Fiction Writing: Don’t Touch My Character!
Fiction writers care deeply about the characters they bring to life. They think up personalities, quirks and flaws, they romanticize the image, and then they allow the vision of their character to pour forth in words.
As writers, we all want characters that come alive on the pages. Characters make or break a story. Get them wrong, and the book gets set aside. No one wants to read a dull, two-dimensional creature of fiction with no more depth than a flat piece of glass. Get a character right, though, and readers fall in love.
You can almost hear the thunk.
Because we have so much heart and soul (and a little of ourselves) poured into the characters we create, giving them up to share in a collaborative creation becomes difficult. We find it hard to let other people play with our toys, and we get very selfish about sharing our characters in play.
In fact, fiction collaboration can become a nightmare.
“That’s not what he’d say,” you might protest, hearing the true words your character would utter echoing in your head. “That’s not what she’d do,” you might point out, knowing exactly where your character would march – and it wouldn’t be that way. “That’s not how my character behaves,” you might disapprove, feeling like someone took your favorite action figure and twisted it up all wrong.
In creative collaboration, fictional writing and role-playing games like the one we run at Escaping Reality, moving a character (the act of writing out the thoughts, actions or speech of a character that isn’t your own) is a huge no-no. It takes a careful eye, good insight into the character’s personality and a certain knowledge of its general behavior to get reactions true to form.
No, it’s not easy preventing the character’s main creator from squirming.
I could say collaborating writers need to be less controlling or learn to let go, but I won’t. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to read a misportrayal of our beloved hero or heroine. Even the slightest inaccuracy can get a person’s back up.
I will give a suggestion to fiction writers and collaborators, though. Play your own characters. Don’t share characters unless it’s one that neither writer cares much about. Don’t assume any character’s action, thought or words – not even the twitch of a finger – without asking the owner’s opinion, too.
It’s quite easy to abide by these rules of respect. Simply ask the creator of the character, “How would Sarah look if… What would Caleb say if… and if Rupert did this, what would Erin do?”
Once you have your answer, write away – but write no more than what you were given. And then pass the torch. Lift your pen and hand it back to the other writer. Make your fiction interactive, and don’t hog the scene.
Collaboration is a careful dance of give and take, but as we all know… it takes two to really tango.
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Oh heavens yes. I’ve had several “Hey! Wait a minute!” moments with Lizzy over on ER. It’s funny how possessive we get of our characters, and how certain we are sometimes of how they’d react to things, and a POX on anyone who contradicts that certainty!
Not that I always know every move she’ll make, but if someone makes a wrong assumption about something she’d do, and I know it straight away.
In addition to that, something that often gets me is when another character gets so wrapped up in their piece, that they forget to allow my character to react before they’ve already moved on. I think we’ve all been there (on both sides!), and it’s almost as frustrating as if the other writer had plopped down and written, “And Lizzy sat quietly in a corner with nothing to contribute.” Y’right.
Nicole Brunet´s last blog post…A Place in My Mind
I always thought that it would be difficult collaborating on a work of fiction with someone. It’s like a movie — usually there is only one director with one vision. Once you get two people in there, visions need to be compromised, and I think ultimately you get a watered-down version.
On the other hand, musicians collaborate with excellent results. I think that for the most part the Lennon/McCartney songs were better than the ones they did solo. And where would Elton John be without Bernie?
Like all partnerships, I think there needs to be a delicate balance. I remember the Dragonlance series from when I was a kid. That was written by two writers, and seamlessly done, in my opinion.
Then you get things like Thieve’s World, also written by multiple authors but each writing a short story. They use other people’s characters and advance them, though I suspect that going into that the writers simply accepted that the characters would not totally be their own. Perhaps that makes it different.
In any case, I’d love to be able to write with someone else. The battles for creative control might be more intense, but it would make writing a lot less lonely!
~Graham
Graham Strong´s last blog post…Where Web Designers (and Designees) Can Go For Inspiration
@Nicole: Yeah, that’s one of the hardest things for new players to learn. All you have to remember is to keep your focus on your own character, and you only know as much as the last person gave you to work with. You have to kind of ignore responding to the internal thoughts (but not) and try to look for external clues that might help you react to those. The other character might be saying one thing and doing another – which always leads to some interesting conflicts.
@Graham: Even with a collaboration like Thieves World or the Pratchett/Gaiman collaboration “Good Omens” I’m sure there was a lot of careful communication between the authors regarding the reactions of the characters.
Whether James and I are posting on ER or working on the novel, there’s always moments of “If so and so did this, what would your character say/do?” We know each other’s characters very well, but there’s always the element of surprise where our own characters don’t always do what even we, their creators, know what they’re going to do.
In East of Eden, John Steinbeck said…
“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.”
I agree with him.
I don’t write fiction now. But I imagine I’d treat fiction similar to the way I treat my ad copy.
When I write an ad I like to finish it and then present it. I don’t want any input until I’ve cleared my mind of what I see.
In the past I’ve felt suggestions for improvement diminished my worth as a writer, the whole “Why didn’t I think of that?” syndrome. As soon as I came to the conclusion of “anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first” I freed myself of a lot of grief.
Now when I get suggestions I still know it’s gonna take my magic to weave it in and make it work which isn’t always easy.
