better. Thump Ellie lands on a pile of cushions and Crash! Gabe lands on top of her. They stand up and rub their bottoms and any other sore bits.
 
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So, i was pulling out Salem's lot for something in another thread and found this comment by stephen king in the preface:

"It would be years before I would hear Alfred Bester's axiom "The book is the boss," but I didn't need to; I learned it for myself writing the novel that eventually became Salem's Lot. Of course the writer CAN impose control; it's just a really sh***y idea. Writing controlled fiction is called "plotting". Buckling hyour seatbelt and letting the story take over, however... that is called "storytelling." Storytelling is as natural as breathing; plotting is the literary version of artificial respiration."


I kind of think I'm trying to tell a story and it does have to live and breathe a little. When I get to the editing I need to show more discipline, but he does have a point, at least around hte creative process.
 
But then again it does depend, as I think this thread shows, on the individual person. And of course you should do what works. Of course.

Hence I disagree that one way is more creative than the other - it depends heavily on the person. I am 10,000x more creative by plotting (ok exaggerating a bit there ;), but it is orders of magnitude better for me, over letting a story develop on the fly) and it helps to substantiate a much better setting, plot and raft of characters, it helps me focus on what's really important in the writing, and (hopefully) produce something really standout, believable and consistent.

But then I'm also an extrovert thinker (can get ideas very quickly by dialogue with someone else, rather than sitting in a dark room and pondering) and I think this is relevant. Because all the notes, plots, character summaries and other things that I produce before even starting a big work are my way of 'setting up a dialogue' so that I can examine and expand on my ideas and make them really better.


If I did it the Stephen King way I would probably produce a vast door stop of meandering inconsequencial purple prose with a story buried somewhere inside, filled with half-cliches. That's if I ever got to the end. Not that I'm implying that SK's work is like that - he has a very easy to read style. But I think he definitely overwrites (perhaps because he knows he can - JK Rowling style). He's not an author I would aspire to be.
 
I don't think it matters which way you go about it. As long as the characters are just ruling stories and not real life.

I've tried plotting and it couldn't have gone any more pear-shaped lol It does mean I wirte thousands of unneccessary words and delete many more. I wanted to change it and be more organised, but I am resigned to that is how it works now.
 
I've tried plotting and it couldn't have gone any more pear-shaped lol It does mean I wirte thousands of unneccessary words and delete many more. I wanted to change it and be more organised, but I am resigned to that is how it works now.
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To be honest it's taken me years to figure out a good methodology - maybe not the right thread to expand on what that is - you just have to experiment and see what brings you the maximum enjoyment!

Unless of course you need the cash, so you have to find out how to be the most efficient. :)
 
The stories we write come from an alternative dimension that we can only see into when we start to write. We have no more control over their lives there than they have over ours here.

On the other hand, we have as much influence on their lives as they do on ours.
 
I have come to a new conclusion the characters are definately real, but that I am also insane... but it's ok because I've accepted the fact:D:D:D
 
at least you dont have a narrator talking about you, accurately and with a better vocabulary. (Stranger Than Fiction)
 
I've more control over my characters than I used to have, thank goodness. But I still can't plot anything out.

But your imagination can do strange things. I can remember once, when first writing, trying to get my character to do something, and he turned and stared at me so hard, that I left the computer and went and made myself a much needed cup of coffee.

Yes, I'm definitely insane!
 
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