Or Do They Control You?
William Faulkner said,
"It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does."
On the other hand, bestselling author, Janet Evanovich, in her new book "How I Write" -- which my sister-in-law was kind enough to give me for Christmas, thank you, Kelly -- has a different viewpoint on the matter. Evanocich's how-to book is written largely in question and answer format. The following excerpt comes from pages 14-15:
Q. Some people say they start writing and the character tells them what's next. In other words, the characters take over for the author. Do your characters ever surprise you like that?
JANET. NO! What does surprise me is that people say this happens. This is fiction! Your character doesn't do anything you don't want him to do!
You have to be very careful never to force a character to do something simply because you think he needs to do it for the sake of the plot or because you think it's funny or because you think it's hot or it's cute or whatever (this is still Janet's answer here). Characters have to do what they are supposed to do according to your creation of them and your plot line. The bottom line is: Writers control the story and the characters. And don't let anyone tell you different -- particularly your main character.
So, do you agree with Falkner or Evanovich?
I hate to buck the Evanovich pony, because Janet is one of my top ten idols, but I have to go with William on this one.
In my first book, when my heroine is laid up in the hospitol, and drugged pretty heavily, she fantasizes about the hot male nurse who tends to her wounds. She also flirts with the police chief when he comes to her hospitol room to interview her, although just before the accident that landed her in the hospital, she realized she had fallen in love with her co-worker, a long time good friend.
I didn't see either the fantasizing or the flirtation coming. They just seemed to happen. But once they did, I liked the elements they added to the story, and it gave me a new twist to work with for a sequel.
In my WIP, any scenes with my heroine and the fortune teller seem to write themselves -- as if the characters are real people taking their own lives by the horns. In my mind, the fortune teller scenes are some of the strongest in the book.
So how do you write? Do you control your characters? Or do they control you?
18 comments:
Okay, Phew! Figured the beta-blogger switch-over dealie out. Not like it was even hard or anything, I just kept clicking the wrong place, I guess.
Anyway, hope everyone is finding at least a little time to squeeze in writing around the holidays.
And I haven't forgot my promise to write about insider's insight on press releases. I started that blog, but didn't get it finished for this morning. So, next time my number is up, I'll have it finished and post it. Promise!
Can I ride the fence on this one? 8^) I see both points clearly. I think both are a bit exaggerated, though. Faulkner's image of trailing after his character like he's a person outside himself is a bit over the top. My interpretation is that he's so tuned in to his character, knows him so well, and has a such a firm handle on his plot creation that it's natural to channel the thoughts, actions and speech of that character and translate them directly to the page.
I think the key word here is control. That's Janet's point. As the author, you are god of your story's universe. Nothing gets by you without your permission. And since your characters are essentially an extension of yourself, their autonomy is really yours. 8^)
To be honest, though, I get annoyed with writers who happily gush about how their character woke them up in the middle of the night to have a conversation. They're serious, too. I can totally get that their character possesses them because that's exactly what should happen. But for a character to manifest as a separate entity and start an argument? I call that mental instability. 8^)
Hey, I get possessed by my characters all the time. That's only natural, to channel them in order to write their story. They can linger within me, too, even after I've closed their story file for the day. Sometimes I just have to "get into character" in order to write them effectively.
Karen
Shoot, Karen, in that Oregon dictionary I mentioned the other day? Next to the entry "mental instability" it says only one word: Writer.
Ha.
I think we're all a little out there. We gotta be, or we'd be like the general masses. How boring would that be?
Personally, I enjoy characters stomping around in my head, spouting off all sorts of ridiculous things. Keeps me company when I'm lonely. Wait, I guess it keeps me from being lonely...
lol, Danita! I was just listening to a CD of an agent's presentation from a writers conference I'd attended a couple of years ago. He said he was cautious of writers who are mentally unstable and quickly had to clarify because the room exploded with writers calling "foul!" 8^) And he did clarify. He said writers are expected to be kooky and that's what agents love about us, whether we're possessed (moi) or schizo (you). Heehee! He was actually talking about those writers whom he feared would show up at his front door with an AK-47.
