On Writing

[vivien_sivvus]

Increasingly, as my writing gets more "adult" and less "teen-fiction", I've been finding that I have a strange feeling of guilt towards my characters. It's a kind of scitzophrenic discourse- that of speaking to, empathising with, and pitying creatures that are entirely my own creation. Not only that, but their lives (if they are alive) are shaped

Comments

[girl_called_sun]

Firstly, hello, nice to see you about again.

I agree that we create characters and place them in situations just to see what happens, to illustrate points, play with pretty prose, to amuse or to entertain.

I'm not sure it's all sadism and totalitarianism, though. If authors are bound by convention, it is because they choose to be. If a character can be controlled, manipulated, to suit the plot or the author's whims, then why not the whole writing process? The author creates the alternate world, the people within it, the situations they are in and the actions they take. Characters need to stay in character, but the author initially defines that; the hero doesn't need to make smart quips as he shoots the villain. If he does, it doesn't need to be the right thing to have done. It all depends on the effect the author wishes to create.

(If that sounds a bit optimistic, or not to your taste, please ignore me. I'm just revelling in the complete dictatorship of authorial power.)

[vivien_sivvus]

I agree that it's not all about sadism, I was just using that as a trigger point. :P However, I think that even though the writer has complete authority over their own creations, they have next to none over the writing process itself. People expect things to happen- you see it in reviews all the time. Things should "balance out" be "well structured" and so on. If they're not then the reader is repulsed to the point of finding it difficult or impossible to read.