# Do your characters ever start writing themselves?



## InnerFlame00 (Jun 10, 2015)

When I started my novel I didn't really have a set in stone idea of what kind of character my MC's mother was, but as I began writing her I realized she has a vast and interesting back story. Interesting enough that I might just write a separate book about her exploits in younger days. Does this ever happen to you guys? Tell me about your characters that kind of evolved on their own in the process of writing!


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## musichal (Jun 10, 2015)

Many years ago I was writing a novel which the protagonist simply took over and made herself a character I hated so much I threw 15 typed chapters into the trash.  My sister-in-law grew angry, "I wanted to know what was gonna happen!"


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## Riis Marshall (Jun 10, 2015)

Hello Inner

It happens all the time. Well, maybe not _all_ the time, but certainly when you're really into your work. Feels great, doesn't it?

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## Gavrushka (Jun 10, 2015)

I've long since considered myself nothing more than a scribe, working on behalf of the characters within the pages.

If ever they fell silent, I'd be buggered, and have to take up knitting or gardening.


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## cinderblock (Jun 10, 2015)

It's one way to think of it when you're just flowing and you feel pretty good about the character, but the whole "character writing themselves" thing has always been just a tad bit hokey for me.


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## Gavrushka (Jun 10, 2015)

cinderblock said:


> It's one way to think of it when you're just flowing and you feel pretty good about the character, but the whole "character writing themselves" thing has always been just a tad bit hokey for me.



There's a little poetic licence in some of the comments, and I am sure no one was suggesting they were possessed...

If you need pragmatic: - When writing at my best, there's little in the way of conscious thought between word and imagination.

Better?


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Jun 11, 2015)

My characters write themselves ALL THE TIME. And it causes problems, because I am trying to keep the story focused, but in jumps someone's dead father or something. One of my stories extended itself way too much and now I'm finding myself refocusing on an entirely different character and basically an entirely different story. But I guess it is also a good thing because it basically is what holds up most of my stories.


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## shadowwalker (Jun 11, 2015)

Gavrushka said:


> There's a little poetic licence in some of the comments, and I am sure no one was suggesting they were possessed...
> 
> If you need pragmatic: - When writing at my best, there's little in the way of conscious thought between word and imagination.



This is it, in a nutshell. It's the point in writing when you know the characters so well, inside, that your subconscious tells you what they should do, rather than having to think about it. And it also tells you when you got it wrong.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Jun 11, 2015)

That's why I enjoy RP so much. You see your own characters evolve before you even think about it. 

All of my characters begin as figments of my imagination. I never 'invent' a character solely to fill a specific role or plot purpose. Then, the more I write, the easier it gets.I'll daydream about conversations, pretend play and act with these characters. 

And, for the same reason, I freak people out with these little sessions, babbling to myself. Haha.


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## JustRob (Jun 11, 2015)

shadowwalker said:


> This is it, in a nutshell. It's the point in writing when you know the characters so well, inside, that your subconscious tells you what they should do, rather than having to think about it. And it also tells you when you got it wrong.



Don't I know it. I write the story, creating the situations, but how my characters react comes from my subconscious and sometimes can take me by surprise. Indeed, when I pushed one young lady too far out of character she turned on me in an abstract way. The tension and conflicts in the story arise from the struggle between my attempt to write what I planned and my characters' attempts to deal with it intelligently. The result is a veiled form of metafiction which may not be apparent to the reader but is always there. When such conflicts arise I don't regard them as errors on my part and remove them but work them into the story. In real life people encounter situations that don't fit their views of their own lives and have to deal with them, so my blunders provide that chaotic aspect of reality to my writing. What I think and what my characters think are inextricably entwined, so it is ultimately meaningless to ask who writes a character. In my story my characters even debate the nature of free will but it is impossible to say whether they do this freely or whether it is merely me myself contemplating the idea that they have any. 

As a computer systems developer I always regarded computer software as canned intellect, snippets of many programmers' intellects squashed together into the metal case of a computer like spam in a can. This is my answer to the question as to whether computers think. Equally the characters in a story are snippets of our own intellects crushed into a novel along with a series of situations and set running through them like rats in a maze. Just like the computer programmes, once we have designed them we can only sit back and watch them go through their paces. If they get lost or run around in circles getting nowhere then maybe we need to rethink their design, but apart from that we should take delight in seeing them do things that we feel that we didn't envisage. The most wonderful feeling in designing computer software was when one of my systems dealt with a situation intelligently when I had never even contemplated such a situation occurring. Some programmers spent their time thinking about every situation that might occur and writing instructions on how to deal with it, but I preferred to write generic rules of behaviour which could be applied in any situation. Once when someone asked me what one of my systems would do in a specific situation I told him that I didn't know but was confident that it would do the right thing. That didn't mean that I thought that the system could think for itself though, simply that it would stay in character. Users of software packages eventually detect that they have distinct characters and those packages gain general reputations as a result just like people. It is just the same with developing characters in fiction. Put enough thought into defining their personal traits and your subconscious will apply those traits to any situation that you present in your story. When you get it right the characters will seem to take on a life of their own, but really they are just encapsulated intellect like those computer programmes.

