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  1. jlady

    jlady New Member

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    Do you obsess over your characters?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by jlady, Nov 15, 2017.

    Do you obsess over your characters, get into their lives and prefer them over your own? Is that why you write??
     
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  2. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

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    Writing is likely a form of escapism for a lot of people - I know it can be for me - but 'obsessive' is probably too strong a word. Genuinely preferring your characters' lives to your own seems rather dysfunctional.
     
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  3. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

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    I obsess about writing or I wouldn't waste my time on it. Honestly, as hobbies go, it fucking sucks. The kind of obsessing you describe, however, seems like a warning sign that your characters aren't particularly good. If your character's life is strictly better than yours, there are excellent odds that they aren't interesting.
     
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  4. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    My characters and my characters lives I pull into existence and I let them live peacefully or destroy them as I see fit. They are my creations and I am their god. A petty, fickle god that only gives them moments joy or torment for my own entertainment. So, no. I wouldn't prefer their lives over my own.
     
  5. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    I've said a few times here that I write because I can fix my characters; no matter how bleak and broken and lost they feel I can make sure that someone will still love them and that's something that is really important for me to be telling myself. In a sense my characters are my hope. I wouldn't say I obsess over them, but by the end of the book I normally would prefer to have their lives instead of mine. Not because they are just "me but better" but because I've put them through the wringer and they've come out stronger and they have someone who knows every dirty little secret and still loves them. By the end of my books my main characters don't have to hide who they are; they can just be themselves, can be a dysfunctional fuck up and someone will still love them for being them, regardless of the how much they hate themselves. And, of course, my main characters are girls and, on balance, I probably would rather be one of them instead of being a guy. So there's lots of angles there that makes me prefer their lives over mine; of course I throw a lot of my problems and issues into my work and in a sense they are me if I was a more functional human being with healthy relationships. But I don't spend time thinking about my characters as people really; I only think about them when I'm writing them or discussing my books with others. Once I'm done I'm done, and I'm on to the next one.

    I do agree with this somewhat. I think if your characters are just on the face of it better than you then you need to do some more work with them. It's fine to write a billionaire playboy, but that needs some serious sting in the tail to make it a balanced character. You can't write someone who's just wonderful and rich and famous and powerful and awesome, or at least you shouldn't if you want other people to invest in them. If you are just writing for your own escapism then fine, but if it's for other people then you need to not just write pure wish fulfillment.

    The moments of torment are way more entertaining though ;)
     
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  6. jlady

    jlady New Member

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    I am disappointed, I really thought the reason why people write is to get the obsessive thoughts out of their head and onto paper into something useful. But I understand there are many reasons to write, but I thought it would be a good way for me to be productive, instead of daydreaming. I haven't started yet, just started thinking about writing.
     
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  7. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    Sorry to let you down :p

    I know there are people who write like that; who have writing as a genuine outlet for whatever they have in their head but I'm definitely not one of them. The thing with writing is that it's a marathon not a sprint. So you'd need to be really hardcore obsessive about your story in order to stick with it coming at it from that angle. You just can't sit down and write a book in one sitting. So once you've got out whatever was really clawing at you to get out you need to stick with it and keep writing with stuff that kinda isn't so much of an obsession. So even if you start with an obsession, six months later you're either writing more conventionally or you're not a writer any more.

    Don't get me wrong, having ideas that you really want to put down is a good thing. But you need to temper that with something else to ensure that you actually see it through to the end. If you don't then while you might have written the thing you're obsessing over but you haven't got a book. And if you want to share the object of your book-lust then you need to actually get it finished. And as you finish it you'll end up having to change things so that it appeals to people other than you too.

    It's good to start with a passion, with an idea that you really badly want to write. That's what keeps you going. But writing is work, and man cannot live by obsession alone.
     
  8. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    To be perfectly honest, I don't really have obsessive thoughts. Writing is definitely a passion for me, but an obsession -- in the all consuming fixation sense -- seems like like bad cess to me. Writing is definitely a way to get things out and express myself and I see it as a natural result of daydreaming, but again, not really an obsession. It's more like an addiction.
     