As long as I do that on my own, I can always be proud of my writing. And be confident I’m improving along the way.
Note Taking Nerd #2
Note Taking Nerd #2´s last blog post…If I Could Hear The Questions You Ask Yourself Would I Think I Was In The Presence of a Leader Or a Victim?
I’ve only worked on one collaboration and it went pretty well. However, though we had an agreed theme, our stories were written separately. We then swapped and made suggestions if we thought any were needed.
Two things about the experience made it succeed, I think:
1. We were decisive. There was no getting lost in the middle and wondering who was responsible for what. We made the decisions up front and stuck to them.
2. Me and the other writer didn’t know each other terribly well. We were part of the same writing course, but we didn’t know each other beyond that, and I think that helped too.
Oh, and another thing, we both respected each other’s writing. Don’t go into a collaborative writing project with someone you don’t rate!
Iain Broome´s last blog post…Embrace your writing community, but don’t be scared to say ‘no’!
A really interesting post.
I’ve experienced much the same in a shared world fantasy anthology. We had divided up our shared world so that we could write about our own tribes/ kingdoms. It was exciting! As the pieces developed and we shared them with each together, we inspired each other (or at least, I was inspired by the other writers).
The difficulty came when a major character in one of the stories was referred to in other stories. For the most part it wasn’t a problem, and it helped to unify the stories somewhat, but there definitely were some issues. Although we had set some guidelines in the beginning, we probably weren’t quite strict enough about them – either that or we got carried away with the writing (a definite possibility). We’ve agreed that if we do it again, we will adhere more strictly to the guidelines.
On the plus side, I personally found the collaboration really inspiring and can’t wait to do it again.
James, I have never collaborated but your points still hit home for me. Even if you do not collaborate with other writers, once your work is out there in the ether, your readers will have their own interpretation. I also imagine that the writer who has their book optioned for film has a whole new level of letting go to confront. The characters can go in ways you never intended and the actors selected may not even resemble what you created in your mind. I’m not good enough to play the fiction game yet, but one day…
Karen Swim´s last blog post…Blue Days
Nice examination James.
The ability to create fiction is just an amazing facet of the human brain – I’m a neuroscientist and I’m constantly fascinated by the ability of the mind to create entire worlds from nothing but past experience and a suspension of reality.
This is also the trouble with some collaborations – the synthesis of fiction almost never happens in two people the same way. Still if you can channel the emotional attachment to your creations and the conflict with your collaborator into your work then it just might be the greatest thing ever.
From a neuroscience perspective there’s a lot of biology behind generating an emotional response from your readers which I’m continuing to explore at my site.
Patrick
Very Evolved´s last blog post…Why it’s hard to change bad habits, and what you can do about it
@ Patrick – If you’re a neuroscientist, I think you just became someone I’d love to sit down immediately and chatter away to. What a fantastic career!
@ Karen – While writing this post, I was thinking about authors and related fanfiction sites. How do they feel seeing their characters tossed around? Do they feel great because it’s a high form of praise? Do they love that their readers love their characters that much that they want to keep them going? Or do they think the opposite, that they wished it didn’t exist?
@ Robyn – When Harry and I share a character, it’s always one that we really have no personal interest in, the NPCs, as it were. “Lady in the shop” isn’t someone we created with a ton of love, so it’s easier to pass back and forth.
@ Iain – Did you each write specific scenes and then swap to edit and check, or did you go as far as full chapters?
@ Note – Hm… I find I don’t say, “Why didn’t I think of that?†but rather, “Great idea! (now how to use it…)” So you find suggestions and guidelines limit your creativity instead of helping it?
I can’t collaborate either – not for the reasons Note gave but just because I’m too opinionated – I want everything MY way.
You know the old “Lead, follow or get out of the way” ? Mine is “Do whatever you want: I’m doing THIS!”
I come by it honestly: my dad was the same way..
When you announced your collaborative writing project, I was interested but I knew I could never do it..
Tony Lawrence´s last blog post…Understanding automatic blank Pages in Open Office
@James
Feel free to drop by my site, or drop me a line anytime! And on being a scientist; it is a really fun job, I get to see something new everyday. -But honestly, the best thing is it means I can still be kid and stare in wide-eyed wonder at things, play with them, and get paid for it.
Everyday should be playday, no?
Patrick
Very Evolved´s last blog post…Why it’s hard to change bad habits, and what you can do about it
@ Patrick – Every day should be play day. I agree.
@ Tony – The good part about Escaping Reality is that we don’t allow players to use other players’ characters in any way. The collaboration is simply that we build a story together. Every action, thought and dialogue is completely single-player.
You should try it. I’d have fun with you.
James, I like your advice.
Creating characters often involves carving out a part of your mind and giving it over to a totally different personality. When successful, you create believable characters who live and breathe (because they are in fact living inside you). When you fail, well, let’s just say that it isn’t pretty.
Tandem-writing doubles the chance for failure because two minds need to grasp that character. It’s one of the most difficult skills to pick up in the crafting of fiction. That’s probably why there are so few successful collaborators…
Jamie Grove – How Not To Write´s last blog post…Help Me With My 2009 Clarion West Choices Maybe Win A Book