“My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends – I can give them advice, but they don’t have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people.”
It’s like my characters have a life of their own, except they don’t. They come from my brain, and then I pretend that they didn’t.
“It is as if the creative process happened without deliberate thought on my part.”
Please…my characters. They won’t…they won’t stop surprising me. At first it was sort of cute, like when the two characters who always hated each other ended up having sex, but now they’re doing strange things. Disturbing things.
“’Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’”
They whisper to me all the time. They dance when they think I’m not looking, together at the corners of the page. I know they sing songs about me. I know they sing songs to draw me to the water, to make me drown. But I’ll fool them. I can surprise them, too.
“I love it when my work surprises me. After months of plot development, character development, and thematic development, you’d think I’d have it all figured out, but I never do.”
Please. They’re listening right now. They’ll be here soon. Help me surprise them. Help me before they surprise me again –
“Playing in the moment always produces the unexpected. It’s the best (and scariest) part about this practice. Due to all the prep work I’ve done, I tend to know what will happen within a scene, I just don’t know how it will manifest. I let my characters tell me how.”
Building this bridge was such a surprise for me. It was almost as if the blueprints came from someone else. One day I turned around, and there it was: a bridge! Did I build that? I asked myself, and also everyone who happened to look at the bridge. Did that really come from me? Who could have built this bridge? What kind of a person could have possibly built this wonderful, wonderful bridge, I ask my boss who saw me build the bridge. He laughs a little, but I can tell his heart really isn’t in it, so I ask him again.
“Of what use was it to be loved and lose one’s beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.”
There — there’s something else. Something I don’t know how to explain, exactly. It’s the most surprising character of all. A horse. A Skin Horse. A horse made of human skin, I mean. His eyes, they’re…I didn’t write him, you understand. I never wrote him into the story, not once. But I turned the page and there he was and now he won’t go away, the Skin Horse. He’s very surprising. Full of tricks. Has a way of bleeding off the edge of the page when you try to look directly at him.
“Trying to figure out characters before I start their stories is a fun process, but no matter how well I think I know them going in, they’ll almost always surprise me by being bolder, funnier, stronger, deeper, and more screwed up than I ever saw coming.”
Oh my God, this book! Where could this book possibly have come from? Who could have collated and copyedited and typeset and printed and bound and shrinkwrapped and marketed and shipped and sold this book? It was an act of magic, and I am deeply grateful to the Elf-Queen for it.
“All my friends call me crazy because my characters basically do what they want to do, and I just follow along. Even if it’s something I don’t want them to do. For example, my main character recently decided to fall off a bridge without my permission, and now I can’t really do anything about it.”
Who could have built this wonderful bridge, I’ll sometimes ask people crossing the bridge. Crossing my bridge. Who do you think could have done it? I won’t let them step off the bridge until they give me a surprising answer. No one gets off this bridge without my say-so. No one.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
Tags: characters, disavowing the creative process, surprise, things authors say
A++ would get goosebumps again.
Also I do not want to read whatever children’s story this is that has a Skin Horse – it sounds terrifying
Velveteen Rabbit, and it was the scariest damn thing even before the red pox and how it ended.
It’s the Velveteen Rabbit. And yeah, you don’t want to read it, due to Scarlet Fever and tears.
The skin horse in this context is really upsetting, I agree. 🙂
I’ve always been a little wary of writers who claim that the characters JUST DO WHAT THEY WANT. I remember reading the introduction to Hannibal years ago, in which Thomas Harris essentially seemed to be saying, “sorry if you are grossed out, but it’s just what he did!!!!!!” Now, look, I am not implying that Hannibal should not be snacking on people’s brains. It’s fine! But own it, as the author. Don’t pretend that you’re just recording the actions of this dude and that they are entirely out of your control. I think this attitude stems from this fear that somehow plotting is wrong and evil, and that all things should spring organically from like, the dirt or something.