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  9. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    Yeah, you're not one of those weird obsessive types right? You're just an addict ;)
     
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  10. jlady

    jlady New Member

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    I was thinking the same thing, addict, obsession, same or similar. One word might be easier to swallow.
     
  11. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    I put a lot of thought into my characters, to the point where I sometimes do feel like they're real people that I've met along the way. I'm thoughtful about them, but definitely not to the point of obsession. And I certainly don't prefer their lives to my own; through a combination of hard work, luck and refining my decision-making process, I'm extremely happy and satisfied with my life and don't actively envy anyone else's, either real or fictional.
     
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  12. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    Just a wee bit of a difference. Think of anyone you know that's obsessed with something like cats or anime. Chances are they've got some sort cat themed sweaters or porcelain wall plates. They possibly even have some sort of costume that they wear to conventions so they can look like their favourite character that they're not afraid to show off to anyone that shows even the politest interest. Conversations where they don't discuss either cats or anime are a rarity and chances are that if you're close friends with them you either grew up with them, or have a similar obsession. Addicts on the other hand don't really advertise they're addicts. Sure, they've probably got some paraphernalia around the house, but it's not something they put on their mantle piece. For the most part, most people wouldn't even know they've got a problem. Instead of being an omnipresent part of their identity, it's more something that gnaws at them. Something that starts with a pressure in their spine, creeps up the back of the neck and starts itching under their scalp. Weakening. Until at last they give in to that one euphoric moment of bliss and authorship. Then shame and self loathing and criticism and a they resolve to never do it again. And then they go about their day and lives until once again they get that feeling.
     
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  13. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    Oh indeed, I do agree with you, much as I poke fun at it. There are shades even within things that you feel very strongly about. There is definitely a difference between addiction and obsession.

    I am literally an addict, I literally cannot go a single day without putting an opiate into my body or I'll melt into a puddle of bodily fluids. I can't not do that. But I don't really think about it all that often. It's a thing that I know about myself, it's a thing that I have to spend time dealing with, and indeed something that I enjoy when I indulge myself properly and get balls high. I love getting high but I don't have any desire to evangelize the subject (Well, a bit, but it's tongue in cheek) or to sit around with other users and talk about the best way to do it, the best place to buy it or trade stories about the most fucked up we've ever been. I do it a lot, but it's something in the background of my life. I care much more about what I do when I'm high (writing) and how it helps me focus and deal with being bipolar. It's a means to an ends. And, while I don't know for sure, I suspect that almost everyone who's addicted feels that way; they don't have any strong feelings about their libation of preference beyond what it does to them once they do it.

    Obsession is something else, at least I think it is. It's go connotations of zealotry to it; that (to paraphrase Winston Churchill) when you're obsessed you can't change your mind and won't change the subject. That to me is the test of obsession. It implies that this is all you ever seem to talk about, that just talking about it is part of what you like about it. I certainly know lots of people like that, not in writing specifically, but people who spend all the time they aren't playing Magic or Warhammer or D&D talking about the next time they get to play it. And that's not a bad thing per se. There have been times in my life where I had just flat zero going on where I was happy to kinda sink into something and make that my whole life, obsessing over the tiniest details because that was at least something to focus on. It's not necessarily unhealthy and it very much depends on your life.

    In the context of writing a book I guess it doesn't really matter what form your passion takes; what matters is the end result. If you write a great book then no-one will ever care if you obsess or you are an addict or (like me) you have a weird pseudo-sexual investment in making your characters cry. As long as the finished product is good then it doesn't matter at all. Almost no-one who reads your work will be someone that you talked to death about it, so it's not that big a deal. And for most of us we are here basically to talk about writing when we aren't writing and that's some shade of obsessive.
     
  14. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I wouldn't go so far as to say I prefer my characters' lives to my own, but when I'm in the full flush of writing a first draft, I certainly do 'obsess' about them, daydream about them, picture them, listen to them. It's the only way I can think of to write honestly, and from a firm perspective of somebody whom I'm not. I have to thoroughly understand them, their environment and what they're up against.

    However, I have no problem separating them from me in the real world.

    What is great is that after you've created a life for them and finished your story, they exist just as much as any other fictional character exists. People talk about Harry Potter, Ebenezer Scrooge, Miss Marple, Holden Caulfield, Sherlock Holmes, etc. These are all fictional characters who wouldn't exist if their authors hadn't created them. Well, my characters aren't famous like those are, but they do exist now. They exist because I created them. That's a lot of fun to think about.

