maybe i'm just... misinterpreting some of the things said here. i mean... the author ultimately decides what happens... i can see how one could be surprised with themselves for making a character do something, but surprised with the actual character...?
I always think the imagination is greater then the person who imaginates (as odd as it is), which explains why im quiet often surprised by the turn of events that occur in my writing. Theres only so much i can plan, the rest writes itself. Might sound silly to those who plan everything, but those who dont, and just sit with no real idea, and by the end of a session have written a page or three might understand.
Apparently, I just realized that my "planning" oftentimes is more like me just playing scribe to everything that my story throws at me, rather than me making it up as I go along. I never told Character A to fall in love with Character B most of the time; I never said that Character C had to die in that way. So, in a way, my "planning" isn't exactly 100% control over the story.
my planning is just a vague outline. i literally title my notes "Things That Need To Happen." once i'm satisfied with a structured plot i start writing and fill in the details on how these things are going to happen along the way. i still have no idea how you can be surprised by a character though...
Sometimes you may have planed that minor character 21 is going to do this and that, then will be killed off be this or that......sometimes though, something happens and events change so that little character 21 doesnt get killed, but fights back and becomes a main character on their own, even as much as killing her would have been so Much more fruitful. And when you finish the story and this character has done so much more then die, you have to sit their and go, wow, how did that happen! (I did that, and i really hate the character, but for some reason this odd momentum picked up and i went with it) *shrugs( Sometimes, you don't really nned to know why others do or say such things. It just is for them.
It's sort of like stream of conciousness writing, if you understand the concept. Except this is different, I'm writing randomly about a certain character or a certain world. With all this energy focused in the setting and this new world, along with the absence of an intricate plan, I just let my rational side take the back seat and let my imagination run free. This way, it's almost as if the story is telling itself and I am just some link that brings the story to paper. The characters say things in the spur of the moment. It's almost as if I'm writing down a dream (or a day dream, for that matter) as it is occuring in my head. In that sense, the characters make decisions and do things themselves, but it really is just myself giving into the will of my imagination. Hope that helps to explain what I think happens when I write stories. ~ InPieces
Like for me, the other day I was thinking about a scene I am working on. I was playing different scenarios in my head until one surprised me as to how it turned out. Yes, it's all in my head and I am the one ultimately putting it on paper, but as I am playing the scene in my head, much like a day dream, it can take on a life of it's own...just like dreams often can. I guess it would be like my brain working as a computer. I put in the variables and my brain runs the possible outcomes to those variables. Characters who are running on autopilot may do something I couldn't have planed, because I wasn't anticipating that type of reaction. It's like thinking of something off the top of your head and the lightbulb in the cartoon bubble lights up. I guess if you don't understand it, it isn't something you have or do. It's ok to be different. I'm just in the group with over active imaginations who daydream a lot.
To be surprised by your character is easy. You create characters that are strong enough in your head. I planned the story out, but the way I planned it didn't fit with one of my characters. As the scene progressed, one of my characters said something in response to something else that was totally in her character, and hilarious - it was such an obviously HER thing to say, I couldn't possibly leave it out. Yes, it changed the way the scene played out, but that is okay. It is better than having it play out predictably, as I had originally planned, and might have liked, because it was the preferred outcome.. but it couldn't work that way. If I had forced it to be the way I had planned it, the scene would have been boring, predictable, and I would have lost that conversation with my character that fit her so well, and made me laugh. If it made me laugh - why deny that to my audience? It made me feel closer to the character that she would have said that, and it fit too well to omit. Hence - my character surprised me and totally changed my story.
huh... reading these, i realize that's not at all uncommon for me. i just think "surprised" is a totally inappropriate adjective for my... thinking process. if i have an idea, i write and write and write and "let myself spill the plot onto paper." see i would say that instead of something like "letting the story write itself." i can really like a character to the point where they'd feel like a real person, but once i realize that i know this person to a degree that would be unnatural to anyone in real life without telepathy, they really can't surprise me. and the situations you described, where something doesn't plan out the way you thought... for me, that happens because i think of something different, and say, "hey, this would be better." so i change it. there's no sense of surprise for me. just the satisfaction of a good idea. not to trod over your methods or anything, i just thought this notion was really intriguing, and now i figured out what it was and was sorting it out in this post. thanks though.
