These are pretty inspiring to read! Makes me want to go write
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Logically yes, but the “rule” itself specifies characters as something separate from the writer so that argument doesn’t really apply.
Plus people who have processes like mine (at least myself and every other writer with it I’ve spoken to) don’t feel that the characters are an extension of themselves. Obviously they are, I’m totally aware that they’re fictional, but that doesn’t matter when there is no ability to consciously make decisions or control the characters or writing. I’ve had way too many people who don’t experience characters in that way tell me I’m writing the wrong way and need to just force things or I’m delusional and need help or whatever crap. I’d never tell someone who does control their characters that their process is wrong and makes them a bad writer, even if it sounds crazy to me which it kind of does, but it goes the opposite way all the time. So that particular “rule” rubs me the wrong way
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I still stand by the fact that you are still in control because those characters are simply your imagination. You are just fighting with yourself for control.
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Quibble: Yes people should do more of that, but please don’t take everything you read so seriously that you treat it as if it’s your education. It’s exhaustive to live in cricital thinking mode. Don’t be like a parrot in a cage and scatter poop (making work of everything) all over your house (something you love).
Quibble: Generally you should have those reactions because that’s not dropping your plot points.
But reality is that while all of life has consequences, some things are senseless and nonsensical. We get Mary Sue stories by doing too much “picking up the tabs” and we get too much “torturing the characters by balancing too hard”. Besides, if you balance out too hard, you wind up being predictable.
Phahahaha!
Seriously, if the thing made it as “and so the rest of the world could chance the same” I’d agree.
I know for CERTAIN if I don’t have confidence in writing, it will never get out there for that opportunity.
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The reaction SHOULD be the plot points.
A case could be made that deferring to the unconscious part of your mind can make for more realistic characters since they’re shaped more by what feels right intuitively than by what we understand consciously. Our conscious understanding of how to spot a lie, for example, is less than our intuitive understanding. Subtext and hidden motivations bring characters alive.
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