30 Days - day 4

[graculus]

Okay, so it's technically day 5, but who's arguing?

4 – Do you have a "muse" character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the fic isn't about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

I've read this a couple of times and have absolutely no idea what the question is going on about. These are fictional characters, folks, either of someone else's imagining or my own and therefore anything they're getting up to is coming out of my subconscious if I'm not immediately aware of it.

Otherwise that way lies marriage on the astral plain and so on (see icon for what Snape thinks of that!). ;)

Comments

[leethet.livejournal.com]

See, your reaction is very interesting to me. I've been in rooms full of writers and nonwriters and when we talked about the character who sucks you away from what you mean to write because he/she insists on being written about, all the writers nod and smile, and all the nonwriters go "You pretentious freaks." You've really never had a story where you meant to write about A and B, and C,for instance, was a minor character in your intent, but you found he just sucked all your focus away from A and B and you wrote about him? Or you wanted him to do thing X and whenever you tried to write him doing thing X, the story went flat, because it simply wasn't right for him to do thing X (however necessary you felt thing X was to your plot)?

I'm not saying every writer must have had this experience, just that I can't remember meeting one who didn't. :-)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I've had it happen in the occasional story where things haven't turned out as I'd originally planned (though I don't plan in such great detail that there's not room for this, so maybe that helps with this whole area?) but if I'm writing UNCLE, IK does not sit me down and tell me what happened or how he felt about it.

I am not channelling fictional characters, I'm working out my own crazy subconscious and what works for me.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

I've had it happen in the occasional story where things haven't turned out as I'd originally planned

To me, this is the same thing. I'm not sure about the intent of the original question, of course (the language is odd, to me - "muse" and having the story take an unexpected turn are two different things), but to me, stories sometimes take on a life of their own (something that surprises me a bit when it occurs to me, and wasn't planned). Sometimes that's a character doing things that weren't planned, sometimes it's a new plot twist (that sounds like what you're describing??). Obviously all that is coming from the author's head, but that's was how I read the question. I didn't read it as channeling, probably because that's certainly not how I write, but I've known at least one person who feels she's channeled her characters (it was original fic) - that they're speaking to her in some way that was kind of beyond my ken. :-)

[cycnus39]

Now, now you're just being perverse. When writers say "this character won't talk to me" or "this character won't shut up and takes over everything" they really mean they are having trouble getting a handle on this character in this story/situation or they are having lots of ideas about this character they don't want to write about. And you know that. Stop being perverse, you perverse thing you. ;-)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Stop being perverse, you perverse thing you. ;-)

Where would be the fun in that? :P