When Old Projects Are New Again

I recently began to reacquaint myself with an old writing project of mine.  At first, I was scared to see how things were going to work out.  I didn't know if I'd be able to hear my characters in my head anymore.  I didn't know if I would be able to feel what they felt or see what they saw.

I worried that I wouldn't hear their voices talking to me anymore.  It's essential that I hear them.  I need this to be able to continue to work.

<If you didn't read my last post about this, go here. >

Then, my main character reminded me of just how funny he could be.  Truth is, he's a pain in the arse, but he is funny for the most part.  He's my way of getting my frustrations and aggression out of my system without outwardly hurting anyone in my real life.  He's my evil twin, so to speak.  I have a lot of love for this character and the further into the story I get, the more I realize how very much I have missed him.

I am thoroughly enjoying getting reacquainted with him and the others in his story.

He isn't the only one I think about, but he is my focus at the moment.

Alas, I have five or six other projects that are knocking on my window.  They all want attention, but I know I lack enough focus right now to work on them all.  I desperately want to finish this one work, so that I can say that I actually completed something.  I crave that sense of accomplishment.

Back to what I was saying...

I've missed him.  I find myself reading through his pages and laughing--or thwap him on the back of the head if the need presents itself.  It's as if I wasn't the one that wrote the story.  I know I did, because it's my print, but I'm experiencing it all over again as if it were the first time.  I know it's not the first time, because I can hear him saying how funny that moment was, or regretting a decision that was made.  I can hear the character telling me how different he'd wished certain events had transpired, and I find myself aching for him.

I know, I know...You're back to thinking , "Whoa!  She's looney!"  I wouldn't blame you.  I actual think I am sometimes, but like I said in my previous post, you kind of have to be.  If you think that I am completely off my rocker, let me leave you with this.  Are you familiar with Anne Rice?  The creator of Lestat from "Interview with a Vampire"?  She has said in interviews that Lestat would often converse with her while she was writing.  She a NY Times Best Selling Author.

Not so crazy anymore, am I?

Sorry to keep this so short, but I have to get back to my little guy.

He just told me not to call him that..."little," I mean.  He's so touchy!

Character Development

Which came first the author or the characters they've written about?

To be quite honest, I don't truly know.  I suppose it could be both ways.  Numerous authors have said that their stories came to them in a dream.  Is the dream technically supplying the characters or is it the author?  Since it's the author's mind, wouldn't it then be the author?

The mind boggles.

I was asked a question about my writing by one of my readers.  "Have your characters ever awaken you in the middle of the night and nagged at you?"

My answer?  Yes, yes they have.  Numerous times in fact.  It's funny actually.  I'll go to sleep thinking that I have ended my thoughts on a part of my story rather well, only to be awaken by a sort of rumbling in a dream.  Sometimes it's just an echo of a voice and other times, the persona I've imaged in my head, pops into my vision.  They can be such nags when they don't feel like they've been treated properly.  It can be so all-consuming that I have to get out of bed, grab my nearby notebook, and start jotting things down.  At times, it reverberates so violently through my mind that I end up writing chapters of rough information that I will undoubtedly tweak later in the day.

Now hold on! Don't go calling the guys in the white coats just yet.  I haven't gone mad.  I'm not insane, not that a little insanity isn't needed to be any good at telling a good story.  If you don't write, then you may know.

What you need to understand is that though people call writing a process, it's much, much more than that.  When you're writing, you have all these characters from your story, running around in your head.  Each one has their own personality.  Likes, dislikes.  They're constantly attempting to influence what you will write about them next.  No one wants to be put in a bad light, right?

You still think that sounds crazy?  Have you ever talked to yourself?  Chastised yourself for making a mistake...out loud?  Do you keep a journal where each entry begins with "Dear Diary" or some other greeting?

I'm no more crazy than you are.  A writer's characters are a way of getting their own thoughts, aggressions, aggravations, etcetera--I think you get the point--out.

