Characters & The Writer

A few of your comments in the previous entry have mentioned the idea of characters becoming real, so real that they take up residence in the brain like other living people in the author’s life. So I want to ask: if you’re a writer, how real do your characters get? This overlaps a bit with the previous thread, but it’s something I’ve heard authors talk about in different venues and I’ve always wondered about it.

Many authors state that the characters they write become so real to them that these fictional creations take on wills of their own and, depending on the language used by the author, demand control of their own stories, and inform the author how those stories will end. One author said that she didn’t expect to write about certain events in her novel, but the characters made her do it, and in the end she thought their decisions were the right ones.

LKH steps beyond characters coming to life during the writing process, and writes:

My characters are real to me in a way that makes me miss them. For God’s sake, I’ll be in the mall and see something, and go, “Oh, it’s the perfect gift for (fill in the blank).” I’ve been in line with the present in my hand, before I go, “Wait, these are make believe people. I can’t buy them a Christmas present.” I guess I could, but there’s no way to give it to them. They aren’t THAT real. But they are real enough that I see things that make me think of them in the way you think of a boyfriend or a husband, or a best friend.

I know that every writer’s process is different, and there are some that don’t even look at the process analytically for fear it will curl up in a fetal position and run away from the scrutiny. I know some writing instructors posit that an author should be able to say without thinking about it what items are in a character’s pockets at any moment, even if those items are not germane to the story. The author should have such an intimate knowledge of his or her character creations that the contents of their underwear drawer are known and easily cataloged. And I don’t meant the knickers themselves. I mean the stuff hidden under the knickers.

As a writer, are your characters real? How real? Do they tell you what to do once you’ve created them? Is there a moment when they take control of the story and you follow them as they lead the way to the end? And what’s on their Amazon Wish List?

Comments are Closed

  1. Nora Roberts says:

    As I said below, for me, the characters I write MUST be real to me, or they won’t be real for the reader. I have to care about them, understand them, know them in order to sit my ass down and tell their story. In my books—and I believe in relationship stories—the characters drive the story. They should do the unexpected from time to time—say or do something I hadn’t planned for them.

    But.

    I don’t expect to have them knock on my door and come in for a drink. I’m not going to plan a surprise party for their birthdays.

    Once, I had a reader write me a seething letter because I killed a cat in a book. She would never, never, NEVER read me again EVAH because I’d killed this cat, ergo I was a horrible person. I remembering thinking, well, actually the bad guy killed the cat. And it was a PRETEND cat. A pretend bad guy, too. The pretend bad guy also killed many pretend people in the book, but that didn’t seem to bother her.

    Ultimately it’s all make-believe, for the writer and the reader. It should just be believeable and entertaining make-believe for all parties—real and pretend. But obviously there are some, on both sides of the page, who blur the line between fact and fiction.

  2. Caro says:

    What Nora said.  My characters are “real” to me within the context of what I’m writing, and I know things are working when they begin to do things I hadn’t planned.  Not going off in a strange new direction, but habits, quirks, etc., that just seem to grow organically.

    I can be in a store and see an outfit which would work for one of my characters—but I’m not about to grab it off the rack and spend my money on it.

  3. J-me says:

    There is this great little short story in Daw’s 30th anniversary collection by Mercedes Lackey called “After Midnight.”  An author is waken up by her creations to listen to them gripe about the storylines that she has given them (some great one liner for people familiar with her books).  It reminds me of actors harranging a director.  When reading it I thought how novel it was that a character in a book could be so real to it’s creator. To imagine someone blurring the lines of reality so much that she buys gifts for them is just a little too much for me.

    But then, there are a whole lotta people who believe that pro-wrestling is real and even try to immitate it in their backyard.

  4. J-me says:

    If interested in the story I mentioned above…
    http://www.mercedeslackey.com/chapters/myste.html
    Free read.

  5. Me too—what Nora and Caro said about writing characters.

    However, on the receiving end, I empathize with the crazy Nora reader who got angry about the cat. Perhaps I get further into stories than some people. I remember having a violent reaction to the end of The Deer Hunter and Sommersby. I walked out of Braveheart when I saw what was coming. And I was furious about the horse and the wolf in Dances with Wolves. Maybe this is why I write comedy.

  6. Kalen Hughes says:

    My characters are “real” to me, but I have no delusions that they are REAL. I could tell you what they carry about in their pockets, but that’s more of a history lesson than anything else. They do have a tendency to take over sometimes and not do as I tell them (outline them?). LOL!

  7. Estelle Chauvelin says:

    Well, I can tell you what kind of music my characters like, and sometimes what they would like if it wasn’t written a hundred and fifty years after their deaths, but I’m not buying the CDs for them.