Honestly, though, in practice, despite all that, I find that my best writing gets done when a character (THAT I’VE CREATED) acts in ways that are consistent with the person I know that character to be, but responds to a situation (that I probably planned) in a way that I hadn’t planned ahead of time or anticipated.
So I guess I’m just a big old hypocrite. 🙂
A+ for writing and creepiness and nightmares forever, but the inclusion of Skin Horse just made me want to curl up on a pile of stuffed animals and sob for my wasted youth.
A playwright who is much cooler than I am told me once, “Don’t be that writer who says, ‘I just put my characters in a room and let ’em wrassle.’ It’s your play; you’re in charge of it.”
Maybe that’s not as funny if you don’t have the voice he used for the writer you shouldn’t be. What I am trying to say is something like, the bridge metaphor is perfect; this is great.
Yes, thank you for this! It irritates me to no end when I see an author intimate that they had no control over their characters. And this was amazing in and of itself, of course.
My favorite instance of this is Lev Tolstoy talking about Anna Karenina; all of his process notes basically boil down to “HELP I’m being held hostage by a WOMAN in my BRAIN and SHE THINKS SHE’S PEOPLE”
Awesome!
I hate when writers are precious about their characters like that. Yes, you can write something that surprises you, but it’s still coming from your brain.
Yes, it’s the preciousness of the claim, not the reality of the way creativity can work, that makes this obnoxious. It’s like these writers are trying to build romantic genius mystique around what they do instead of admitting, “Hey, I’m willing to follow my imagination wherever it goes, even/especially when it goes to an unexpected place.” Which is itself a cool, freeing thing that probably most of us would like to be able to do.
I guess there’s also an irritating irony in hearing someone talk about how they come up with unpredictable ideas in an extremely predictable way.
Meg Cabot said something I absolutely adore on the subject once — I can’t remember the exact wording, it was years ago, but it was how she’s always bemused to hear other authors say that, and finds herself thinking “Oh, how interesting. My characters didn’t tell me to do anything, because they’re not real.”
Love her always.
Agreed! And I kinda side-eye people who want to renounce agency for surprises provided by their brains. If they’re willing to disown those thoughts and actions, what other thoughts and actions will they renounce?
My brain surprises me all the time, but I take responsibility for it. For example, once in a while I get a flicker of internalized sexist or racist or otherwise repugnant thoughts. But I look squarely at those thoughts and say “Hey, brain, those are irrational and disgusting. Quit it,” and not “Oh ho ho, that independently existing [racist/sexist/bigot] in my head! What a rascal!”
I frequently am surprised by something that happens in something I wrote, but I am never so silly as to think I didn’t create it. It’s more like I’ll be writing and suddenly a thought will pop into my head that goes ‘by the way she’s taken magic mushrooms’ and the rest of me will go ‘OK’.
It’s jsut the same as those imaginary games I played as a child. I’d rarely sit there and think ‘this thing will happen here’ but I’d be playing and it’d seem to make sense.
I still made it, I still imagined it, it still came from me and if it doesn’t make sense I need to fix it. It is doing me and any other writer out there a disservice to cheerfully wave my hand and say ‘oh my characters do it alll! hahahahaha! I am a whimsical fairy writer who doesn’t need to work hard and think about plots!’ because it ties into this idea that good writing comes from the aether, is given to you by gods. And that’s not true.
But sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a subconscious aprt of me that throws up parts of stories, and it’s a much better writer than conscious me.
You mean your characters don’t jump off bridges or bleed off the edge of pages unless you want them to? Huh.
Well, once a character stole a boat and I really hadn’t planned for that at all. But I’m pretty sure that was because the ‘writer’ bit of me recognised that she would do that in the situation she was in.
If you create complex, well-rounded, complete characters and put them in tough situations, plot happens. Sometimes, that plot is not 100% what you intended it to be. But it’s still coming from you.
But seriously, your subconscious may be working when you write, but it’s still part of you. And all of you contributes to making you a better writer.
