I’m always saying writers are weird, although I don’t really think I’m all that weird. (Which is probably indicative of how weird I am.) But this morning somebody forwarded me an article about imaginary friends (or rather, a blog entry about the article), which includes a link to an author project, the short version of which is, “Authors have imaginary friends.” It’s not that we’re weird. It’s that we never grew up.
There are a couple of quotes on the author project page that particularly strike me:
… fictional characters can be experienced by their creators as having their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. In fact, some authors report that at times, writing fiction is not as much an act of creation as it is documentation of a life completely independent of their own invention… they often described feeling as if the writing of the story was independent of their will, and that their characters behaved in an autonomous fashion.
I … cannot disagree with this. I sort of feel like I want to, but on any practical level, I can’t. My mother gives me incredibly bizarre looks when I say things like, “The book *finally* let me switch to Javier’s point of view,” as if I have absolutely no control over whose point of view the story is being told from. And it is, for all intents and purposes, true. I know I want to switch to somebody else’s POV. I know that part of the story should be told from his POV. But *writing* in somebody else’s POV only happens when the story is damned good and ready for it to happen. I can *rearrange* it later if I think the new POV should be earlier, unless of course I don’t need his POV until I actually start to write it into the story…
Ted says that when I’m writing I will stop and tilt my head to the side like I’m listening intently to someone. I don’t *feel* like I’m listening to someone. I *feel* like I’m thinking. Except … I’m frequently not. I’m more like waiting. Not much is going on in my head during those times, not really. I’ll be working my way through a thought, maybe, but when I *get* it, when I really *get* it, it’s not like the thought has come together. It’s more like I just suddenly understand what I was missing.
I don’t have conversations with my characters, which is to say, I don’t interact with them. That would be weird. They’re, like … *struggles* “Not real” is the first phrase that leaps to mind, but it’s not right. They’re quite real. They’re just, uh. Not. Uh. Real. You don’t go outside and play with them like you would an imaginary friend. It’s more like they… exist… somewhere… else.
This is hopeless, isn’t it. :)
Whether I can go outside and play with them or not, they certainly have conversations with each other in my head, which I then try very hard to remember them properly so I can write them down, and … man, that really does sound entirely insane, doesn’t it? It’s not like I’m thinking, “Jo will say X, and then Morrison will say Y,” it’s their actual conversation and how they react physically and what they’re doing during the conversation.
…okay, so my thesis was that writers aren’t crazy, but I gotta say, I’m re-reading this and I sound like I’m completely nuts. :)
I think your first sentence – that writers are weird – pretty well covers it all.
Well, you may be weird, but so am I in that I *completely* understand the whole thing. I had this same type of conversation with a fellow writer who tried to convince me that they’re *not* real and that when I say “I just type. Sarah’s just nice enough to let me tell her story” That I’ve gone round the bend and that it’s all me and I need to come to grips with that.
Well i *know* it’s all me, but really, I can’t convince *her* of that so why try when she’s telling me her story in such compelling and easy to type ways? I mean sheesh. It works, so who am I to argue?
Of course, I also write completely off the cuff – and go in and fill in things necessary to background and such later, so it really *is* like someone is living the story in my head and I’m just writing it… which is why epiphanies such as “a BABY? you never mentioned a BABY?!!” are so amusing and such fun. (happened in my short I just finished for a contest. I litterally shreiked at the screen. “What do you mean you LOST a BABY?” I got many strange looks.)
But uh. Yeah. *looks around* I’m nuts too. Grand, ain’t it?
*slinks back to her own world*
Trust me, you’re plenty weird. You were weird when I first met you and you’re weird now. I don’t think we’d get on nearly so well if you weren’t.
Pretty much every writer (of fiction) I’ve ever met has had a really strong inner life, interacting with people and things that don’t ‘exist’ out in the so-called normal world. I think it’s just part of the process.
No one ever believes me when I tell them I’m not weird. And I’m not even a writer!
You just documented what I’ve been saying about my really good MUSH RPing characters for years. ‘I don’t RP them. They play themselves’.
So, ja. We’re weird. But you’re no weirder than I. :)