    I’ve written something one evening, read it the next morning, and thought “Wait a second, it was *not* my idea for the villainess to jump into bed with the comedy relief.  But if I leave it in, entertaining awkwardness will ensue.”  I even once had a completely different character emerge as the protagonist in a second draft.  He was meant to be the antagonist, but he got more interesting than the original hero, and I wound up rewriting it with him as an anti-hero.

    But.  There is a difference between letting characters do what they do, and letting them have what they want.  Your fans telling you to kill characters might not be sufficient reason to kill them, but LKH is objecting on the grounds that she can’t kill them because they’re real people to her.  If you have a plot that requires characters to die in order to have a resolution that’s satisfying and logical, then kill the characters.  If you’re so attatched to them that you must write more about them, keep writing AU stories and keep them to yourself.  The above mentioned antagonist who took over the book is as real as a character of mine has ever been to me, but he’s still ending the book in a straight jacket.

  8. As usual, Nora said it best.  My characters have to be “real” because otherwise they’re not interesting, but I wouldn’t want to buy them presents.

    However, yesterday when I was writing my WIP my heroine did something unexpected, and I went with it.  I realized afterwards she needed to do this to show some character development.  That just means my subconscious was directing the writing because I like to think I’m a good writer, and that’s what happens—stuff deep inside your brain rises to the surface ‘cause it’s needed.

    It was not because I was channeling some crazy broad who wants me to take her to Saks.

  9. Nora, you killed a cat? A small fluffy kitty????? Oh my gawd, I’m shocked. Really. I mean, you seemed always so … so nice. And then you went and killed a cat. *sadly shaking her head* What has the world come to … 😉

    I love that story by Mercedes Lackey—“The Lackey-patented formula for success—make your audience identify with and care deeply for a character and then drop a mountain on him!” I love Lackey’s Valdemar stories and nearly peed my pants laughing when I first read “After Midnight”. Since then I’ve tried to frighten my characters with the threat of dropping mountains if they misbehave, but somehow they seem to be rather unperturbed by it all. *g* (Which reminds me—Lackey killed off several horsies in her novels—whaaaa!)

    But despite their occasional misbehaving and departing from my oh-so wonderful outlines, my characters don’t have amazon wishlists (probably because they didn’t have internet back in 1820-something) and I don’t think of them as real persons. Sadly, I don’t even know what’s in their pockets.

  10. dl says:

    Only wish I could write.  As a reader, love characters that feel real with believable plots & story line.  Some authors talk about a favorite character demanding or sharing their story, I can understand that. Escapism is grand fun, but loosing reality is something else altogether.  So “Die Michah” shirts and “Ranger” coffee mugs do not interest me.  Choosing gifts & planning parties for fictional characters…..eeewwwh, kinda creepy.  Therapy could be the answer.

  11. Ostrea says:

    My experience of writing is that I’m looking in on a scene and recording what I see/hear. If I can’t see it, I can’t “get it right”.

    I do the same thing in reverse when I read. Quite often, my mind will translate the words into a movie-like scene in my head. Typos, homonyms, and poorly-constructed sentences in the narrative parts of a book make a book unreadable for me; they jerk me out of the “movie”.

    The only times I’ve bought something for a character were things to use as writing totems. I have taken characters shopping; you learn the oddest things about the character that way.

  12. Robyn says:

    What Nora said.

    I once couldn’t get a handle on a hero until I filled out a character questionnaire- you know, what kind of car does he drive, what pets, etc. When I got to favorite drink for some unknown reason I put, “Coffee. Just regular coffee. Black. No espresso, no foam, no flavors. Just coffee.” From then on I knew who he was and it all fell into place.

    That said, I did NOT buy him a can of Folger’s for Christmas.

  13. --E says:

    My characters walk onto the page more or less fully-formed. I say “more or less” because I don’t know them yet, but if I turn my attention on them, everything is already there.

    And yes, they do or say unexpected things, and this is almost always a better idea than whatever my conscious brain was coming up with. I know it’s just my subconscious at play, but if thinking of my characters as free-willed and “real” gives me good, dependable access to my subconscious, I’m not going to resist the technique.

    I, too, can’t kill main characters. I’ve killed plenty of characters, but they walked onto the page dead—I knew they were going to die before I ever set them to paper.

    That said, I make a point of reminding myself that these people live inside my head, and I can actually push them around if I need to (and sometimes I do).

    Sounds to me as if LKH forgot that last part of the equation. That “spang!” noise was the sound of a connection to reality snapping.

