The Character Whisperer
If you are a long-time reader of this blog (with a really good memory to boot), you know that I read this column every single Sunday of my life. I don't particularly believe in marriage. If any of my kids said they were never going to marry, or were going to just live with someone, or they were going to have a baby on their own (once they were old enough to do so responsibly), or were going to adopt kids as a single parent . . . or if they told me they were gay and were going to make any of the choices above, I would be completely comfortable with it. But somewhere inside me, I love the idea that these columns represent the idea of "love found" no matter how twisted the path (these are rarely run-of-the-mill stories). Last week's column was AWESOME. Herb Ritts, if you are a fan of his work, died a couple of years ago, and his long-time love found new love--and now the two men married and have two infant daughters via a surrogate. Sigh. I guess, frankly, I love a happy ending. I want a happy ending!
However, as it pertains to writing, this week's column made me think. The man who got married is a horse whisperer. And I started to wonder if I am a character whisperer.
You see, in the comments of yesterday's post, RichmondWriter (a wonderful photographer, by the way, so check out her site) said that her character did something unexpected--who was in control here? I feel the same way.
Now, I could be a traditional character wrangler, I suppose. I could have an outline and insist, right from the outset that "All you characters BEHAVE!" I could have a riding crop, and I could dig in my heels and insist we stay on the trail.
But instead, I am more like the character whisperer. It's a ride without a saddle. Without a crop. It's a ride that meanders, with a lot of whispering. I don't try to get the characters to listen to my commands. Instead, I whisper to them. I wait for them to tell me their private agonies and fears and secret hopes. Along the way, I do try to lean down and whisper, "If we take this path, you know you'll get your happy ending." But sometimes the trail takes us places even I don't expect. Either way, I may be the one in control, but it's gentler, as if somehow I understand we're in this together.
Thoughts? How do you wrangle your characters?
However, as it pertains to writing, this week's column made me think. The man who got married is a horse whisperer. And I started to wonder if I am a character whisperer.
You see, in the comments of yesterday's post, RichmondWriter (a wonderful photographer, by the way, so check out her site) said that her character did something unexpected--who was in control here? I feel the same way.
Now, I could be a traditional character wrangler, I suppose. I could have an outline and insist, right from the outset that "All you characters BEHAVE!" I could have a riding crop, and I could dig in my heels and insist we stay on the trail.
But instead, I am more like the character whisperer. It's a ride without a saddle. Without a crop. It's a ride that meanders, with a lot of whispering. I don't try to get the characters to listen to my commands. Instead, I whisper to them. I wait for them to tell me their private agonies and fears and secret hopes. Along the way, I do try to lean down and whisper, "If we take this path, you know you'll get your happy ending." But sometimes the trail takes us places even I don't expect. Either way, I may be the one in control, but it's gentler, as if somehow I understand we're in this together.
Thoughts? How do you wrangle your characters?
Labels: characters
posted by Erica Orloff at 7:51 AM
23 Comments:
I've tried whispering, but it's hard for them to hear over all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The best of my characters are real people to me. They are fictional in the sense that I never knew them before. They aren't based on anyone I ever knew, but they pop into my mind from somewhere and they have personalities and directions of their own. When I try to mold them, the story becomes wooden. My Roy Rogers came to me in a dream.
I feel like lately, I wait for my characters to whisper to me. Everything swirls around in my head when I'm not writing, and when I sit down at the keyboard the rest happens. If I try to deliberately write something it doesn't work, but if I let the characters tell their story through me, it seems to be coming out much better.
To me, wrangling characters is like herding cats.
I love the "character whisperer" term. My characters often come on the page with their own personality. I had a scene introducing two secondary characters. One was exactly as I'd imagined him. The other was not. I like him better this way. These kind of surprises are always better than I'd planned.
Jude:
LOL! I don't seem to suffer quite so much over it. I don't know. It's usually a whispering thing for me.
E
Hi Joe:
It's a phenomenon I think writers have a hard time explaining to non-writers.
E
amy:
Yeah. What happens often seem ordained by THEM not me.
E
Zoe:
LOL! Yes. Not too cooperative.
E
edie:
I have had secondaries who then became love interests. And secondaries who turned out to be good when they were supposed to be villains. They seem to have their own destinies in mind when they arrive.
E
How do my characters control me? Is that the question? 'Cause I think that should be the question.
I took a workshop once and the woman giving it was sooooo structured in her writing that it was scary. And she spent a very long time outlining, plotting, etc before even deciding if the novel was worth writing. Um, yeah. Not my style. (She also had many hours every day to devote to writing - also not me.)
I start with a sentence and see what happens next. Then sometimes I get an idea of where the story is going. Then someone in it takes a left turn with my flabbergasted Where are you going?. Then new characters pop up and I'm all Who are you?.
And somehow it all comes together by the time I reach the end of the story. The twist makes sense even if I have to go back and add a bit to make it seem more reasonable. The new characters turn out to have a larger role on the stage.
I don't write. I type in chaos.
Sarah:
Brilliant. I don't write, I type in chaos. THAT is marvelous!!!
E
I try to listen to them. A character in a short story just blurted out something rather shocking and so I had to sit back and think about what that means to the story. It took it in a richer direction, actually.
And whenever I don't know where a story is headed, I let the characters hash it out via dialogue. It might get cut later, but I always learn something.
I too love "I type in chaos".
I am gradually plotting more as I become a more mature writer and have learned how better to structure stories. And I know I won't finish a short story unless I know the end in advance. But I leave lots of "wrangling" room. :)
Thanks for the compliment on my photos!
sex scenes:
I almost always know what I want "end game" to be. But how to get there is the wiggle room.
E
ricmond:
It's well-deserved. LOVE the rich fall foliage tree shot.
E
You know, I give them goals. I throw them into a pressure cooker and then gradually crank up the heat to a rolling boil.
You're right, Erica. Richmond Writer's pics are lovely!
Chaos? Ditto, Sarah! And when I try to control the chaos, I wind up with Jude's wailing and gnashing of teeth..yeah, mine, not the characters.
I can not follow any sort of outline or written in stone GMC formula. I love the freedom to 'let them be, let them be...' and the dream that someday they will BE big enough to go places.
Or I could always drop the teeth gnashing and wailing and just fall to weeping. ;-)
Erica, brilliant term! My characters are very real to me. In a past novel, my story took a totally unexpected direction. I remember chatting with these two characters, asking if they knew the implications, the pain of it all. That's when I knew I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Hi Lainey:
I can't do those very popular methods either. I color outside the lines too much.
E
ladonna:
I never speak to mine directly. They just seem to take over my own head.
E
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