But really, you need to listen those conversations in your head as your characters act out what you subconsciously plan for them. How else can you hear their voice and effectively convey it on the page? When they start telling you to run out in the street naked and bark like a dog, well, I'm sorry, but those are clear signs of mental instability. [snort]
Karen
For me, it's a constant push-pull--the character comes to me as part of a plot--I have to massage their backstory and traits to make them fit the plot--but at certain point the character gets enough momentum to start suprising me. My heroine in my WIP started throwing things--not planned or plotted, but her character grew from that scene onwards. After Karen's post yesterday, it came to me that the hero is going to have to ask his brother for something--and this sibling relationship is something that has evolved through the character. I make the character do X, they push back with Y, Y gives me an idea for Z and so on.
Interesting post, Danita. I think I fall into the possessed category to some degree. And I agree with Wavy. It's like a domino effect for me, which is why I can't write out of order. If I write the climax before I know the steps that have gotten my characters to the climax, that's forcing the characters to do or say something they might not otherwise do.
While I've never awoken in the night because a character wants to argue a point with me, I do see both sides of this. I, as the writer, control the story, and the blame lies with me if something doesn't work (I also get the credit when it does work, a perk of being "the writer"). At the same time, since I'm not a plotter, I let the story go where it needs to go, where the characters take me when I'm writing. BUT, they don't run the show. I have a clear vision of the ultimate goal, and along the way, I get veto power when they want to do something that doesn't fit my vision. :) I mean, come on, if it were up to them they'd get their HEA right away. Why go through all the angst I want to put them through? (That, too, is the fun of being "the writer".)
I agree with Karen--and Danita and Wavy and Eli and...
It's the push pull thing for me, too, but I am god of their world and if they don't like it, well, they can just go try to find another author who will give them 280 pages of life, there's the door, baby, hasta lavista!
What I feel for my characters is empathy. And admiration when they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, patch up their wounds either internal or external, and pluckily go forth. Bless their hearts. Such troopers.
But I am their god. I created them and their world. They can try saying anything they want, I just have ultimate veto power!
I will add that when I was first starting out, the characters were a lot more unruly, taking a lot of liberties with my patience, sometimes leading me on wild goose chases that were oh so funny and entertaining but in the end, a waste of time. Still, they're usually good company, they never ask for bathroom stops and they cost next to nothing to feed. So what if there's an occasional side trip? And once in awhile, their side trips prove to be brilliant.
Alice
Great post Danita. Aren't these bog thingies fun? Hats off to Eli for organizing it all.
Heck no, Karen. It's not my characters that make me bark like a dog when I'm naked. I do that on my own. My DH tends to enjoy it. Ha.
Actually, I see what you mean. And happily for any agent who may someday choose to represent me, I don't own an AK-47.
I prefer to carry a revolver.
I write sort of like you do, Wavy. I have the basic premise, and way before I'm done with the book, I have the ending figured out, maybe written, but there's a lot of stuff in the middle that happens along at the least likely times. Part of the reason I love to write, it's like looking forward each day to what may happen next. Because although I have a good idea, I'm never completely sure until it's down and proofed.
Eli, the two legged alarm clock woke me in the wee hours this morning, and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and wrote. Not exactly my characters who were keeping me awake, although they were on my mind.
A few times I have dreamed whole scenes of my books. I love it when that happens. Then it is sort of like what Faulkner said -- following the characters around with a pooper scooper. Or whatever it is he said he does.
Sometimes these visions come to me out of order. That seems to work fine for me. It all falls into place. Like Karen said, it's really me making my characters do the stuff they do anyway, even when it doesn't feel like it sometimes.
Yes, Alice! Socks off to Eli for organizing this site. I love these bog thingies too!
Okay, hat, not socks in hand, apologizing here, Alice and Eli. I really do appreciate Eli's work at this blog, and Alice, I really do love these blogs too. And I really do tend to lean towards smartassness. A personality trait my DH doesn't love nearly as much as my naked barking side.
Snort. As Karen so eloquently puts it.