  14. MaryJanice says:

    Not real.  Don’t have any control over me.  Fiction.  Can go for days without thinking about any one of them, no sweat.  It’s fun to write about ‘em, and it’s profitable, but that’s more or less the end of it for me.

  15. Kim says:

    That’s so funny about the cat killing – but it brought something to mind for me. About ten years ago, I was reading Stephen King on a semi-regular basis and since I like the movie IT (made for TV but not half bad, Pennywise scares the crap out of me!), I thought I’d read the book.

    I don’t remember the entire book, but one part will always stand out in my mind because I actually choked up about it – when Henry (the bully, who gets his in the end) kills Mike’s dog. It took King about six pages to describe how this rotten kid fed the dog hamburger to make it think they were friends, then he laces the hamburger with poison,gives it to this poor dumb dog, ties the dog to a tree, and just leaves it. For SIX pages (a rough estimate) King went on about how this dog died. It was horrible and I had to put the book down. He kills off a few more dogs later (maybe some cats, I don’t remember) but this one section is scorched into my brain. Yikes, I must be as loony as the presents-for-characters nut.

    That said, when it comes to my characters, they start out as flat, one-dimensional people. I know the basics and let their personalities evolve with the story. By my last draft, they are flesh and blood, with faults and good points, and contradictions in their makeups so they are as quirky and imperfect as real people. I know their slang, their mannerisms, their idiosyncrasies as well as the real people in my life. And sometimes they take over the story, which seems to make my job that much easier because when that happens, they usually go in the right direction.

    In one book, I was halfway through it when I realized the hero was far too angry to be likeable. I rewrote, and the rest of the story changed for the better. Those fake people know what they’re doing. I just need to listen better at times.

    As for Amazon, my characters don’t have wish lists, because they all reside in the 18th century and earlier. But I have an idea of what’s in their pockets, so I guess I’m on the right track.

  16. Nora Roberts says:

    It was an old pretend cat—not a fluffy pretend kitten. Really an elderly pretend cat who’d had a good pretend life until its pretend demise.

    Still, too bad for the cat.

    I can rarely go a day without thinking, on some level, about the characters in whatever my current wip might be. They’re right there with me. Must be one of the reasons I write a lot—just to get them out of my head again, and make room for the next.

    But I’m still not buying them a gift, or making them dinner.

  17. At least you didn’t drop a moutain on the cat.

  18. I’m really going to get hate mail if my most recent manuscript ever sells—I killed a horsie.  But I had to, because it put the hero and heroine in Mortal Peril they otherwise could’ve galloped away from, and I think it’s one of the best scenes I’ve written so far.  And I promise the beast went straight to Pretend Horse Heaven.

    Like several commenters above, I don’t shop for my characters because I can’t figure out how to deliver the gifts to them in 1812.  (Barring a chance to travel in the TARDIS, but now I’m imagining someone else’s pretend people are real…)  I tend to talk about my characters as if they’re real, they often surprise me as I write, and I say I have a muse, but deep down I know it’s all in my head.  It’s just more fun to keep the process a little mysterious, and I’m afraid if I analyzed it too much I’d destroy it.

  19. Sisuile says:

    I have been known to buy CDs for my characters, because when I’m stuck and need a push of “what in the hell does he/she do *next*?” I slip in the CD and it helps me a) get back to a place where I am familiar with my characters again (esp after an absence of a couple of weeks/months/years), and b) makes me think as them for just long enough to often get through the challenging bit. They’re real people, sometimes with different tastes than mine. It’s interesting.

  20. Nonny says:

    I’ve known writers who talk about their characters like they’re real people. To a certain point, that’s necessary, because (like Nora said) if they aren’t “real” to the writer, it’s very likely to fall flat.

    I’ve had characters up and tell me they weren’t going to do “x.” My villains, for instance, keep deciding they want to be anti-heroes instead. Disturbingly, the story is usually better for it.

    Do I know what my characters like to listen to, to drink, to watch, etc? Yeah, in most cases. (I don’t really need to know for side characters, lol.) But that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy them their favorite music or drinks, or that I’m even going to think about it while in the store.

    And it certainly doesn’t mean I’m going to tell my lead characters I won’t kill people they love, or not do things necessary for the plot because I’m afraid to hurt my characters. For fuck’s sake.

    Whatever happened to a healthy separation between fantasy and reality?

  21. kate r says:

    heh. I still want to know what would be on LKH’s characters’ shopping list. That would be a great contest—guessing what they’d want for Christmas. Let’s shop for your favorite fictional being! (What would Gregory House want? What kind of goodies would be in Captain Ahab’s stocking?)