In order to develop characters you need to know how people react in different situations.  Can you tell me that one author can fully know how to write about a killer and his feelings when he goes into a manic episode without truly thinking it through?  You have to imagine yourself in that situation.  Feel everything you can possibly feel without actually going through with the act yourself.  How is it that in another chapter, the writer goes through every feeling a clinically depressed girl has as she struggles with the decision of whether or not to commit suicide, while holding a knife to her wrist?  In still another chapter, that same author can write about the hope of true love, and how it begins as a small bud just stretching from the ground before blooming in the light of day.  Sure they can do research.  They can interview people that have actually experienced such things, but how do you get that exact emotion?  How do they make any reader feel every emotion from each and every one of those characters?

They've drawn you in, by telling you little details in passing.  Sure your experiencing what's happening with the characters in the moment, but you'll read a joke or someone will have a "remember when" moment.  You don't really see them, unless you pay very close attention.

My favorite books are the ones that make me feel what's happening.  I can conjure up an image of the character, feel what they're feeling, put myself in their place.  Those are the books I get involved in and hate when they end.

"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader--not the fact that it is raining, 

but the feeling of being rained upon."
~E.L. Doctorow

You'd have to be slightly low on sanity in order to write about all the varying human emotions your characters are going to go through.  The good thing is, when writing about them it can keep you sane. I know...WEIRD!

Still don't understand how I'm sane?  Psychologists tell you to keep a journal so that you can analyze your thoughts when you are in a "normal state", or so that they can.  Can't storytelling be a confession of sorts?  A diary of a time in the past or how one wished how things had happened?  A good storyteller feels the emotion when they're writing it so that they can best express it to the reader.  If they're doing their job right, the reader can completely immerse themselves in the world presented.

I can admit that I don't mind the thought of being slightly insane.  If it makes me a better character developer, or writer/author, then I am all for it.  If I can draw my reader in and have them appreciate or love just one character, I'd be more than pleased.  I'd be ecstatic!

So...if I am insane, I don't want treatment.  My own personal character likes the thought of being able to "act out" through my writing.  If my sleep is interrupted by one of my characters/personas because they're angry with a decision I've made about their actions in a scene, I'm glad for it.

Hi, I'm insane.  I converse with myself and the people running around in my head.

Don't be scared; I don't bite.

Hard.


Where's my jacket?

Confessions of a Reader in Secret

Intrigued? Don't be.  It's nothing that is truly all that bad.

I am a fan-fiction reader. Yes.  I read fan-fiction. My little sister got me hooked on it, and at first, I will admit I did not see the draw. Then, I began to read some really good stories which had some pretty original ideas, and I began seeing some things that made me think, "Hey, I would actually buy this book if it were published."



There's been quite a bit of an uproar over the years because some authors were pulling their stories, changing the names of the characters (which were originally based off another author's work), and publishing under different titles.

At first, I was livid--especially when I was reading one and hadn't quite finished it when it was pulled--but, then I asked myself, was I into it for the story or because it was based on these characters that I knew from the original work by the original author. If the answer was the latter, then there was nothing to really get upset over. If it was the preceding, I did everything I could to find if it had been published. In all cases, it had not been published by a publishing house, but had been taken by other "writers" and represented as their own work.  Basically, it was stolen, misrepresented, and was taken down for "protection".

Recently, a book series--rumored to have been shopped by Hollywood--is taking quite a bit of flack because it had begun as a work of fan-fiction.  The author had pulled the stories, changed character names and played with the title.  The story was good and far apart from the original work's storyline, however fan-fiction readers are in hate mode.

Why?

Granted the story, originally, was written as a Twilight fan-fic (yes, I said Twilight. Get over it.), but there wasn't much if anything that resembled Twilight. Yes, it began in Washington, but not in the small town of Forks. The characters were adults and there was no "other-worldliness" to any of them.

I think the truer issue is that at one time the reading was free and now, if they want to read the story and some of the additional pieces that were added, they have to pay for it.

I said the story was good...it wasn't great, and I wouldn't pay for it, but other readers of actual published works have.  There were a few things that bothered me about the fan-fiction story (to the point where I stopped reading), but some people really loved it.  So, I guess I do feel a bit sorry for them, but in my own personal opinion....

...it should be the author's right to choose what they do with their story.  She had a good following for the series and if she chose to take it another route, then she had to know it could either ruin her or do something really great.  If she gets the Hollywood deal...I don't think she'll be too worried about what "the little people" think.

Even if they are the ones that gave her the stones enough to go after her dream.

"You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it.  If you want something, go get it. Period." - Pursuit of Happyness (Movie)