A Bit About Character Honesty

[Night Herald]

My characters are the driving force behind my stories. I would say their personalities definitely influence the plot, probably similar to choose-your-path video games with the good and bad and in-between endings. If I modified their personalities enough, they wouldn’t participate in the plot, or there simply would be no plot. They definitely are not interchangeable between stories . . .

But I also want to point out, I spend a lot of time just thinking about the characters: what they would do in random situations, how things they have done affect other characters, how their pasts affect them, how they would react if they knew their futures (for some of them, they’d definitely do things differently), etc. This is not done on paper at all. Just in my head, daydreaming and entertaining myself so I’m not bored in real life. Listening to music really helps enhance this.

Basically, I feel like in order to properly create a character, someone should be able to ask you any question about the character in question and you be able to give an at least semi-coherent answer.

That said, my characters get short leashes. I’m mostly deciding things for them because I know them well enough that I know I can do that. I’ve already daydreamed, tried it out in my head. But they do have leashes. And sometimes they seem to tempt me to change my decisions. If that happens, I feel like that may signal a plot hole I need to sew up (because if I see it, others will, too), or I may need to actually listen to them and lean more into whatever they seem to be suggesting.

That does sound a lot like what I do, just better put. Main difference I'm seeing is I give mine some pretty damn long leashes, occasionally to my and the story's detriment, but I feel the potential reward is worth the risk. I like to follow them down different potential story paths, as a process of elimination and place to pick up stray ideas. It's something to do while waiting for the Muse to crack me over the head with the good stuff.

I’ve never experienced the ‘ character won’t do what they are told’ thing because characters can only do what we make them do

In most cases this is short hand for the author subconsciously feeling that the actions aren’t right . That also doesn’t happen to me often but if it does I may go back and change things

It can also be a short hand for pantsing the plot and creating characters without a clear idea of what you are going to have them do before you start… I do that all the time.

They certainly will do as instructed, if one insists. At points in the process that becomes necessary. It's all just suspension of disbelief, metaphor and framing device. Helps me connect to what I'm working on and keep my interest going if I pretend I'm watching something unfold rather than thinking it up. If I sit down and actively try to think about it I'm very prone to tripping over my own mental feet. I've tried both ways, and both have their uses. Logical thought is something I bring on board more and more in later revisions, but the first few drafts are for figuring out what I'm even supposed to be thinking about. So yeah, very much a discovery writer and far more interested in people and worlds than plots, so I guess it's natural I work the way I do. It's not very efficient, but generally produces higher quality stuff than other methods I've tried. Suspect I've erred a tiny bit too much on that side of things, I'm still trying to fine-tune it.

 

[Naomasa298]

All characters are aspects of us, the writer. If you feel uncomfortable about a character doing something, it's usually because you feel uncomfortable with it, and therefore it feels uncomfortable to write, or you feel something is off. Sometimes that aspect can be conceptual rather than personal, in that we've formed them from observations of how other people we know would react. There's nothing wrong with that, it's how we were taught to do it when acting as well - it forms part of your writer's toolbox.

 

[Louanne Learning]

All characters are aspects of us, the writer. If you feel uncomfortable about a character doing something, it's usually because you feel uncomfortable with it, and therefore it feels uncomfortable to write

I think, in my case, it's more about keeping the character in character. I've written characters who aren't like me at all.

 

[Naomasa298]

I think, in my case, it's more about keeping the character in character. I've written characters who aren't like me at all.

But you've formed those characters from somewhere. More than likely, you've based them on your personal experience of people you know, or even from characters written by other authors or screenwriters. So it's still coming from you.

 

[Sandor]

Characters sit in my head. Sometimes I pull them out, project them like a hologram, and talk to them. They surprise me often. Idk, my brains weird.

 

[Louanne Learning]

More than likely, you've based them on your personal experience of people you know, or even from characters written by other authors or screenwriters.

This is not quite the same thing as you said upthread. Obviously, information put into my brain informs my characters.

But still, that’s an interesting question. Is there always at least a speck of the writer in every character they create?

I’m not quite convinced that is the case for me. I wrote a story once about a pathological liar with dissociative identity disorder who had motivations entirely removed from my own personal motivations. I’d have to read it again and see if some of me slipped into that character.

Maybe there is something subliminal at work here?

 

[Naomasa298]

This is not quite the same thing as you said upthread. Obviously, information put into my brain informs my characters.

Sometimes that aspect can be conceptual rather than personal, in that we've formed them from observations of how other people we know would react.

 

[Night Herald]

All characters are aspects of us, the writer.