The human brain is an incredibly complex computing device and we are conscious of only a tiny fraction of what it is doing at any time. Dream on.


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## Schrody (Jun 11, 2015)

Always. If I meant for my character to be stupid or boring, it turns out to be rather interesting, or less boring, and if they're evil/bad, they always show their other, human side, and tough childhood (which doesn't justify their deeds).


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jun 11, 2015)

Absolutely.  A girl who I meant to be a one-off side character ultimately became a key component in the book's ending because of how her relationship with the main character developed.


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## LizzAquarian (Jun 11, 2015)

I like to do writing exercises where I put my characters "in a room" and ask them a very simple questions like, :Where do you want to eat tonight: Then I allow my characters to naturally converse outside of the plot they are involved with themselves. It's about making sure they can organically show their differences and individuality. From there I often find myself taken with a character and it becomes more natural from there to write them.


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## Circadian (Jun 11, 2015)

My current WIP is chock-full of them. During my lunch, I had to listen as my antagonist told me all about his scary big sister and another character, originally just a one- or two-chapter side character, spun off into his very own little mind-realm after his off-screen death.  All my favorite characters are the ones who seem to write themselves and boy is it fun to work with them.


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## bazz cargo (Jun 11, 2015)

They are argumentative, cantankerous and full of surprises. It can be quite a wrestling match to get them pointing in the right direction. Life would be a lot easier if I could write a book with just punctuation.


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## InnerFlame00 (Jun 12, 2015)

I agree with the notion of characters being written by our subconscious, because the subconscious mind has so much more information to work with than the conscious mind. I think it's the same reason that many good writers are also avid readers because the more you read the more you absorb. Same thing for those who observe people. The more information your subconscious gathers the more it has to work with. It could explain why a lot of my best story ideas come from dreams as well. It could also explain how I read something I wrote later and surprise myself by having written it.

When I'm writing I'm not usually thinking consciously, just seeing where it goes. Thinking comes later when I edit, but more often than not I end up leaving the dialogue as is. So I guess after setting some basic parameters my characters' personalities kind of evolve from the way they end up interacting with each other and reacting to situations.


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## Deafmute (Jun 12, 2015)

that is pretty much the only way I write. Hell everything but the overarching plot seem to write themselves. I close my eyes and see the setting, and I just watch what my characters do. Its nice like watching a movie.


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## K.S. Crooks (Jun 13, 2015)

I have a antagonist who will be seen later in my novel series that needed a connection to the Head Master at my MCs training school. In doing this he created an entire back story for himself an the Head Master that could turn into a prequel of sorts. They will need to battle eventually so their story will have to be sorted for the most part.


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## thiscouldbefall (Jun 13, 2015)

I don't have any control over my dumb characters. They do crap and I'm like, "I didn't ask for any of this."


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## Snowflake (Jun 24, 2015)

JustRob said:


> Don't I know it. I write the story, creating the situations, but how my characters react comes from my subconscious and sometimes can take me by surprise. Indeed, when I pushed one young lady too far out of character she turned on me in an abstract way. The tension and conflicts in the story arise from the struggle between my attempt to write what I planned and my characters' attempts to deal with it intelligently. The result is a veiled form of metafiction which may not be apparent to the reader but is always there. When such conflicts arise I don't regard them as errors on my part and remove them but work them into the story. In real life people encounter situations that don't fit their views of their own lives and have to deal with them, so my blunders provide that chaotic aspect of reality to my writing. What I think and what my characters think are inextricably entwined, so it is ultimately meaningless to ask who writes a character. In my story my characters even debate the nature of free will but it is impossible to say whether they do this freely or whether it is merely me myself contemplating the idea that they have any.
> 
> As a computer systems developer I always regarded computer software as canned intellect, snippets of many programmers' intellects squashed together into the metal case of a computer like spam in a can. This is my answer to the question as to whether computers think. Equally the characters in a story are snippets of our own intellects crushed into a novel along with a series of situations and set running through them like rats in a maze. Just like the computer programmes, once we have designed them we can only sit back and watch them go through their paces. If they get lost or run around in circles getting nowhere then maybe we need to rethink their design, but apart from that we should take delight in seeing them do things that we feel that we didn't envisage. The most wonderful feeling in designing computer software was when one of my systems dealt with a situation intelligently when I had never even contemplated such a situation occurring. Some programmers spent their time thinking about every situation that might occur and writing instructions on how to deal with it, but I preferred to write generic rules of behaviour which could be applied in any situation. Once when someone asked me what one of my systems would do in a specific situation I told him that I didn't know but was confident that it would do the right thing. That didn't mean that I thought that the system could think for itself though, simply that it would stay in character. Users of software packages eventually detect that they have distinct characters and those packages gain general reputations as a result just like people. It is just the same with developing characters in fiction. Put enough thought into defining their personal traits and your subconscious will apply those traits to any situation that you present in your story. When you get it right the characters will seem to take on a life of their own, but really they are just encapsulated intellect like those computer programmes.
> 
> The human brain is an incredibly complex computing device and we are conscious of only a tiny fraction of what it is doing at any time. Dream on.



