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branchandroot) wrote2004-03-09 01:00 pm
branchandroot) wrote2004-03-09 01:00 pm
Entry tags:
characters, muses, stuff
A recent post made me think.
Do my characters really *talk* to me? Do I hold actual conversations with them?
I mean, when I write it out in here, that's what it looks like. But in a lot of ways it feels like I'm translating what actually happens, which isn't verbalization at all.
On the other hand, there were a few times while writing "Glow" when I started to write some action, usually for Ed, and got a very definite veto. If I translate it into words it goes something like
Ed: Excuse me? I am not letting him carry me, what the hell are you thinking!?
It doesn't happen in words, though. That's just what I translate it to when I want other people to be able to hear it.
It's a lot more like echolocation, that process of asking myself questions until I get a solid "bounce", a firm contact, a "yes, that's it". Feelings, not words.
Only, it isn't asking myself, for this.
Storyspace, where all these characters stay, is an odd one. It's not part of my self, for all that it's inside my head. It's a shared space. I make it *out of* my self, and then use it to store copies of characters I like, which are, in effect, other people. Other people with whom I can utilize the protocals for internal communication. It makes the process of writing... curious. The plot comes out of my head, and then I bounce it off the shape of the characters and listen for how they react. And translate their reaction into dialogue. But to make that bounce work, I have to take the characters a little out of Storyspace, a little into my self. That's what gives me the channel of communication that carries the "yes I would do that/no I wouldn't do that" response. There has to be a constant feedback between my awareness of the plot and my awareness of the shapes of the characters, so I can hear when there's a break in congruity. A bad note.
I think maybe this is why I write so fast, when I write the stories down. Nonverbal communication, the internal kind, is extremely fast. I need to translate fast to keep up with it.
So I guess I'd have to say my characters don't really *talk* to me. But communication certainly happens when I rummage around in Storyspace.
Do my characters really *talk* to me? Do I hold actual conversations with them?
I mean, when I write it out in here, that's what it looks like. But in a lot of ways it feels like I'm translating what actually happens, which isn't verbalization at all.
On the other hand, there were a few times while writing "Glow" when I started to write some action, usually for Ed, and got a very definite veto. If I translate it into words it goes something like
Ed: Excuse me? I am not letting him carry me, what the hell are you thinking!?
It doesn't happen in words, though. That's just what I translate it to when I want other people to be able to hear it.
It's a lot more like echolocation, that process of asking myself questions until I get a solid "bounce", a firm contact, a "yes, that's it". Feelings, not words.
Only, it isn't asking myself, for this.
Storyspace, where all these characters stay, is an odd one. It's not part of my self, for all that it's inside my head. It's a shared space. I make it *out of* my self, and then use it to store copies of characters I like, which are, in effect, other people. Other people with whom I can utilize the protocals for internal communication. It makes the process of writing... curious. The plot comes out of my head, and then I bounce it off the shape of the characters and listen for how they react. And translate their reaction into dialogue. But to make that bounce work, I have to take the characters a little out of Storyspace, a little into my self. That's what gives me the channel of communication that carries the "yes I would do that/no I wouldn't do that" response. There has to be a constant feedback between my awareness of the plot and my awareness of the shapes of the characters, so I can hear when there's a break in congruity. A bad note.
I think maybe this is why I write so fast, when I write the stories down. Nonverbal communication, the internal kind, is extremely fast. I need to translate fast to keep up with it.
So I guess I'd have to say my characters don't really *talk* to me. But communication certainly happens when I rummage around in Storyspace.
no subject
I've been worried that, when writing (fanfic or my original stories), I'm more of a puppeteer than a reporter (and I used to be much more of a reporter, for various reasons), and I worry that I'm not being 'true' to the characters. Because even in fiction, a lot of it is about truth, still. (Perhaps moreso than in nonfiction, maybe, because the truth you're relaying is so ... ephemeral, for lack of a better word.) But even then you have to ask yourself 'who' these characters are and 'where' they come from...
no subject
I think writers just listen better than most. Like Alice Walker signing off The Color Purple as "author and medium".
Of course, I also think the whole soulbond thing is an excuse, an externalization so the author in question doesn't have to deal with the aspects that *are* self. But that's a personal prejudice.
*thoughtful* You know, I think I envision characters as something very like language itself. They are shared symbols, shared between many people, meaning loosely the same thing, but never *entirely* the same thing. So that where they come from is partially me and partially other people. The truth... will never rest with any one of us.