Writers: Do your characters leave you alone? If not, what do you do?
I'm slowly picking up writing again, but I've run into an old time-honoured tradition of mine; obsessing over certain characters. To me, my characters are as real as real-life people; they have their own personalities, likes/dislikes, manners of speech, body language and so on. Unfortunately, some of them also tend to get stuck in my mind and I hyper-fixate on them to the point where they overshadow the rest of the cast. To be clear, I'm not imagining myself hanging out with them or anything, just what they do in the plot itself; it's a bit like watching movie clips on re-run but out of order. Sometimes I wish I could just put those characters into a locked box and focus on other parts of the story. I tend to daydream a lot so that doesn't really help the problem.
Any other writers who have or have had issues with characters who won't leave them alone? What would you suggest to someone in a similar predicament?
IMO obviously.
Go where the story, and the characters, are telling you the way forward is. Bad writing is when it's forced, when it's predetermined and dictated, jamming a square shape into a round hole. Consider a movie example, since movies are more universal than books.
Pirates of the Caribbean. Most people who aren't writers and don't understand story structure assume Jack Sparrow is the main character. He's not. He's a side character. He's almost, arguably, the plucky sidekick depending on which definitions you want to apply. Sparrow is more charismatic and vibrant, more exciting, more intriguing, than Will Turner, who is actually the story's main character, so he shines stronger. But he's still not the MC.
Would PotC be a better, or worse, story if the writer had sat there pissed that this annoying sidekick character kept insisting on being so interesting? Is PotC a better story if you dial Sparrow back and insist on keeping the focus primarily on Turner since "well, he's who the story's about?"
Good characters, in good writing, live and breathe. They have life. They start talking to the author. It's usually a good idea to listen to the characters, and work with them rather than against them. The writing usually comes out much better, which means the story usually flows better too. Which means it feels more organic, more alive, more connected.
A common problem with newbie writers is they force things. They'll sit down and map out a set of characteristics (mannerisms, traits, behaviors, preferences, everything) for a character. Then they'll start writing, and some of them (but only some of them; others miss this particular issue) will then realize that what they mapped out isn't what the character is actually showing them on the page.
For example, the newbie might say "this character is stoic and careful" but find out the character has been written to be more dashing and willing to take on risk. Bad writing will often try to force that character back "into shape." It's bad writing when it's forced. Is it possible for "forced" writing to turn out good. Yes, but in these examples we're working with inexperienced writers. Forcing things well takes greater command of writing and storytelling, and generally speaking newbies don't have that.
What does work more often for newbies is going with what's working. If you're writing and Jack Sparrow comes out wanting a share of the spotlight when you intended Will Turner to be the star, that's not bad. It just means you should be aware of it. Be aware of what's happening, so you can work with it rather than against it. So you can add, or delete, or adjust things to shape and support where the characters are taking the story.
Good characters have a life. Agency. They have dreams and desire. They have opinions, preferences, hatreds, all of it. They'll tell you what they want. Another hallmark of bad writing is when the writer sits there deciding what they want the character to do, or say, or think. It's bad because often it's forced. Better is when the character has grown enough to start to leave the page and tell you what they want, what they think, what they're going to say.
Great storytelling always comes from characters. When they start talking to you, listen. It's a good thing when they're that developed. It means things are working. When they're at that point, they'll probably guide you.
And honestly, it's so much easier to write when you have help. Good characters, that have started to lift off the page so they can talk to you, that's help. Listen to the help. Don't force it.
I think that's where the obsessing and visualizing comes in handy; because I've thought so much about them already, at a moment's notice I can picture that character and their reaction to pretty much anything I can think of. It's like thinking of what a friend or loved one would do in a given situation. If you know them well enough you can be fairly sure of what they'd do.
I once read some good advice about characters, which was if you need to find something for a character to do, they aren't important. For me, characters pop up as the story requires it because they serve some purpose, not just for them to be there.
Maybe you'd be interested in this topic about daydreaming that becomes a problem.
I'll take a look!
For some writers these obsessive fixations drive their creativity. But it seems to be getting in your way. Is it just that you are imagining the same scenes over and over without adding anything to them? That can be maddening.
