I mostly agree with this. I care about my characters- but at the end of the day, they're my creations, and have no actual will or mind of their own. You can't let yourself lose grip of reality, even though escaping into fantasy for a while is great.
Well, i usually try to incorporate what i am going through at the time. I usually base some characters off of my friends etc. I also usually base the main characters actions off of what i would do . So the characters for me would all be personal
Personally, I have trouble understanding how someone can produce something good with characters they don't have a proper relationship with or don't listen to them BUT some writers get by just fine doing things in ways I don't understand. My characters are worth listening to - when they are being uncooperative it is for a reason. That is a good sign that it is time to look at the story and find out why. If a character won't die then they probably are better staying alive, equally when I try to keep one alive that won't stay alive then they need to die. I can cry, laugh, vomit over things but they happen as the story demands. Some writers, write using their conscious and some write in almost a meditative way using their subconcious. I do the latter and treat it the same way I do my meditation - I give up the control. Editing is when I take the control. Plus playing with imaginary friends and getting lost in fantasy worlds is plain fun. A lot of good has come out of it that way so I see no need to change. Even reviewers that have hated my work have commented on the quality of the characters and I'm pleased with them. I've no great desire to have a greater grip on real life, letting my mind wander off someplace else for a time is wonderful for my sanity. Like with everything else if you have don't have a great relationship with your characters and you require control over that aspect of your life - as long as it is producing good characters that is fine. On the otherhand if time with imaginary friends gives you great work - why change that ?
Actually, my characters are like.. Imaginary friends: they live inside my head. But that doesn't stop me from actually killing/crippling/making them go through hell... I am not sure if it's because I am quite the sadistic If I don't grow attached to my characters, what happens is that I don't even bother writing them. And growing attached means that I can hate them, or love them or both at the same time... Anyhow... I never distance myself from them. A good character will always make people feel something. I don't really work without feeling anything.
To me, it's only a mental image if you take it too far. For example, if I actually believed my colonial detective, Amos Garnier, was a living flesh and blood human being with the exact backstory and apperance, that he had actually once lived in a city in Massachusetts during the American Revolution and insisted he was real and my works were just unveiling his story, then yes, I would have a mental problem. If I actually believed that the events in my story actually happened, that there was once some city in Massachusetts nine miles southwest of Boston where Amos lived and did his thing, yes, I would have a mental problem. Especially if I then tried to convince the rest of the world of my beliefs. But coming to understand the characters and feeling for them? No, that's not a sign of mental problems.
I find myself growing with the experiences of main characters I've created. But am I emotionally attached to them? Yes and no.... The Yes: Sometimes I will use my characters as an emotional extension of myself. So, in that way they may be emotionally attached to me. But I don't "love" or "hate" my characters. The No: I have no problem killing one if it advances the plot. Again, I don't "love" or "hate" my characters. There are however characters that I have created that are absolutely disgusting and actually give me pause. Do they live? Do they die? ONLY if it advances the plot. I do take a perverse pleasure in making their life an absolute living hell at times. I disagree with Cogito. When I hear a writer say, "my character refuses to cooperate," that intones to me that they have not had the time to think through the characters dilemma and resolve the conflict. I don't think that is a symptom of an unhealthy character relationship. The writer simply needs to get the character past the situation. Relating to a character is important. It's easier to write about a character you relate to. The disgusting characters are harder to relate to, so research is needed to give them the proper amount of sugar and spice, as it were, to make them truly deplorable. ~Mordred
My characters are usually a lot like my, but I try to make them interesting. Not that I'm not interesting, but... One of my friends created a character who I have always admired. She seems so... real. She's flawed, but not so flawed that it seems comical. Her thoughts are so realistic, and her relationships with the other characters are unbelievable probable. This character is completely different from my friend, and yet exactly the same. That is my role model character. In fact, she's so good, she should be everyone's role model character.
I don't see this as a writer losing their grip on reality, but rather a symptom of writing yourself off the outline - when the character you have created has veered somewhat from the original plan and just doesn't seem the sort of character who would do what you need them to do. It's not like the character is doing this, and the writer knows it really. Saying they 'refuse to cooperate' it is just a tongue in cheek way of saying 'I've started to wander off course and don't know how to get back on track without some serious rewriting, and I don't want to change my character/plot because I like the way they've turned out'.