    My characters are real enough to have personalities in that I know their responses. That can be a nuisance when an editor suggests a response that won’t fit the character. I’ve found it’s almost easier to write something new than try to force a finished character to reacte in a manner I know won’t fit.

    I have have less of a problem messing with situations in which they find themselves. The story is less formed in my brain than the characters.

  22. Marlys says:

    I admit that I worry a little about writers who find themselves acting on the orders of imaginary creatures…

    I’m the author, I get to drive.

    Yes, given a particular set of circumstances, my mind might come up with something I wouldn’t have predicted a chapter ago, but that’s not because these characters have evolved their own free will. It’s because I’ve come up with a new idea (which I hope is sorta the point).

    I adore some of the characters I’ve written, to the point of daydreaming new adventures for them that will never see print, but buying presents is out of the question.

  23. Jackie L. says:

    The inability to separate fantasy from reality is called a “delusion” in the med biz.  We have some lovely medications that can make most (sometimes even all) delusions GO AWAY.  After attempting to read two Merry Gentry’s, (first time I ever winced while reading, by the way)I wouldn’t mind if most of LKH’s delusions went away and never appeared again in print.  Not a writer, but as a reader I adore the characters who are so well written that you want to meet a real person who is just as interesting as that character.  But I wouldn’t have a tea party with them either.

  24. Diane says:

    I have been known to buy CDs for my characters, because when I’m stuck and need a push of “what in the hell does he/she do *next*?”

    But you don’t expect the characters to show up at your house to get the CD from you, do you?

    A lot of people have glommed on to what LKH said about buying presents for her characters, and I have to say: I don’t believe it. I think it’s what you say if you want to sound like a fiercely dedicated writer. I don’t think LKH realized what it would sound like (because she thinks she’s the only one who makes up characters? dunno), but then I don’t think she often realizes what the stuff she says is going to sound like.

  25. Nathalie says:

    I see my characters as “real” as those in movies. They move me, hopefully my readers too. But they’re characters, not people. And once a story is done (and *I* write the goddamn story, because I’m the Bitch Goddess of the Whole Galaxy and *I* Pilot the Spaceship With the Big Honking Aft Pulse Cannon) I want my characters to leave. Demons purged, you may leave, thank you very much. Otherwise, they become like teenagers, they take all the hot water and raid the fridge.

    It’s scary to me that made-up characters in someone’s mind would take so much importance that the person would feel compelled to do anything. Yeah sure, a story can take a twist you hadn’t expected, but please man, it sounds a bit like those Artistes Who Must Suffer For Their Art.

  26. Kalen Hughes says:

    I do get the “taking over” thing. The heroine of my first book walked into the black moment of my second book, made a few threats, and just like a little deus ex machina tied it all up neat as a pin . . . then I had to accept that it was NOT heroic for my hero to allow this and rewrite the whole ending. LOL! It wasn’t so much that my characters were doing things against my will, as it was that having her step in was so in character for her, it felt right when I was in the moment.

  27. Marta Acosta says:

    I’m not buying my characters any presents until they come to my house and clean it, and that means the windows, too, and vacuuming under the furniture.  Until then:  not real.

    Why am I flashing on those wooden puppets that come alive and say, “Why did you lock me in the box, Bobby?  You made me mad, Bobby, and now you’ll have to pay.”

  28. Stef says:

    If my characters were real, I’d ship the good lookin’, smart-mouthed, lucky as hell heroine off to Timbuktu and hop into bed with the hero(es).

    Guess it’s a good thing they’re not real.  I’d get some hot sex, but spend a lotta time incarcerated for kidnapping and illegal transport of a human being.

  29. Rosemary says:

    Nora said-

    Really an elderly pretend cat who’d had a good pretend life until its pretend demise.

    I appreciate all the pretends in that sentence, because it means you appreciate the. . . well, pretend-ness of it all.

    It really weirds me out that some authors (since LKH admitted to it) actually semi-forget that they are not real. 

    I’m not going to read her books because I just plain don’t like paranormals – not because she’s a little off.  Authors who are a little off can write some damn entertaining things.

  30. Marianne McA says:

    Neal Stephenson tortured a dog once in a book. I’m not a dog lover, but it was extrodinarily difficult to read past.
    Don’t know why.

    I’m not sure whether it would have helped to think that it was just a pretend dog. The emotions the writing engendered were still real, even if the dog was made-up.

  31. Nora Roberts says:

    ~“Why did you lock me in the box, Bobby?  You made me mad, Bobby, and now you’ll have to pay.”~

    No, no, NO!! Not the evil little dolls. Not them. They have evil little weapons. It’s always a knife. Evil little dolls with knives ARE real. I know. They’re under my bed just waiting for my arm or leg to fall over the edge while I sleep so they can hack at me.