I don't disagree with this, as such, but I think they could equally be said to be aspects of the same thing we're aspects of. They're certainly filtered through us and in the final instance shaped by us. As you so rightly point out, much comes from person experience, whether lived first-hand or observed at various degrees of removal; but I also think something like the collective unconscious plays a role here, that there are universal currents of information and creativity that have little to nothing to do with us as individuals. Then again I'm an aspiring quasi-spiritual kook, so there's no call to mind me none.

But still, that’s an interesting question. Is there always at least a speck of the writer in every character they create?

Interesting indeed. I guess that comes down to where you put the line between "the writer" and "not the writer", where you draw up the boundaries of the individual. Is the half-remembered thing you saw on TV 20 years, flipped on its head and put into a story part of you, or something borrowed, or both? Maybe that's a question of how it resonates with you, what sorts of mutations the idea has undergone during its residency.

A lot of what I consider "myself" shows up in certain characters, while others contain barely any. The former might think, feel, and act much like I would, either as I am now or how I used to be or how I think I might be in 10 years or how I suspect I'd be but for the grace of God; while the latter might be based more in someone I've met, something I've encountered in other stories, broader archetypes, or any combination thereof. Ultimately I think that yes, any reasonably developed character contains the aforementioned speck pretty much by default. I'm not sure where else that animating spark would come from.

 

[Catrin Lewis]

Characters aren't real.

Aren't a real what?

 

[big soft moose]

Aren't a real what?

They don’t exist outside of our imagination is what homey is saying.

So they can’t refuse to cooperate because they don’t have free will

 

[JLT]

They don’t exist outside of our imagination is what homey is saying.

So they can’t refuse to cooperate because they don’t have free will

I beg to differ. They have to exist outside your imagination. They have to exist in the minds of your readers. If that doesn't happen, the writer fails.

I read somewhere that when an artist releases a work into the world, be it a book or a movie or an album or a painting or whatever, it no longer belongs to the artist. It belongs to the people who see it and react to it.

Of course, the royalties still go to the artist, one would hope.

 

[Homer Potvin]

I beg to differ. They have to exist outside your imagination. They have to exist in the minds of your readers. If that doesn't happen, the writer fails.

I read somewhere that when an artist releases a work into the world, be it a book or a movie or an album or a painting or whatever, it no longer belongs to the artist. It belongs to the people who see it and react to it.

Of course, the royalties still go to the artist, one would hope.

That part I would agree with. Once the reader's imagination takes over, the characters can seem "real." I feel that way as a reader too with certain characters. As a writer, though, no way.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

folksinger v. character

 

[Madman Starryteller]

I think that when most people refer to characters being real and making their own choices, they mean that what the characters have done in the plot or book have natural consequences that start chains of events that sort of have to be followed in a logical order. Thereby creating a sense of agency and self-determination with the character.

At least that is what it's like being an exploration writer. That is one way for characters to become real.

 

[big soft moose]

I beg to differ. They have to exist outside your imagination. They have to exist in the minds of your readers

But not before you finish writing... you're right but that has nothing to do with the topic of people who's characters won't do what they told them

 

[big soft moose]

I think that when most people refer to characters being real and making their own choices, they mean that what the characters have done in the plot or book have natural consequences that start chains of events that sort of have to be followed in a logical order. Thereby creating a sense of agency and self-determination with the character.

At least that is what it's like being an exploration writer. That is one way for characters to become real.

i don't really agree, because those chains of events can be changed at any time by the writer, even if it means going back and changing what they did before

 

[Naomasa298]

I think that when most people refer to characters being real and making their own choices, they mean that what the characters have done in the plot or book have natural consequences that start chains of events that sort of have to be followed in a logical order.

Life is rarely logical.

People are often in a situation where the choice they make could go either way and still be in character, and we, the writers, are the ones who decide which choice is made, which fits in with how we want the story to go.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

Perhaps this difference in thought is related to how we view characters and write stories? I agree that we writers ultimately have the final word.

Some characters feel real once we have started them off with an event of our choosing and they lead us on a merry chase through the plot. It's as some have said, that the story writes itself at such moments. But that of course, does not mean that they are real in the sense that they actually exist. Just that they are real in the sense that they have somewhat free agency that depends on their characterisation.

 

[big soft moose]

. Just that they are real in the sense that they have somewhat free agency that depends on their characterisation.

but they don't - its not possible for a character to have free agency because they arent real... the feeling of a story somewhat writing itself is a writer being in flow, its got nothing to do with characters having freedome to chose anywaything

 

[CatrionaGrace]

Imbuing imaginary characters with free agency is a light-hearted conceit employed by many writers to explain moments of illumination in writing a story. I have experienced plenty of "I was not expecting that" plot twists. I may refer to that phenomenon as characters taking over the storyline, but as long as I am not disturbing people around me by actively arguing with characters who are trying to hijack my book, I figure I'm still in the sane zone.