Unhealthy relationships between writers and their characters...

[Guest kayden]

Up until now my writing has either been non-fiction/editorial school papers and blog posts, or fictional accounts that are semi-autobiographical.

[Graeme]

From conversations I've had with other authors, many of us find that the characters have a life outside what what we expect. Many of us have written something unexpected, because that's what the character did. If you want to put it another way, the characters have grown so much in our own minds that we don't have complete conscious control over what they do. They'll tell us quite clearly if we try to make them do things that are out of character (it's one of the common forms of writer's block).

 

So, no, I don't find it unusual what you're experiencing. As a good writer, your characters have taken on a life of their own and you have feelings for them. That's normal and natural

 

I've never personally felt guilty for something I've put a character through, but I care for my characters and while it doesn't always work out that way, I wish all my characters well.

[Guest kayden]

From conversations I've had with other authors, many of us find that the characters have a life outside what what we expect. Many of us have written something unexpected, because that's what the character did. If you want to put it another way, the characters have grown so much in our own minds that we don't have complete conscious control over what they do. They'll tell us quite clearly if we try to make them do things that are out of character (it's one of the common forms of writer's block).

 

So, no, I don't find it unusual what you're experiencing. As a good writer, your characters have taken on a life of their own and you have feelings for them. That's normal and natural

 

I've never personally felt guilty for something I've put a character through, but I care for my characters and while it doesn't always work out that way, I wish all my characters well.

 

Well I'm happy to hear I'm not completely alone in this strange phenomena. It's kind of creepy that you suggest that the characters sort of take on a life their own, though - separate from our consciousness, almost having a life and motives of their own volition.

[Nephylim]

I absolutely live my characters. Not only do they take on a life of their own very early on in the work but I live it vicariously through them. I find myself muttering conversations on the train, in work, whenever I have a moment of peace and quiet to think. For the time I am writing I am completely 'in character'.

 

What Graeme said is very true... the characters take on lives of their own and to some extent create the story as we go along.

 

As for writing bad things happening to the characters... well for me that's the most fun part...but then I'm evil

[Guest kayden]

I absolutely live my characters. Not only do they take on a life of their own very early on in the work but I live it vicariously through them. I find myself muttering conversations on the train, in work, whenever I have a moment of peace and quiet to think. For the time I am writing I am completely 'in character'.

 

What Graeme said is very true... the characters take on lives of their own and to some extent create the story as we go along.

 

As for writing bad things happening to the characters... well for me that's the most fun part...but then I'm evil

 

I think that I, too, live vicariously through my characters. Perhaps that's why I'm so afraid to do bad things to my character: I'm doing it to my imaginary self!

 

 

You ARE evil, though. If you knew what I was going to be doing to poor Oliver and thought it was okay for me to do it, I'd say you were going straight to h-e-double hockeystick! Perhaps I'm not God, as I hypothesized in my previous post, but the Devil instead.

[Guest kayden]

I dunno why I didn't think of this earlier, but I just had an epiphany! It occured to me that as a writer, I'm not playing God or the Devil; I'm playing both! I'm both the Creator and the Destroyer! That's a lot of responsibility...

 

I know this isn't the place to get philosophical, but perhaps this is a fractalogical framework that can be applied to larger arenas? Theology perhaps? (Not sure if "fractalogical" is a real word, but I'm referring to the mathematical theory of fractals, and the ancient Hermetical principle of "as above, so below"...)

 

 

Sorry! Sorry!

[Myval]

I've experience something similer to this. I'm an advid Role Player, and reciently in one of the Rp I'm part of, I caused one of my OC, Original Character, to become parapaligic (that where the can't move 2 of their limbs right?), and another to have a nervous breakdown. And in retrospect, I feel horrible putting them through that, I'm try to get

a healer to heal Alexa, my parapaligic, for Pete's sake!

Edited December 22, 2009 by Myval

[Guest kayden]

I caused one of my OC, Original Character, to become parapaligic (that where the can't move 2 of their limbs right?), and another to have a nervous breakdown.

 

How could you?!

[Myval]

no.. unforteintly she got shot in the back..... So ya...

 

 

[Nephylim]

I am so evil You should read Love in Chains or Weeping Lily and then you will see how truly evil I am... not only that but I really enjoy torturing my characters and reading the truly horrendous things other people do to theirs. I mean love and romance is alright but it can rot your teeth after a while... nothing like emotional torment and physical pain to balance it out

[David McLeod]

First, the relationship between a writer and his or her characters is, or should be, more intimate than any physical relationship can be. While a physical (call it "real world," if you will) relationship can be healthy or unhealthy, the relationship between author and character cannot be anything except healthy. That's an assertion that I will, someday, try to prove.

 

Second, and based on my own experience, it should be upsetting to kill a character, just as a character's success should be elating. The more emotion the author experiences, the more emotion he or she can get onto the page.

 

Should you feel guilty about harming a character? Sure, why not? Should you brood about it? No.

 

Are you playing god or the antithesis? Sure; so what? That's part of being a good author: creating a situation, placing characters in it, and watching them learn and grow. Frankly, I think that's why I started writing: I was able to create a world that, to me, was more satisfying than the one in which I live, and to populate it with people who I would like to know, to place them in situations in which I would like to find myself, and to watch over them as they dealt with the situations. Yes, characters sometimes get away from me...I think we all experience that.

 

It is not unhealthy to empathize and identify with characters; however, one must be able to let that go and to get on with living in the real world.

 

I think that a close relationship with one or more characters is one of the milestones on the road to being a good author. Enjoy it, and then put it aside for the next milestone.

[Guest kayden]

no.. unforteintly she got shot in the back..... So ya...