I always thought this was a weird cliche, and never really understood why authors would want to deny their own agency this way. But on the other hand I’m not a writer and find the entire process of creativity fairly mystifying – how do people just come up with new ideas, or invent entire characters or plots that did not exist before? It is pretty baffling, to those of us who do not do so on any kind of regular basis.
Then I took an intro to fiction writing class where we did various exercises to create characters or settings or what have you. And I was pretty amazed at the mechanics of how the process of making specific choices creates new ideas seemingly out of nowhere. That probably sounds super obvious to anyone who has ever done any writing (or any creative work at all), but it wasn’t to me until I tried it. And it did feel a little bit magical (although maybe more in the sense of learning a magic trick than tapping into a mystical power).
I think there’s something to the sentiment–without this concept we would not have Ask Baba Yaga over at The Hairpin, per comments from Tasia K, and then our lives would be more empty!–but yes the whole “the characters surprised me!” thing is a goofy way to express it. There is a weird dissociative thing that happens when writing longform fiction though.
This comment is not at all informed by the fact that I am sleep-deprived and ritalin-addled and trying to finish an overdue 1st draft of a novel. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN THINK THAT.
I was all ready to heartily agree but the more I thought about it the more I started having devil’s advocate feelings, so here goes.
Yes, it’s annoying when writers claim that their characters surprise them, but let’s think about it. As a writer, you’re trying to create characters that (hopefully) represent people different than yourself (otherwise things would get really samey quickly), but you’re limited by having only one brain (presumably) to create them with. So maybe when writers claim that they’re ‘surprised’ by their characters’ actions it’s that they’ve successfully managed to expand their own thinking and take a route that they themselves wouldn’t have taken and that sudden flash of empathy/understanding is amazing to them (because it is amazing to get out of your own head and empathise with others, srsly).
On the other hand, don’t get me started on roleplayers who wreak havoc on a campaign because ‘that’s just what my character would do!’. Bull. Shit.
“don’t get me started on role players” I LOVE YOU PLEASE GET STARTED
Haha, really? It would just be a lot of ranting and foaming at the mouth and shouting “IF WIL WHEATON GETS IT* WHY DON’T YOU??”
*I’m not a huge fan of his in general but one of the few things I do like is his principle of ‘That’s one thing your character could do’. Sure, your character could randomly knife the cardinal we’ve spent six sessions trying to track down and deliver to the emperor, but seeing as I’ve managed to find perfectly good in-character reasons that my character hasn’t completely maimed yours and left them in a sewer somewhere I’m sure you can put that prodigious brain of yours to good use and think of a reason not to. Maybe you don’t because he reminds your character of their kindly old grandfather, or maybe you’re all out of knives having used them all the night before to impress a dancing girl with your throwing skills, or maybe your character gets distracted by the travelling carnival and forgets all about his whim to assassinate an incredibly key figure we really can’t do without. Whatever. I don’t care. Just… think of a reason fast or I might forget all my justifications and then you’ll have to reroll a concept from scratch. Capisce?
I am totally projecting onto you, because the situation you described actually sounds like the adventure is interesting and the reasons for not killing someone are valid.
But dude, if we’re walking through the wilderness and you fucking railroad the party into an abandoned graveyard, YOU BET YOUR ASS I’m finding something sturdy to stand on and then when the undead burst out of the ground I will yell “DESTROY THE AGENTS OF GOOD, MY MINIONS! CRUSH THEM!”
But then the rest of the party murdering me is totally justified.
IMO, so many writers try to control and plan every aspect of the story *long* before they even write. I think one of the most important aspects of maturing as a writer is allowing yourself to have a plan, but then don’t get so tied down into the plan that you have to force your characters to fit into a square hole when they’re much better suited to fit into a circle. For me, that’s what all the quotes boil down to.
As you get going in your story, elements of your story are going to change. If you make it halfway through the story and you realize that your character is much more likely to do *this* instead of *that*, then it’s surprising. It’s not something that you planned. But it’s a sign that your character is developing. It’s becoming less of an extension of you and more of its own person.