You might want to consider improv, which forces you to recognize which characters and settings and tactics you commonly use. It challenges you to borrow and steal from others and get a bigger toolbox. Or it might be that the brain chemicals you like are only triggered by very specific parameters, which is why you don’t change the scene. In which case, you might have to lean into it and write these scenes as a book, then a movie, then the stage play where you are involved in casting and touring. I mean, that’s how many people find commercial success in this field. Just hitting the same idea over and over and over again.
I feel like it's almost a form of "quality control" at times; I'll have the genesis of an idea, which over time becomes more fleshed out the more I think about it. Once the idea as a whole settles into a particular form, some time is spent 'honing' the idea for impact and brevity. Wilde once said "brevity is the soul of wit", which I've always taken to heart in writing. I want what I write to be short yet have punch, partially to keep the reader engaged and partially because I don't find overly flowery prose fun to write.
Mine don't. I think that it's mostly because the characters in the series I'm currently writing are based, at least in part, on people in my life. Some are no longer alive, and as such don't occupy my thoughts as much on a daily basis, but each time I sit down to write again they pop back to the foreground.
It's been beneficial in a lot of ways actually. I feel like it's helped me understand the real people a bit more.
I can sympathize with that. A lot of my characters are based on feelings or thoughts I've expressed at some point (for good or ill), but some are based on people I've met or known in real life; the army has no shortage of "characters" you'll encounter in your career. I credit some of my own characters with helping me develop empathy and understand people better, things that 'real' folks in my life like my parents failed or neglected to do growing up. That's a distinct benefit, though the daydreaming does get in the way of things much of the time.
Even if it's out of order, I'll write out that particular part the characters are doing in my head. It helps get it out of my head and I'll have it when I get to that part, and if I never use it that's okay. I've often started a story only for the characters to start playing out the end of the story in my head over and over. I'll either make a large space in my document to separate it and write it there, or I'll put it in a new document. Either way that helps get it out into the world.
I think it does help sometimes to get it down in writing; if I at least feel it's set in stone, I'm less likely to dwell on it. It can always be changed later, but if you have the framework down it helps get it off your mind.
One of the reasons I started writing was a character who kept showing up in my dreams. I wanted to know who he was and why he was intruding into my thoughts. I could even visualize the scene where he first appears, though I had no idea why I would dream about men using rapiers.
Once I had him on the page, it became easier to flesh him out, and to understand what he was trying to convey. In fact, the story poured out so fast, I couldn't keep up with my typing. He appears as a major figure in my first novel, and has supporting roles in the other two novels of that trilogy.
But I can't say that I still obsess about him. He lives in my imagination, but I understand him now and I don't think he has much more to say. Other characters, other stories, are now at the forefront.
I've dallied around with the idea that the characters really do exist somewhere but appear in dreams, probably because I've never believed my imagination could produce ones that seem so fully realized. Thank you for sharing!
My characters are exactly the same as yours. I feel the same way about them, am probably overly focused on them. I loved the way my characters interacted so much that my first novel is about twice the length that it should be. That's not from thrilling subplots or anything being all that complicated, only how important their basic interactions with each other were to me.
I haven't found a solution for it, really. I encourage you to think about it as more of a good thing, just as a good thing that comes with its own set of problems. I know that I wouldn't have it any other way. I want these people to feel real to me, just as much as to others.
I know Guillermo del Toro will write out entire biographies for his characters that he will then give his actors (who sometimes reject them in the case of Richard Jenkins for The Shape of Water).
I don't really have that type of obsessive thinking. Part of it is just laziness frankly. But I don't really see a point in going down to the minutiae of what a character's favorite color is, unless it's in the scene or somehow important to the story or to the broader point I'm trying to make.
I suppose my style and my philosophy towards writing, and really art in general, leans more towards a workman.
I tend to keep the biographies in my head, usually. The characters are fleshed out by what they do instead of long-winded missives like I used to write. You know, the super amateur approach you have as a teen writing where you feel the need to append the book with nearly another book worth of background on the main characters. To get people interested you really need to show the characters doing these things and not just talk about them.
Is that a thing? I definitely didn't do that as a teenager. But again, lazy.
I did it all the time as a kid, I find it's more common with YA novels.
Oh, I've never really read YA nor did I ever write it.