Jun 19 2008
Letting Go
One of the biggest difficulties I have, when talking to non-writers, is trying to explain what happens when I get stuck on a specific incident. “So I’ve got this situation,” I explain. “I know what’s supposed to happen, and where the story ends, but, well… my main character doesn’t want to go that way.” About half the time, they will give me blank looks, or if I’m really lucky will ask me what I mean like that in a tone that doesn’t imply that they think I’m insane.
Most of the writers I’ve heard from consider treating their characters as living entities to be an integral part of the writing process, but for many outside the field, and even a few in it, this is an alien concept. My last encounter with this came during a mini-workshop in a college class I’d taken on fiction writing. I’d written a story about writer’s block, based one of the things my professor had told us the prior week—about a character who refused to let her story be told until her writer quit worrying about her safety in the upcoming chapter. To say that my partner did not understand it would be a vast understatement; she simply could not comprehend a character operating as anything other than her author’s puppet, and without that understanding, the meaning behind the story was lost.
There’s a sense in which a lot of us as writers are control freaks at heart, and occasionally it backfires on us. How many times have you seen criticisms of a story that revolve around the feeling that from what we know of the protagonist, or antagonist or much of anyone in the cast, an action was completely out of character for that individual? Or worse, how often do you see a situation like that as a major defining plot moment?
There comes a time when we have to let go. To let the character do what she will, without worrying about whether she’s going to make it or what effect it will have on our nice neat plans.
Yes, it makes the story more difficult. But it can also provide benefits. First off, it makes the characters more human. An archetype might always react the way she’s expected to, but a real person won’t; she might be distracted by something that would only matter to her, she might react more intensely or less than the archetype to which she is most similar, she might put two and two together and get five for reasons entirely her own—and that’s what makes her interesting. Second, it could create a plot twist you might not have planned, that could be far better than anything you came up with. (It happens to me all the time!) Third, it makes the story a bit more of an adventure for you, the writer; after all, there’s nothing quite like not knowing what’s going to happen next to keep you at your desk typing away, right?
Tomorrow: And how does this tie in to yesterday’s rant?
I think this is a great topic, I can relate as far as my own writing goes. Once you start getting a story down, regardless of how you’ve envisioned it, it always takes on a life of its own. Sometimes you just can’t make a character bend to your expectations without compromising some essential truth. It’s work, without a doubt.
This topic reminds me of earlier this year when I was using some of my students (who are writers) as sounding boards for the novel I’m writing. I had a character call another character a “douche bag,” and one of the students went crazy, declaring that “he would never say such a thing.”
It ended up becoming a debate over whether or not the character would actually call someone such a crude name. Truthfully, he wasn’t originally supposed to be such a complete jerk, but it just happened. And then, I decided that I liked him better that way. So he called his best friend a douche bag and the story started to take off once he did.
Luckily, it ended up being a nice little lesson on “going with the flow.” Some of the best laid plans…
I think you are touching on something inherent in writing: instinct. We can WANT all sorts of things to happen, but good writing comes when a writer helps guide, but allows things to flow in ways he or she never expected. In literature classes, so often teachers act as if everything they point out about a work was the intent of the author. Yet that suggests some level of genius which is entirely conscious. Yet I think much of what comes out is from the subconscious. Sometimes I’ve allowed myself to follow a character, only to discover a much more interesting and meaningful path for her. An entire chapter or subplot might change, or a character might end up extraordinary.
I do like knowing where the ending will be (although that has changed, too), but how the characters will get there is as much of an adventure to write as I could want.