I quoted the entire message because it's an incredibly brilliant answer. <standing ovation!>


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## raindog308 (Jun 28, 2015)

A long time ago (about 20 years I think), in a different forum, someone said that he "didn't write the story, he _chronicled _it".

I honestly thought it was one of the most pretentious things I'd ever read and on further thought, I still think it is.

I completely agree that knowing your characters and having chapters behind you giving you momentum makes it easier to figure out how they'll act, what they'll say, etc.  But the writer is still the one writing the plot.  At least in my world, I know what's going to happen in Chapter Five and if Mary is going to break up with Bob, it's because that sets up Bob's drunken scene at the bar in Chapter Six, etc.  "Chronicling" to me seems like it would lead to wandering and loose plots.

Then again, I am very much an outliner who agonizes over plots.  Sometimes a character will take off and say something that will surprise me, but they're not wandering the Earth like Caine - they're still working in the story that I setup.

Working out a good story is really hard...or maybe I'm just really picky about plot.

Of course, viva la difference.  Whatever works for you.

And besides...it's all going to be rewritten several times anyway, right?  :highly_amused:


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## shadowwalker (Jun 29, 2015)

raindog308 said:


> "Chronicling" to me seems like it would lead to wandering and loose plots.
> 
> Then again, I am very much an outliner who agonizes over plots.  Sometimes a character will take off and say something that will surprise me, but they're not wandering the Earth like Caine - they're still working in the story that I setup.
> 
> Working out a good story is really hard...or maybe I'm just really picky about plot.



I think you're working under a couple of misconceptions. First, following the characters doesn't mean wandering aimlessly. It means knowing your characters so well you know when you try to make them do something they wouldn't - and that's also something readers will notice. Secondly, writers who work this way are not sloppy with their plots - many times knowing our characters this well means that our plots are tighter and more logical, because we aren't forcing the story to go in a direction that doesn't, after all, make sense.


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## AoA (Jul 18, 2015)

Yep, my imagination is a control freak, right along with my inner OCD-freak that lives inside us all whether we admit it or not.

I rarely write while thinking of what I'm writing. I just sit there and the story goes through my mind on autopilot. I have a very hard time getting things to describe the visuals in my mind while writing. Most of the time, I spend a large time reworking things because writing like I do is NEVER what it should be. It's sort of intimidating to have it happen, it's like my mind hijacks itself and I am just observing a movie while I type or write like a madman.

I have a place in my mind created during a meditation exercise. It is a castle like place I call the Wander's Respite. It is a cool place to imagine when I'm bored, and my characters live there when I'm not writing about them. I actually talked to one of them once during a dream about the story he was in. It's all subconscious stuff that I have no real input in. It's a oddity I love to embrace. Imagine being able to ask one of your characters about a scene that is giving you trouble when writing. I've done it before. Cool personal tidbit there. I hope you don't think I'm crazy or anything.

But yes, the entire story essentially writes itself for me (which is worse in my eyes, I spend a huge amount of time figuring out how to rework things to make it better). I'm odd like that. I let my imagination just run, because it's like restraining a hyperactive deathclaw-it doesn't work.


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## Bishop (Jul 20, 2015)

They do, and it gets really out of hand. The little jerks just run around in their world, doing whatever they want, ignoring anything I try to warn them against. They get themselves into trouble, get killed, get lucky, get lost... everything! I can't stop them.

Makes for some good stories, though.


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## Angelicpersona (Jul 20, 2015)

Oh heck yes! I've always said, so much so that my parents now refer to it this way, that my characters "talk to me". I feel like I have this little inner voice, telling me this story, and when I've ignored it for too long it has negative consequences in my day to day life (usually involving daydreaming when I should be doing something else).
My main characters have pretty well stuck to their original personalities, but since my story chronicles them traveling across two continents, they inevitably have met a lot of side characters. And those are the ones who surprise me the most.
One in particular, a warrior named Khan, was a construct of a friend of mine. He was joking around with me one day, and describing this character that I should "put in your book!". Something about Khan grasped at me, and though I followed my friends original narrative of a large muscled warrior with spartan qualities, he evolved into this womanizing innappropriate teddy bear of a man. He struck me so much that he's become a main character in one of the other stories set in my world.


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