…this ol’ Jurassic normally has pretty good control of his own mind, although some who know me better may disagree with that… but generally speaking, my day is fairly disciplined… my schedule is usually planned neatly in advance… I budget my participation on SOSYAL NETWURKIN… I allot time for my new literary WURK-in-Progress, … my corporate ‘day-job’ gets formal allotted hours each day…
…everything’s tickety-boo, then, right?… wrong!… the one area where the intended directives are frequently disrupted is in producing my latest wee Jack Calder crime fiction masterpiece, KILLER CITY … in fairness, it’s prob’ly my own fault… I’ve allowed the characters to grow and develop as per all the best scribblers’ advice… but, c’mon, how come they constantly surprise me by diverting my well-plotted narrative?… where does that unexpected dialogue come from?… heck, I’m supposed to be in charge here… sigh!… last night’s a case in point… a pivotal part of the novel reached… I wanted to elaborate on certain salient points… the characters were having none of it!… off they went… tramping all over my carefully laid-out paragraphs… is there no respect for their creator anymore?…
…do Lee Child and that wee Rowling lassie have the same kinda unruly players issues?… and here’s the clincher, Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… when I sit back and ponder on what stares back at me from the manuscript, I grudgingly have to confess… these characters know the way story’s supposed to run, much better than I do… it reads better… it sounds better… it tastes better… now I’m trying to devise a way to get the main lad, Jack Calder, to sit down inside my wee gray cells and share with me what happens next… as the Author of this bluudy lot, it would be nice to be informed in advance, I’ll tell him… after all, my name’s gonna sit on the strapline… at least give me a glimmer of a clue where we‘re going next with it… right, I’m gonna have to go and lie down in a darkened room for a while… do the rest of yeez quill-scrapers have the same issues?… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…
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I’ve accepted it. I have the main idea and throw it at them, they run with it. I’m only responsible for checking that it is physically and legally possible!
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…oh, yes , there’s always that legal thing-y, m’Lady, Ailsa:) …:):)
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Happens to me all the time, Seumas. I plan my whodunits, but by the time I’m halfway through, the characters takeover, and whodunit, didn’t. It was someone else, and for reasons I never even thought of. 😦
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…I’m not complaining, David, coz in truth it generally IS a better story flow 🙂
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Well….what happens is…. you get so involve with the chararters that… they are alive and want to be themselves!
I’m not a writer!!!!!!!! I wish I could…..
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…yes, m’Lady, Rosa… that’s precisely what happens :):) cheers 🙂
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Happens to me all the time. I think part of it is that my planning stage doesn’t take the character’s full personality into account. So when they’re actually in the scene, it plays out differently because of the previously forgotten nuances Still, I wouldn’t have one of my favorite characters if it wasn’t for them running things in odd directions. So it’s usually a good thing for me.
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… they use better language than me too:)
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Now that’s just galling when they do that to me. Cheeky imaginary jerks. 😛
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:):):):)
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Be careful, Seumas. One morning you’re going to look at your manuscript and Jack’s name is going to be on there ahead of yours as co-author. He sounds rather sneaky to me. 😀 You could even find him and the rest of the cast sitting in your living room drinking tea. 😀
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…a-hem… I think they’re doing all that already, m’Lady, Suzanne 🙂
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I love when characters take over–I wrote an entire novel only to discover, the the very end, that the real villain was actually one of the heroes, the sonofabitch–and right in front of my eyes, too. That betrayal was the happiest moment of my literary life.
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LUV IT! 🙂
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So funny. Must be a day for musing about characters gone wild. I just posted something sorta similar and got a chuckle from coming across this post. I love it when my characters take on lives of their own. We sit down and negotiate.
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…you’re lucky, m’Lady, Diana… mine don’t even give me the courtesy of asking my opinion:):)
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Mine don’t either, but I do have to put my foot down occasionally and do something to remind them of their goals. Or there’d be utter chaos.
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I’ve kind of given up on this…I start the book, introduce the characters and then, like you, they take over. Who knows where the plot will end up? I never have a clue. And that’s the FUN of it!!
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…I wonder if the classics’ writers had the same issues?..bet they did! 🙂
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Oh come on, Seumas, aren’t your expectations a bit unrealistic here? What creator has EVER had sustained respect from her/his/its creations?
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…you’re right, of course:):)
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I argue little with my characters because they won’t listen and I’ve learned to simply follow to see what happens next. 🙂
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..that’s by far and away the best policy, m’Lady, Tess 🙂
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And we’re lucky they let us in at all, and don’t just up and move onto anothe writer!
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..indeed, there’s always that to consider too, m’Lady, Olga:”):)
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-grin- Sounds like you’ve got a bad case of pantsteritis. 😀
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…or a good case, which ever way you look at it!! :):)
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I’m a pantster so I see it as glass half full!
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Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
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