Seconded, I've certainly had characters that "refused to cooperate" it's not like they stood up and gave me the finger, they're not aware of my existence unless I'm doing something tongue in cheek and 4th wall breaking. The issue was I gave them a problem to solve that they weren't intelligent enough to solve. It was my fault for designing characters who weren't clever and resourceful enough to figure it out. I also clearly did not give them enough tools to solve their problem given their lacking powers of deduction. The issue arose because just making them magically figure it out would have been stupid and out of character, hence, they weren't 'cooperating' with the wall I wrote myself into. If my characters NEVER did something unexpected I would be severely disappointed, and I think my stories would suffer for it. For example, I designed a character that was supposed to be having an affair with another character, until it turned out he would never cheat on his wife, despite being kind of a tool and not having the best relationship. I think this development actually made him much more interesting.
Or rather, you MADE him the kind of character who would never cheat on his wife, without really meaning to, but by the time you realised it you'd already established his character. Nothing to say you couldn't go back and rewrite him into someone who WOULD do that, but it just seems like a lot of hard work... and as you said, you find this version of him more interesting, so why would you change him?
Perhaps you and I have seen different discussions. I have seen writers insist vehemently that their characters have a life all their own, and there is no doubt in my mind that they were not speaking figuratively. They were bewildered at their characters' aberrant behavior, and reacted indignantly to any suggestion that their characters had no independent existence. I'm not going so far as to suggest they need psychiatric intervention, but I do believe that position is unhealthy from a writing standpoint. It was interfering with their ability to write the character. In the real world, a delusion becomes a disorder when it interferes with one's ability to conduct their daily life. So I stand by my position. The writer needs to have fine control over the development of his or her character. Viewing the process as a magical occurrence, beyond the control or understanding of the writer, is an unhealthy writing practice because it relinquishes any control or responsibility about the character's evolution. There is no magic. There is intuition. If the actions you wish your character to take feel wrong, analyze what about them seems out of character, and decide how you can manipulate the character or the environment to make the actions appropriate. Or choose different actions that still lead your character along the path required for the story to work. You cannot do this if you refuse to recognize that your characters are your creation, and that they remain yours to twist and shape to meet the needs of the story. The story is everything.
Yeah... those people are crazies. Thankfully no, I haven't encountered any discussions like that. Yeah, I agree with all of the above. But I don't think it precludes becoming emotionally attached to them I can be conscious that they are my creations yet still feel protective or proud of them, love them or hate them. After all, some of them are based on people I know IRL
I agree with you. I think it's important to kind of "shape" your characters and give them their own personal tones and features (unless you want them to be exactly like you). That way you can see when you're forcing them to do something they are not inclined to do at all. And that's what I think means giving your characters independence and letting them "make decisions" of their own. So, as a writer you're actually not letting them do all the work, but the guidelines you have created are showing you the way to go. I think this is the case when it comes to those writers who feel that their characters are taking the leading position in creating a plot. And this is just my personal opinion . I started creating a new character last week and at first I thought he was going to be this brave, just hero, but he actually ended up being a cocky, cheeky troublemaker. I am fully aware of the fact that it was me who made him that way, but the way those features just popped up and pushed in was hard to understand. Later on I came to the conclusion that it was all because of my knowledge of human nature - I've been observing people and social games for as long as I can remember. This character, Don, must be a reflection of my previous observations. I think this happens to a lot of writers.