Trying to be serious here for a moment, Alice:
I think my characters do take me on wild goose chases at times. In fact I know they do. Since I am fairly new at this fiction gig, I'm going to forgive myself, and move on. Next time a character starts running around with no intentions but their own though, I will remember I am their God and they must bow down to my whims, not their own. But sometimes I will still let them flirt inappropriately, and bark naked through the streets. No wait. That's me, isn't it?
Ha.
The serious moment WAS up, wasn't it? Gee, I hope so.
Sorry I'm late. The DH had me vaccinating, tagging, and branding the 17 cows he purchased over the last couple of weeks! But, I'm here now! And I see everyone has chimed in and Danita has kept me in stitches with her retorts! LOL
As for my take on these great words of wisdom from Faulkner and Evanovich - Ahem... I tend to build my characters in my head, then when I'm ready to let them loose, that's what I do. They take off in the book running from one scene after the other in sequence. But since I made them, I also rein them in.
And I don't have conversations with them, though the characters do at times have conversations between themselves in my head. :) When they start talking and I see it is a scene for the book, I run for a pencil and paper.
So, In a way I let the characters take over, but as their creator - I make sure they are appropriate, just like a parent!
Ah, Paty. The rancher's work is never done. So, have you named the new cows yet? Do you have a favorite? What breed are they?
Back to the subject matter: Good for you for letting your characters mutter around upstairs for awhile before you set them naked and free. Now I don't feel so schitzo.
I have no idea how to spell that word.
I can totally see Paty as the mom to all her characters. "Bad Maeve! Put that down! I'm turning this book around if you don't ship up and behave!!!!!!!"
Well, I suppose I am one of the mentally insane, then.
I feel it's my job to know the major events. It's my characters' job to show me their action/reaction to those events and each other (yes, to write themselves, which happens automatically when I get to that magical point when I'm SO inside their head, I don't even have to think about it), and it's my job to also always see the line between them, me, and the plot.
If I try to make them do things, the sound of my "voice" changes, and critique members (and I) can tell right away. It's flat and forced on the page, instead of the words floating and unfurling a Technicolor scene in your mind as you read. I'm the only writer in my group whose muse is this far out in the ozone; everyone else is really calm and structured. I am like Faulkner. They are like Evanovich. And we can't switch up and still write effectively.
Yet they jump at any chance to read my saga. And they feel I'll be the first one of us all to have a novel on the shelves. Saying this really humbles me. (Hope they're right. We'll see... I should know something in early 2007. Fingers crossed, y'all! :o)
Characters talk to me and each other at the most ridiculous moments, and never when I want them to. Whole scenes and spools of dialogue play out in my head--I've gotten up many a night just to write stuff down to shut it up and not lose it, and then walked around bleary the next day.
Yeah, I'm weird. I'm used to people referring to me as a "passenger on the short bus" and thinking it doesn't hurt. I still wouldn't change a thing, because then the sound of my voice would change. Not good.
I think Faulkner and Evanovich are both right, because they're speaking specifically in terms of their own personal muses. I don't see a right or wrong answer here. Just depends on the writer.
Sorry for the drama, ladies... the topic really touched me, is all. Hope everyone's weekend is turning out restful and happy, though it is right before the holidays!
Testing to see if my pass word works today. Couldn't get my comment posted on Christmas. Tried everything.
Okay, I have to put in my email addy now, not my user name. anyway...I wrote a long response to Steph's comment a couple days ago, but couldn't get it to publish, so will attempt it again now.
Steph -- you and I are alike in the way we write, I think. I need to be really deep inside the characters' heads too. If I'm pulled out by interuptions, it takes me awhile to get back into that place again. And sometimes my characters do very surprising things. But that is the most fun thing about writing fiction. It's like reading a good book, very slowly -- because I have to write it before I can read it! And I'm not quite sure what's going to happen next with these individuals who are my characters.
So, consider me insane along with you!
And tell more about what you're hoping to hear in 2007...
Best of luck with that.
And I'm glad this subject touched you enough to comment so passionately. We love to hear from lurkers!
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