    Otherwise, it’s all pretend.

  32. Nora Roberts says:

    It’s absolutely the writer’s goal—or should be—to emotionally engage the reader, to suck them into the character—even the cats—so they FEEL something.

    But when a reader feels so stronger she accuses the writer of being—in reality—inhumane to non-pretend animals, a hater of same because the storyline called for poor old pretend kitty to die a bad death, the reader’s gone around the bend. 

    It was kinda fun to read the letter, to be honest.

    Nora, who has never killed an actual cat, dog, camel or mongoose.

  33. RandomRanter says:

    As a reader and a dabbling writer I agree that good characters seem real.  They do things that are ‘in character’ and even occasionally ‘out of character’ or unexpected, but there have to parameters established. 
    I agree with Diane that I suspect hyperbole, but LKH put it out there, so there you go. 
    As for the killing of pretend animals, I think it is harder to make that separation for feeling that helpless fictional pets don’t deserve such treatment.  But I must say, while I have been tempted to send a sternly worded letter to an author over something or other, it has never been over a poor helpless pretend pet death.

  34. Jeri says:

    To play Devil’s Advocate (it’s all pro bono work), LKH has written 14+ books with the same protagonist.  That’s a lot of time to share a brain with someone.  And during the first draft at least, we have to walk in our POV characters’ shoes and see the world through their eyes.  So I can see how Anita ‘n’ Company could infiltrate Hamilton’s mind and heart to the point where she feels genuine pain at the thought of harming them.  If she says they’re real to her, I believe it.

    That being said, during the revision process, we have to step back and take a critical look at what our characters have done and ask ourselves, “Is it right for the story?”  If not, then tough shit, little girl/man, you have to die, or be less bossy, or grow a set, whatever serves the novel as a whole. 

    Maybe after 14 books it becomes impossible to have that distance.  Dunno.  I can’t imagine writing that many novels in one series without getting phenomenally bored.  I would end up killing everyone off just to save my sanity.

    Everyone but the cat, of course.

  35. I channel the story. Literally. I don’t ever have conscious recollection of creating a plotline in the initial writing process.  The creation comes when I edit later—most painful.

    That characters are the same. They do what they like, even when it throws me for a complete loop. But while their voices are quite real, they are not. Once the story is done, they go back into my alter ego’s imagination.

    It is a little frightening how real they appear to others, though. Even my secondary characters get into the act…people want to know what happens to them, even though they were in the book for only a page or so.

  36. ‘But when a reader feels so stronger she accuses the writer of being—in reality—inhumane to non-pretend animals, a hater of same because the storyline called for poor old pretend kitty to die a bad death, the reader’s gone around the bend.’

    Maybe you need the movie disclaimer: No actual animals were injured or killed in the process of writing or publishing this book.

  37. racyli says:

    I don’t know anything about my characters until I start writing them.  Someone once said that action reveals character, and for me that’s the case.  I don’t know what’s in my character’s pocket until she needs something and sticks her hand in there.  In fact, for the first book I wrote, I didn’t even know what the hero’s name was until the book was just about done.  Now that sounds wacky, but I wrote about a ninja, and towards the end, I realized that not having a name was part of what being a ninja was. Ninjas shouldn’t need to have a name because you shouldn’t even be aware that they’re there. So for the most part, I learn who my characters are in the act and process of writing.

  38. EmmyS says:

    I’m not a writer, but I find this fascinating. For someone like me who struggles with even a single paragraph of non-technical writing, the idea that a good writer’s brain can be so fertile that it creates characters who direct themselves is just mindblowing.

    That said, there’s a series of books that actually goes the extra step. Kasey Michaels’ Maggie books feature a herione who writes Regency mysteries and wakes up one morning to find that her hero is so fully-realized that he and his loveable sidekick have materialized in her apartment and are integrating into her “real” life. And no, she’s not the only one who sees them.

  39. Alex says:

    Oh no, please don’t tell me LKH is going all Anne Rice on us. 😀

    My characters are real to me within the context of my writing, but I never forget that they’re figments of my imagination. Vivid, sure, but not real.

  40. Nora Roberts says:

    I need to tread carefully here, so I’ll only say that after about 28 books in the In Death series, I’m very attached to the characters, and they’re very real to me within their context.

    I guess it’s all about the context for me. Real enough to engage me, and hopefully the reader. Not so real I start to buy Eve a spare pair of gloves because she’s always losing them.

    Every writer’s process is individual. What they do or need to do in order to produce the best book they can is correct—for them.

    No right way, no wrong way, imo, if this is what works for you.

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