Comments | raven_estrella: Do you drive your characters--or do your characters drive YOU?

raven_estrella

Do you drive your characters--or do your characters drive YOU?

Sep 08, 2008 14:49

Lately I've been in the mood to ponder philosophical questions related to writing. It must be getting back to school and being in class again. I guess it reminds me of all the lit theory I took for my English major. (Not quite sure how that works... How would being in school necessarily remind me of lit theory? Never mind.)

Anyway, other people's ( Read more... )

novel, class, english major, writing

Comments 11

edgyauthor September 9 2008, 00:39:18 UTC

I simultaneously have and lack control of my characters. Generally, I can tell them what to do, but when they start to resist, I know I've plotted something wrong and have to let them take the reigns. Sometimes I'll even dream of plot points that fix a story; don't know who to accuse of having control then, haha.

raven_estrella September 9 2008, 04:03:38 UTC

Omigosh, I LOVE it when dreams inform my writing! Good to know that other writers do it too. (I guess that's how Stephanie Meyer got started, according to her account of it). Yeah, I'm not sure who's responsible for what if it's coming from a dream. ; ) Then the argument for characters talking to you seems a little stronger. I'll admit that my characters sometimes seem to "resist" me, too.

ravelda September 9 2008, 02:16:39 UTC

The author is dead, according to Roland Barthes.

raven_estrella September 9 2008, 04:08:30 UTC

Yay lit theory 101!

Are you blogging again? Because I would be excited if you were. : )

And I didn't mean to offend you by talking about your posts; I honestly just find this whole thing really interesting. (Also see my reply to fabulousfrock below).

ravelda September 9 2008, 05:04:10 UTC

Nope, not blogging again. Just saw this via Facebook.

I wasn't offended, just pointing out a different literary theory, one which I believe more strongly.

raven_estrella September 9 2008, 05:24:40 UTC

A New Critic, are we? Lots of my English profs have been New Critics, but I don't fit that profile myself. If you want to get into lit theory, I believe in the more integrative approach of schools like New Historicism. I like New Historicism because it attempts to account for both the text and the author.

Roland Barthes was one of the first authors we read in Lit Theory and the one all English majors are well, well aware of.

Thread 5

fabulousfrock September 9 2008, 04:01:11 UTC

I have characters and I have Characters. Capital "C" characters are the ones I didn't create just for a book. They came from pretend games I used to play with my sister and I got used to following their everyday lives. They, their families, their world, have grown up with me for more than a decade. They truly do feel outside me...and if does sound hokey...well, I just feel privileged to have such a well-realized other world to turn to, in good times and bad, to learn about myself and my world as I explore theirs.

raven_estrella September 9 2008, 04:06:37 UTC

That's really cool!!! I have something similar when I make up these weird, extended movies and think about them for months on end. It's really, really fun. You're right about it teaching me more about myself.

I didn't mean to offend you by using the word "hokey!" Reading these comments, I'm getting more and more convinced that it's OK to conceptualize your characters as outside of you. Especially if they're Characters.

fabulousfrock September 9 2008, 04:14:23 UTC

Oh, you didn't really offend me, I was just getting into the debate.

I will say, making characters up for stories is very different. Even though I love those characters, they do feel "made up"...I imagine their worlds like a stage set, and the characters like actors...when the story is over, I am only marginally interested in what they do afterward, and I don't know what goes on for them or in their world beyond the story.

The Characters, though, I have to check in with them periodically, and I write little vignettes where they might be shopping or celebrating a holiday, subtly progressing family relationships or ongoing plot threads in the stories, but mainly writing just to see what they're up to, just for my own pleasure, because I miss them.

raven_estrella September 12 2008, 06:04:28 UTC

Wow. Just...wow. That's so amazing. I can definitely empathize with your missing capital-C Characters. After awhile, you must feel like they have the same substance as a real person.

With my own novel, I haven't yet thought of my characters as something I have to "know" better. I agree--I think of them as "made up." And they are. But that probably doesn't make them any less meaningful for either of us.