Okay, I can see what Cogito is saying now. I'm sure there are plenty of writers in this world who have a very difficult time separating reality from fantasy and think the characters in their book actually come to life. *THAT* in itself is a scary thought. For a writer that is mentally healthy, it is no problem to shape the character into what you want. The character does NOT write the book. The author writes the book. Mind you, as a story is being written, a character can change (grow) as the plot line develops. I've written a character into a 'corner' and ended up tossing part of a chapter because it just didn't work. Next time around, painted him into another corner. I ended up reworking the storyline. Seems I forgot part of my skeleton outline. lol On a side note, if you ever get the chance to see Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, do so. I had the opportunity to see it in New York City some 15 years ago. It illustrates the above problem with characters coming to life. ~Mordred
I'm always remember about this writing philosophy: 1. Put someone on a tree 2. Throw stones to that someone 3. Make him/her climb down from tree That's definitely won't make me going play with them. But playing them I treat my characters as my toy so no hard feelings
I feel protective of my characters, all of them. Even the evil ones, I like to know what made them that way, and to empathise with some of their decisions. I completely agree with Cogito, so when I separate between me and them is the same as separating between me and the photo I have taken. A photo, just like a character, has a subject, which is a separate entity. A flower or a stranger or my friend Bob, all of them can be the basis for my artistic creation, be it a visual one (photo) or verbal (story). There's a huge difference between that one picture you took of a closeup of that flower, and seeing that flower in nature. Likewise, two photographers will never take the same photo of the same subject, no matter how hard they try. Same with my friend Bob, if me and my other friend Sam both wrote a character inspired by Bob, those two characters might end up being remarkably different. To that extent we demonstrate ourselves in our art, we are the filter, we decide what is shown and how, and what isn't. So there's a fine line between claiming that the character is purely based on imagination - it isn't. Most characters are inspired by one or more real life people, or other characters, and in that sense they do retain something independent about them - the basis of personality which we as writers have to discover, in order to learn to control them through the trials and tribulations. It is really difficult to make up a personality, or to significantly change an existing one. I can't write a character inspired by my friend Bob, and then, because my story demands it, change important aspects of his personality in order to fit my story. Then Bob will come off as two-dimensional at best, like a puppet created rather than a living being the story is about. I have to figure out a way how would Bob end up doing such a thing that my story needs him to do. In that sense I can see how the delusion of the characters being real and difficult to "control" can arise. But I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy. I find that a lot of young writers write truly for themselves - to entertain themselves, to live vicariously through formative experiences which are yet beyond their reach. It's often not a very good quality writing for the masses, but they and their friends might be enthralled by it. It's often a part of growing up for the budding writer, but lack of life experience and proneness to fantasising makes it feel like something it's not. And we all know how "fruitful" arguments with teenagers can be, how "easily" you can convince them of something they don't want to believe (I'm being sarcastic ) So this delusion is age appropriate in my opinion but definitely a sign of young and inexperienced. To get back to the point, I don't view my characters as friends or family, because then I couldn't put them through hell or worse. It depends, some of them I am more attached to than others, but all the major characters are really important to me, but I can't liken this relationship to any other in my life. It's an unique experience..
In all honesty, I'm starting to become more dettached from my characters, in my stories I normally come up with some, write them in, see if they fit and if they don't they become second to my main ones or are completely removed, and placed in a recycle bin. Funnily enough, a lot of my characters have switched stories, if I think they would fit with what I'm wanting. I still find it difficult to believe that a character template 'The Hider' inspired two of my main assassins in two separate books. And I still haven't worked out how i reached some of my current character states, i guess in an effort to make them more down to earth, and appear more serious I sacrificed a lot of what would make them appear cringe worthy, that's to say I try to keep them as human as possible. And after rereading through this, it probably makes no sense to anyone, so I apologise. (Edit: I agree entirely with Cog and Jazz's opinions)
I have to agree with MOST of what the last few posters have said, except for this In the stories I read and the stories I write the CHARACTERS are everything. I've read some books with some hilariously bad plots, but stayed engaged because I was interested in the characters. And, conversely, I've hated some books that are hailed for their amazing twisting plots because I thought the characters were boring and would not have cared if the lot of them got randomly wiped out by a meteor. But, this is just a stylistic preference, there is no right or wrong. I just felt like speaking up for the other side. I'm happy to have a character occasionally end up twisting my story to their needs, this however, happens with my consent and I'll curb it with...other stuff if it goes too far. These twists can lead to characters doing something amazing and profound! Orrrr they can help you write your story straight into a wall.
