Your characters after they are done being written

[stickygirl]

I try to avoid thinking of my characters as real people, with lives beyond the story. That kind of thing tends to result in the writer falling in love with them, and wanting to tell every detail of their lives even when it doesn't make for an interesting story or move the plot forward. The result is an endless soap opera, or worse: the Wheel of Time.

I certainly wouldn't recommend you leave the camera on, recording their every move and mundane conversation - that why you're the author, the editor, the interviewer, the scribe. Falling in love with a character doesn't mean you watch them squeeze blackheads - that would be an invasion of their privacy

 

[yowser]

I will finally accept that I have arrived as a writer when one of my characters takes me out to lunch, buys me a beer and thanks me for telling their story.

 

[stickygirl]

I will finally accept that I have arrived as a writer when one of my characters takes me out to lunch, buys me a beer and thanks me for telling their story.

No, that's when you've arrived outside the psychiatric ward. Enjoy your stay - the drugs are free

 

[ChuckWolf]

My wife made this comment... "Do your characters behave the same after they're done being written?"

I was quiet for like three minutes after that, thinking about it. And I don't know. Do your characters behave the same once you've stopped puppet-mastering them? Or do they look back at what you've written, what you've made them do, and shudder?

In most of my stories, the MC (usually male) is tricked/coerced/forced into an erotic situation that leaves them with dormant kinks that have been unlocked or are newly created from the intensity of the situation/orgasm.

Often, this will come up mid-story, with the character realizing that the erotic moment they are (often unwillingly) undergoing, will stay with them and be one of the go-to memories in their spank-banks.

Sometimes, I'll have an epilogue, showing how the character has been changed from the experience.

 

[Britva415]

I start almost every story with characters and a scenario. If I can't believe the characters will do what the scenario needs, I can't write it.

Yeah, same

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I certainly wouldn't recommend you leave the camera on, recording their every move and mundane conversation - that why you're the author, the editor, the interviewer, the scribe. Falling in love with a character doesn't mean you watch them squeeze blackheads - that would be an invasion of their privacy

They're pretty much on their own. I just wish they'd quit calling for cab fare when that stay out drinking too late.

 

[Statius]

I only have 2 MC's where life goes beyond the story; one of those involves side characters from a different story. It will never be written but I do think of them from time to time.

The other one, her life is planned well beyond the (hopefully) novel I'm attempting. I doubt after the end of that I will continue to write a sequel.

All other characters pretty much cease to exist when the story ends.

 

[YmaOHyd]

No, that's when you've arrived outside the psychiatric ward. Enjoy your stay - the drugs are free

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I will finally accept that I have arrived as a writer when one of my characters takes me out to lunch, buys me a beer and thanks me for telling their story.

I have included several people that I know IRL in stories, including their businesses.

I was in one restaurant where I knew the owner well. Both he and his establishment had played parts in a previous story. He introduced me a couple sitting next to me at the bar and it turned out that they owned a restaurant that I had recently written into the story I was working on at that time. I had never actually been to their restaurant and had selected it based entirely on the fact that its location met the need of the story. They invited me to visit their place and bought dinner for my wife and I.

I also get free drinks frequently at an Irish pub that I have included in several of my stories.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Do you ever feel like you've taken a character for a walk outside of what they would do themselves?

Depends on what you mean by "what they would do themselves".

I have one story that's about a group of people who are manipulated into doing things they wouldn't normally do. Those people are appalled afterwards, but I like to think that within the context of that manipulation their behaviour makes sense.

But I have had a time where I got to a scene I'd been meaning to write and it just felt wrong for one of the characters - "no, this isn't how Lucy would react to this" - and I ended up ditching the roadmap and running with how I felt Lucy would react. It was messier than the original plan, but it's also the only thing I've ever won a Lit award for, so I guess it worked for the readers as well as for me?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I try to think of my characters as real people. How would a real person with their background/morals/beliefs/experiences handle this situation.

So, they aren't doing something in my stories they wouldn't normally do, they are just being themselves.

 

[stickygirl]

A friend of my mother's is an accomplished media creative-type who offered me advice about writing. She said that I needed to have a whole backstory to my character's lives - that they must have a history that might never appear in the story itself. At first I thought that sounded very profound, until I realised 'Hang on - I do that instinctively. Of course I know my MC once had a boyfriend called Jack who made snide comments and liked to belittle her, and that her Dad was a very practical man and her mother was a teacher...' None of those details will appear in the narrative - I just know it. And yes, I love my characters, even the shitty ones, because I painted them into life.

My brain and way of working are clearly quite different to how that very smart lady does things. Thank heavens! How dull would it be if we all went about things in the same way. The same can be seen in the posts here - we all work in different ways but to a common end... even if that's simply helping readers knock one out

 

[MelissaBaby]

In my mind, my characters exist as fully formed persons before I write about them, and remain so after I have told what is, to me, a part of their story, so I'd say that barring some catastrophic event, they would behave basically the same.

 

[Rob_Royale]

My characters are fictional and don't exist outside my story, so I don't understand the question.

 

[MillieDynamite]

They sleep in the twilight of my mind until I give them new life, or they enter Heaven or hell.

 

[stickygirl]

My characters are fictional and don't exist outside my story, so I don't understand the question.

How wonderful! We have entirely different viewpoints

 

[AchtungNight]

I try to create characters with their own lives, so yeah, outside the realm of my stories, that life is welcome to continue. Readers can imagine how it does as they wish if the story doesn’t answer the question.

 

[SimonDoom]

When the story's done, my characters are like, "Damn, I can't believe all the crazy shit Simon made me do. Time for a beer."

 

[ChloeTzang]

My wife made this comment... "Do your characters behave the same after they're done being written?"

My charactersinvade my head and they tell me what THEY are doing or going to do. I have very little say in it. LOL

 

[Kelliezgirl]

We just need the Lit version of this.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

We just need the Lit version of this.

Oh shit don't tempt me. A judgy narrator narrating a T/I encounter sounds hella fun. Plot bunny recorded.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Oh shit don't tempt me. A judgy narrator narrating a T/I encounter sounds hella fun. Plot bunny recorded.

Stopping and starting the narrative... "no no, that doesn't work, Dad would totally notice her bouncing on his lap".
You could totally destroy all the tropes.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

Stopping and starting the narrative... "no no, that doesn't work, Dad would totally notice her bouncing on his lap".
You could totally destroy all the tropes.

"And would they REALLY engage in anal sex this early? My word."

Or, during the dick reveal: "It was really quite average. Perhaps a tad below that. Not that that affected his sister's enthusiasm, the trollop."

 

[iwatchus]

Along these lines, what happens to all the characters in stories that get set aside half finished? Are they getting irritable at us. "Come on. I was just about to get lucky and you decided to write another damned incest story?"

I could see an uprising out of @StillStunned's WIP folder.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Along these lines, what happens to all the characters in stories that get set aside half finished? Are they getting irritable at us. "Come on. I was just about to get lucky and you decided to write another damned incest story?"

I could see an uprising out of @StillStunned's WIP folder.

Which will spark the Stundian Jihad?