the characters made me!

[contrariwise.livejournal.com]

So I was browsing at the library and picked up Janet Evanovich's^* How I Write. Right there, on page 14, an interesting passage jumped out at me:

Q: Some people say they start writing and the character tells them what's next. In other words, the characters take over for the author. Do your characters ever surprise you like that?

Janet: NO! What does surprise me is that people say this happens. This is fiction! Your character doesn't do anything you don't want him to!

You do have to be very careful never to force a character to do something simply because you think he needs to do it for the sake of the plot or because you think it's funny or because you think it's hot or it's cute or whatever. Characters have to do what they are supposed to do according to your creation of them and your plot line. The bottom line is: Writers control the story and the characters. And don't let anyone tell you different--particularly your main character.

For some reason, I thought immediately of a certain author...


^*She writes the Stephanie Plum series, featuring a spunky (but not very good at her job) bounty hunter, her wacky family, and her two on-again/off-again hot dudes. It's a fluff series, but it knows it. *g*

Comments

[amyheartssiroc.livejournal.com]

Eh, I think there's a happy medium in there. If you don't let your characters develop in ways you didn't expect, you can force them into a plot or action that falls flat. You need to give your characters room to surprise you and give your plot room to change, but still have the ultimate say in what goes on.

[gothgoddessrhia.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Seriously. I know my characters aren't separate entities from me, but there are definitely times when I can almost imagine them standing up and saying "you know that I'm not that stupid, right? So why are you making me stupid in that scene? Also, I would never use that guy as a shoulder to cry on! WTF" or something similar. It's all about what works for a given author, as long as they don't get too nuts with it.

[estllechauvelin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I actually think Janet Evanovich is being overly hostile to what's a perfectly good term. I really think most authors who say that kind of thing actually mean that, caught up in the story, they wrote something that they didn't originally intend because it suddenly struck them that it would be a good idea, or realized that something they originally meant to do wouldn't be in character and needs to be changed. When everybody knows that (and I think most people do understand that, when the author isn't being generally insane), "they did something that surprised me" is as valid a thing to say as any other metaphor. If somebody pulls a stupid joke on me and instead of saying "Sorry, I saw the opportunity and I thought it would be too funny to let it go by," says "Sorry, the devil made me do it," I'm not going to start arranging for an exorcism.

The thing about LKH is a) she sounds like she means it, b) she does it while completely dismantling the characters, whereas normally this is associated with natural character development, c) she talks as if this is something that keeps her from doing bad things to her character. The number one rule of trying to find that happy medium is that you're getting into their heads trying to find what the characters would do, not to find what the characters want to happen and then abandon reality in the rest of the universe to hand it to them/protect them. What characters want is relevant only to motive for their own actons.

[easol.livejournal.com]

True -- many good authors change things as they go along, sometimes because of what the characters do, and sometimes because of what the plot demands.

My big problem with LKH saying that is that
A) she uses it as an excuse for anything people might not like, such as that horrible early sex scene in "Blood Noir." Ohh, it's not my fault, Jason and Anita decided to have sex and I had no choice in the matter!

B) she uses it as part of the Great Artiste Who Writes In Her Own Blood, because that's how Devoted She Is To Her Art! Which, incidentally, is a sign that she is not a great artist, because the true greats do not and have not had to notify us that, oh by the way THEY SUFFER AGONIES FOR THEIR GREAT GROUNDBREAKING STORIES! Oh woe!

C) she actually seems to mean it, which smacks more of mental illness than devotion to one's craft.