    While it's fun to play 'what if' games with your own life in fictional form, I think it can be a mistake to think that writing about 'yourself' (however well disguised) is going to solve any real problems you have. You may gain some insight, especially if you don't just rehash your life while only changing names, but actually make what happens to your characters different from what has happened to you. But I'm not sure I'd want to obsess about my own characters any more than I'd want to obsess about a movie actor, or somebody else's fictional character. You can learn from them, even love them, but they are not you, your family or friends. And you will never be them.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2017
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  15. Kater

    Kater Member

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    I used to be obsessive about characters, both my own original characters and fanfiction characters, but I've come out of that. For me personally, it was a severe form of escapism and detachment due to emotional abuse as a child, but that's just me (I don't want to imply anyone who gets really into their characters has been abused, but for me that was the case). Since recognizing the abuse and recovering from it, I actually find it pretty hard to escape into my character's world because I'm so involved in my own life, which for me is a good thing. I still love writing and I love examining my character's life and world, but I do it on my own terms when appropriate, not all day/night because I don't want to look at the real world and deal with my own life.

    As for why I write, I write because I always have, because I have these characters in my head that feel real and I have a need to get them on paper. I've found that whenever I write something, if I look back on it a year later, I notice it's symbolic or a metaphor for whatever stress or bad event was going on in my life at the time, so I guess it's therapeutic in that way. There's a sense of power I get from writing, not like a power trip, but in that I feel powerful as I create worlds and people that don't exist anywhere but in my mind and on my page. Maybe that's egotistical, ahahaha.
     
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  16. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    No. If anything they outstay their welcome long before I get chance to finish the novel. I even get bored of my characters in my short stories, let alone novels.
     
  17. Odile_Blud

    Odile_Blud Active Member

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    Depends on what you mean by obsess. I don't drool over them, but I do enjoy imagining their "off screen" lives and envisioning how they would react to certain situations I see on a day to day basis. I certainly would not want to trade lives with them though, if that's what you're asking. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies.
     
  18. An Enemy Spy

    An Enemy Spy New Member

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    The lives of my characters suck. I would hate to trade places with them.
     
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  19. MythMachine

    MythMachine Active Member

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    I often think it would be interesting if I had the opportunity to swap places with some of my characters for a day. They might not want to switch back though, and I might not survive a day in their shoes....
    I do love my characters to quite an extent, and because I love them, I want to make them as believable (or equally unbelievable) as possible. That being said, just because I love someone, doesn't mean I'd like to be that person, it's the same with my characters.
     
  20. GlitterRain7

    GlitterRain7 Galaxy Girl Contributor

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    I do think I'm kind of obsessed with my characters. I think about them every day basically, but that's how I develop them, and that's how I develop their story. It's just my way of working toward getting their story down on paper. Is that the best way to develop a story/characters? I don't know, probably not, but that's how I do it.
    I definitely do not prefer my character's lives over my own. Most of their lives are awful and I don't wish for anyone to have to deal with that. Even the ones that don't have awful lives I wouldn't trade with.
     
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  21. Primordial Knight

    Primordial Knight Member

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    Obsessed? No. More so I just put alot of time and effort into making them interesting. However would I want a life like theirs? HELL NO. God, the horrors I make them go through, is nothing but barbaric, and soul crushing. Sure they may have a couple of cool powers the average person doesn't, But the things they lose, emotionally, mentally and physically, Outway whatever pros they have.
     
  22. tumblingdice

    tumblingdice Member

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    I definitely obsess over my characters, then again I have OCD so I don't know if that's an actual choice, lol. Generally, they live happier and more exciting lives than mine, so yeah I do envy them. But that's not why I write. I write because I have something to say, because they have something to say.
     
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  23. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    The only thing I "obsess" over is getting my writing as good as it can be so that I can get it published. And that is because I had to keep writing on the back burner for most of my adult life.

    We each of us come to writing with different goals, different approaches, different methods, different interests. You're not the only writer who obsesses over characters. And if that's why you write, that's fine. Enjoy what you do.
     
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