When I say [to myself inside my head, because I am neither an interviewed author nor a tedious windbag*] that my characters surprise me by insisting upon their own unexpected course of action, usually I mean that my tight, tidy storyline became impossible to cleave to without violating the nature of the characters as they developed.
It can be frustrating and surprising, and it means rewriting and rewriting to make sure the plot flows and the characters feel coherent and complex. But I don’t complain about it or express whimsical powerlessness in the face of it, because REWRITING AND REWRITING IS WHAT WRITERS DO, YO.
*I might be a tedious windbag. IT JUST HAPPENED, I HAD NO CONTROL OVER IT, NO ONE WAS MORE SURPRISED THAN I.
If by “tedious windbag” you mean “person with something always interesting and insightful to say”, then definitely, you’re the most tedioust of windbaggeries. Please carry on tediousing the windbags.
After work I meant to drive straight to the grocery store, but I wasn’t really paying attention and I somehow found myself sitting in my car in front of my house with no groceries OMG CAR WHY HOW DID THIS HAPPENNNNNN?
I meant to do laundry but it just sat there. The laundry is writing its own story, that willful scamp! No one was more surprised than I.
I was just going about my day when the entire pint of ice cream decided to disappear. I didn’t see it coming!
There I was, keyboard at the ready, when instead of being written about, my chief protagonist got a wild hair up and decided to play three rounds of Dino Run through me. What an unpredictable, independent spirit she has!
Mallory I think yellow wallpaper in your office was a bad choice.
hahahahaha “office”
the burrito place around the corner from you is an “office” now
And this is why we should not try to talk to writers about writing. Well, really about anything, but especially about writing. It might be better if we insist that they maybe move into that house to keep an eye on the trees and we’ll bring them snacks and bourbon and books and they can hand out whatever it is that they’re making in there.
(I keeeed! I love writers! They keep me in business!)
They are the caretakers. They have always been the caretakers.
Definitely. It seems like an impossible thing to talk about but we always make them talk about it. Just let the mystery be, everyone. It’s ok not to know about some things.
Meg Cabot said something I absolutely adore on the subject once — I can't remember the exact wording, it was years ago, but it was how she's always bemused to hear other authors say that, and finds herself thinking "Oh, how interesting. My characters didn't tell me to do anything, because they're not real."
Has anyone else had that thing happen where you’re laying in bed very tired, after a long and very busy day–possibly having just had a couple alcoholic beverages–and your thoughts start racing incoherently as if your inner monologue has short circuited and your brain is now a radio antenna scanning through talk radio stations randomly and some of those stations are incoherent garbled voices but others are distinctly unique voices saying specific eloquent phrases you would never combine yourself? It has happened 3 or 4 times and I just lay there being like “whoa, this rules, don’t mess this up, I wish I could memorize or record this interestingly odd sequence”. Maybe it’s acid flashbacks or maybe I’ve listened to Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs For the Deaf too many times, but it was pretty awesomely profound, and I don’t wig out on things too often. Maybe God was trying to get me to listen to her for once, then she tried a couple more times, and has given up on me since.
Mallory, sometimes I can’t believe you are real. This is the best and I have no words.
This is a good time to plug the comic Skin Horse because every time is a good time to plug Skin Horse.
skin-horse.com
Trigger warning for grownup lonely children whose ruthlessly anthropomorphized toys might be crying somewhere right now, in the dark, alone.
One time I was in a writing circle with a guy who wrote the most predictable ending to a story ever (also, all his women were “small, with dark, sympathetic eyes” and he was always chewing a toothpick.) Anyway. When we told him that the ending was predictable, he said, “No way! I didn’t even see it coming– I actually woke my girlfriend up in the middle of the night and said, ‘She dumps out the cigarette butts! Of course!'”
If I was his girlfriend I would’ve PUNCHED HIM.