characters, muses, stuff
Mar. 9th, 2004 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootA 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.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 02:17 pm (UTC)Yes. Echolocation. It's JUST like that. This is why I don't write fanfic. I get unbelieveably uptight about the translating part. My goal is to make the writing invisible, so I cut out any of my own narration. Every single word has to be tested for my own feeling and oh. My. God. It kills me.
With drawing, I almost don't have to echolocate at all. I just do it some at the beginning, and then I get a fairly stable mental picture of what's happening. I already know how I want the eyes or that coat or this arm to look, so it's just a matter of making it match on both sides. I still have (sometimes outrageous) criteria for what I want, but no worries about putting in too much of my own feeling because I have to be clearly OUTSIDE whatever I'm drawing to see it.
Wow. It reminds me that I do enjoy drawing. ^^ Feels goooood.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 02:45 pm (UTC)So do the stories that go with your pictures come out of the beginning? Or do you fill that in at the end? Because you always have a story that goes with; that was how the Summer arc happened, after all.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 05:50 pm (UTC)...
Getting back to the subject, most of those papers in the mess have things on them, but they're even more incomplete than what I usually put up. I have my fingers in too many pies at once---I need to focus on one thing that doesn't kill me and just put it up already.
...but there are SO MANY things that need my attention T_T
I WAS thinking about the stories that go with. I usually get flashes of the picture in my head first---I just watch as the image bumps into me as it goes by, but I don't say anything back, so that's pretty fast. Then I go and put it in the context of the characters and check everybody's reactions. If there are any reactions that fit with my image, that I can draw, I pick out the ones I like, and start drawing those.
The thing is that I usually continue to check/get reactions while I draw, because it's fun, but I don't use them in the picture---in fact, I cut off adding the new ideas to the picture very early on. It's kind of dangerous for me to let other images get into one picture. If I don't focus on one at a time, I start trying to draw two pictures at once, and jesus CHRIST does that make a mess. So instead, I file away what I get into the "not now" category, and then later on I sort it out a bit and it turns into those blurbs I love to write.
(And then if I get lucky, I distract swanky fanfic authors and they write things for me. XB)