The funny thing about characters is that they are people. Believe it or not, they live and breathe, hope and dream, interact and react, plan and plot, and think and feel, and on and on. Most people do not see them this way. They say that characters are just two-dimensional drawings or word conglomerates on paper. Well, they are wrong, and unfortunately, that is why they hate us authors.
We authors get stuck in that rut too. We forget that these beings we gave life to have a free will. We force our opinions and beliefs on them. We write their bios and think "There! That's my character!" But somewhere out there, your character is shaking his fist at you and screaming "No I'm not!"
Still confused? Allow me to redirect you to this:
Have you ever sat down to write a character bio or type out a good little roleplay, when suddenly you get this nagging voice in your brain, nearly audible, telling you to go do something differently?
You wanted your character to pick chocolate ice cream when they really want rainbow sherbert.
You wanted them to be a Democrat, when really they are a Fascist.
You say they like the color red when really they think it is ugly.
Simple things like that.
Or maybe it is something more out there and in your face. They want to completely take over the wheel and drive your writing off by themselves, like some sixteen year old stealing Dad's keys.
It has distinctly happened to me twice in the past few months.
My Aisthesis character Gwaine Scrivener was just going about his rp business guarding the door. I randomly made him to be a guard/chauffer/etc sort of person.
But then Mania had Anat enter the scene as she was supposed to.
And I heard this audible voice in my head.
"She's the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on! Can I marry her? Please?"
I really had no intentions of Gwaine loving anybody. Maybe down the road, but certainly not Anat.
However, I had learned to listen to my characters' voices, so I'm rolling with his punches.
Then there's Nachi Ateli, another Aisthesis character. Brand new, not finished, never rped.
I was writing his bio and occasionally looking at his picture, which is from yuumei on deviantart. In the picture, the character holds a camera.
"Oh, so Nachi likes taking pictures." ^^
And then I heard that audible voice in my head, as if Nachi himself were leaning over my shoulder to whisper in my ear.
"Yes, I like taking pictures of you when I follow you home."
Sounds creepy? Yes. Well, that's when I realized Nachi is an obsessive stalker who learns every single detail he can about a person from a distance before moving on to the next.
So what is there to take away from this?
Sometimes we have to let our characters steal our keys and drive off on their own while we take the backseat. It can be a bumpy ride, but it is always so interesting. Only then do they really take on lives of their own.
I have also come to believe that writing bios before writing the characters themselves is not always a good idea. The more detailed the bio, the more limited the characters become. It is far better to write a short bio at first just for the sake of joining a site, then once you have had them face challenges, interact with people, and have asked yourself a million questions about them, then maybe go back and lengthen it out.
Not everyone has a problem with bio writing, and I am not saying that there is any problem to begin with. I just want to share the idea of no longer stifling our characters and letting them run loose and free.
This goes a bit along with the post I made about taking character risks. If you let your characters go, they will take risks. They will make mistakes. But through them, we learn how characters adapt, grow, and change.
JUST LIKE REAL PEOPLE!
I think that is why, sometimes, our characters hate us. They get frustrated when we try to fashion them to our neat and trim design rather than the way they really are. I know there have been many times when my characters have banged their heads against the wall going, "WHY!?"
And then we also abuse them, but that point was better made in my poem post You Must Be Unmade.
That is today's contribution everyone. Peace off minions.
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