It just sounds like your imagination isn't quite a wild as some of ours. You may lean more towards the logical side of writing. That is totally normal too. Everyone has a different method for getting into their character's head. That's why there are so many different acting techniques, as well as writing styles and techniques. You can cultivate your imagination even farther than you have it right now if you are open to it. Everyone can. Before you sit down to write, take an imaginary journey. Now if you are like me, I frequently have a hard time with visualization. You know the whole, "Imagine you are walking through the grass. See the individual blades poking up between your toes. Imagine the sound of water, then see the brook running at the edge of the field. Walk to it. See yourself dipping your toes in the cool clear water. Describe how that feels." Now I have no problem describing this stuff in words, but to see it, I really have to stretch my imagination and let go of the blackness behind my eyelids. I find I actually do better changing the room I am in with my eyes open. I can imagine that standing in my living room is like standing in that field. I can look down at the carpet and see the grass. I can look across the room and see the brook. I will physically move around in my space, even though it is just my living room, my couch turns into a rotting tree trunk covered in moss. What this reminds me of is playing pretend when I was a kid. Building a fort out of couch cushions, putting on a some pretend armor, and fighting my way through dragons to get to the castle. No, I never liked being the princess...call me a weird girl. This is why acting appealed to me so much when I was in college. I'd already had kids, so becoming an actual actress didn't seem like a viable choice, so it was just for fun and an elective class. My performance of my monologue during our finials, was a breaking point for me and really getting into a character's head. I was using material someone else wrote, and I became that fat girl screaming at her mother while she is raiding the fridge at midnight. I screamed, I yelled, I flung a chair across the room and didn't care how I looked, because I became that fat girl. Her emotions were mine. The anger, the shame, the fear of rejection, the pain, they were all in my system now. Everything, all the lines I had rehearsed for hours and memorized stopped being just words. The lines flew out of my mouth on their own accord because in that moment, they were the right words to say. I guess having had that experience and several more like it, I feel I can get into my characters heads pretty deeply. I just have to access that place of emotional truth. Many people in my class had a hell of a time trying to do their monologues. They just couldn't get outside of themselves. They never let their guard down long enough to look like a fool and get to that place. I find that our inhibitions tend to hinder our imaginations. If you can picture someone who you would consider uptight, a stick up their butt kind of person. They probably aren't very imaginative are they? The more controlled and controlling we are with ourselves and with others, the less imagination is able to blossom in that environment. While I've always had an active imagination, it wasn't until I broke down the wall of humiliation, was I able to access it as fully as I can now. I'm sure none of that helps you, I was just sharing my crazy with you all.
Positively fascinating. Thanks for sharing it--all of it, really, but this especially: From my crazy to yours ...
This is pretty much what I was talking about, but I seem to do it subconsciously, and somehow it turns out okay. At least better than it would.
I don't plan my novels out other then the beginning and the end. Each chapter, or when I run into a problem especially, I just let my mind slip into being my MC and see how she would act...
@bluebell really, my imagination is uncontrollable. i think the difference is i try to control it. because when i'm sitting in English class, and the vocab word of the day leads to a chain reaction that results in a SEQUEL to the book i havent FINISHED writing yet... ...i dont like it getting ahead of myself. and it happens all the time. in a matter of 5 minutes i had a full sequel planned out with all 25 chapter titles and what happens. involuntarily. oh and ^that was cool. the water felt... i dunno. i want to say crisp but that doesnt seem like a word to describe the feeling of water. but right now i feel kind of silly. because today something happened. my character Josiah Rowans did something i didn't want him to do. he became a power monger. but i realized it works because he's doing it to fill up for his predacessor's mistakes, and trying to fill a gap to serve the greater good. and he basically went from caring mentor to the main antagonist of the whole book. even though he still maintains the "mentor" attitude. but i never wanted him to do that. and he kinda did it... without me. so.... yeah. k. i see now.
Sometimes when I write I go into a weird meditation and the stories take on a very surreal, strange twist (so I gotta keep alert when writing normally) my imagination runs rampant, sometimes too much and it often overwhelms me, so I go outside or to my bed and doze.
I've just been letting my brain ponder this one story for a handful of months now, and it's taken some surprising turns. The entire plot has shifted from monster-hunting to defending a town, my character has developed a phobia and a manic obsession, one of the background characters suddenly turned into a love interest, a completely throwaway baddie ended up as a recurring villain, a beloved city with horrible construction problems turned out to be a hated city built on top of a shifting underground labyrinth that works its way into the structure of the town above, a Proud Warrior Race ended up being quite fundamental to the plot, and the main villain ended up a lot more interesting, a lot more fun, and a lot less powerful than he started out. And the damn thing won't keep itself straight, and I find myself looking at scenes I was sure of and re-evaluating them, and when I figure them out I realise that it changes everything about previous scenes. I suppose I've just got a more fundamental version of the characters acting out thing- the entire story is acting out and it's pissing me off something terrible. By the way, if you haven't had a character go off script and start improvising, try making someone that's got a lot of internal conflicts, or try not defining everything before you start writing. It's not necessarily a good thing, but it's fun to watch the other characters- who you might have plotted out extensively- just run with it for a while. You often end up with a wildly different bit of story; even if you end up cutting it out later, it's worth experiencing at least once, if just to watch your story fly from genre to genre as your characters battle for control of the narrative.
I have noticed that my structured style sometimes makes me drag my feet... it's getting harder to "get into the moment" and just write. Of course, the doldrums might be natural course for first-time novelists. I think one of my next stories I will simply "fly by the seat of my pants" - I'll have the characters and the premise and that's it. That method might feel more natural...
I wouldn't say my stories act on their own, no. Not really. Usually, I know how they are supposed to end, and I usually have the specific important events I want to get into the storyline -hero finds magic sword, hero duels with villain, villain reveals that he is hero's father, etc- and then it's basically my job to figure out how to get to those parts. Basically, I can't afford to let the story just go anywhere it wants.
Have you ever seen those dinasour shaped sponges that are tiny, and then you put them in water and they become gigantic? Thats how my stories are. they start as a tiny thought, and just explode from there. i have been blessed that my current novel is expanding into something nice. Usually I abandon an idea before I progress with it.
wow. thats a great analogy. i'm gonna start using that, lol. my explanation of the same thing is always awkward and uncoordinated.