 

 

Hm, well as long as it wasn't an H1N1 vaccine shot, I'm sure she'll pull through.

 

 

 

I am so evil You should read Love in Chains or Weeping Lily and then you will see how truly evil I am... not only that but I really enjoy torturing my characters and reading the truly horrendous things other people do to theirs. I mean love and romance is alright but it can rot your teeth after a while... nothing like emotional torment and physical pain to balance it out

 

Hm, not sure I have any desire to read your stories, then! I understand balance, and I'm not a typical American who believes every story should have a happy ending, but I'm not a big fan of unnecessary torture. I don't like to admit to my sensitive side very often, but if your stories are going to bring me to tears like the movie "My Dog Skip" did, then I'll be happier not reading your stories. Then again, that's one of my favorite movies, so maybe your stories will be more enjoyable on a deeper level than I'd imagine. When I get the time I'll take a peek! (Maybe the proper emoticon for the statement would be , considering your admission of a fondness for torment...)

 

That being said, you'll probably enjoy future chapters of "Physical Education" a lot more than the ones you've read so far!

 

 

 

 

 

First, the relationship between a writer and his or her characters is, or should be, more intimate than any physical relationship can be. While a physical (call it "real world," if you will) relationship can be healthy or unhealthy, the relationship between author and character cannot be anything except healthy. That's an assertion that I will, someday, try to prove.

 

Perhaps, but as you'll state below, one must be able to abandon that relationship. In other words, your assertion that the author/character relationship "cannot be anything but healthy" is only true if the author doesn't descend into a state of insanity because of that relationship. It's also possible that a person like me, who is mentally unstable to begin with, can have pre-existing psychological conditions that are aggravated by the author's creation of an imaginary world and life. Although I think there are times when it's healthy to have an imaginary life separate from the "real world", I'm sure there are instances when living vicariously through a self-induced hallucination is detrimental to a person's "real" self. I mean, I suppose it's healthier to manifest negative emotions in an imaginary world; it's better to murder a person you hate in a story than it is to do it in reality, but when you manifest too many emotions through your vicarious life you may be neglecting the mental health of your "real" self. Hm...this is getting very deep and I'm going off on a tangent.

 

 

Second, and based on my own experience, it should be upsetting to kill a character, just as a character's success should be elating. The more emotion the author experiences, the more emotion he or she can get onto the page.

 

Yes, I agree. I think the more emotional the author is when writing a story, the more emotional the story will be for his/her readers.

 

 

 

Should you feel guilty about harming a character? Sure, why not? Should you brood about it? No.

I can't sleep at night because of what I'm doing to my character. I have nightmares about it when I do sleep. I dream he's coming to exact vengeance on me. And then just before he murders me to finally put me out of my tortuous misery, I wake up. Not really, though. (Sidebar: "This must be how God feels!" )

 

Are you playing god or the antithesis? Sure; so what? That's part of being a good author: creating a situation, placing characters in it, and watching them learn and grow. Frankly, I think that's why I started writing: I was able to create a world that, to me, was more satisfying than the one in which I live, and to populate it with people who I would like to know, to place them in situations in which I would like to find myself, and to watch over them as they dealt with the situations. Yes, characters sometimes get away from me...I think we all experience that.

 

 

And now another person is suggesting that characters can take on a life and consciousness of their own. You all really want me to become a terrified insomniac, don't you? I think I have similar reasons for writing, though. If that's why people write stories, I can't help but wonder why people read? (A rhetorical question with suggestive undertones, no answer required, if it doesn't make you think, it wasn't meant for you...)

 

It is not unhealthy to empathize and identify with characters; however, one must be able to let that go and to get on with living in the real world.

 

"But I don't WANT to get on with the real world, Mommy!" the little boy screams as he flops on the floor and throws an epic tantrum. (Okay, the boy in question is me...)

[Nephylim]

If you are of a delicate or overly sensitive disposition maybe you shouldn't read the stories I mentioned... the others are more harmless. I don't write trauma and torture deliberately but it just always seems to go that way. I have tried to write 'happy' stories but that doesn't really work for me. Okay most of my stories have happy endings... at least in the short term which I suppose is the most that any can, but the characters go through the mill to get there.

 

I suppose I am of the belief that life is about suffering, that character is formed by suffering and that it is when someone is suffering, whether mentally or physically they are at their most... real, with the mask ripped off so to speak.

 

Also it is part of the characters taking on their own life thing... I go where I am led. Perhaps I have a tortured soul... or perhaps the reason I don't have a tortured soul is because I have a long string of tortured characters who have taken that away from me and left me lighter... I don't know. I write what I write... becuase I have to write it. I get very very attached to my characters and often the things they say move me to tears... but the things that happen to them... I don't really get emotionally involved in that.

 

I don't feel that I am actually putting my characters through the things that happen because it feels to me more that I am telling their story than that I am making it, if that makes sense. I don't see myself as either god or the devil... unsuprisingly as I believe in neither... I just see myself as a storyteller.

 

 

[Guest kayden]

If you are of a delicate or overly sensitive disposition maybe you shouldn't read the stories I mentioned... the others are more harmless. I don't write trauma and torture deliberately but it just always seems to go that way. I have tried to write 'happy' stories but that doesn't really work for me. Okay most of my stories have happy endings... at least in the short term which I suppose is the most that any can, but the characters go through the mill to get there.

 

 

I wouldn't say I'm "of a delicate or overly sensitive disposition" on any level, in fact up until a week ago I don't think I had cried in ten years. ("My Dog Skip", followed by some drunken sad-song karaoke sessions, followed by the writing of a sad, sad story for GA...) I just think that as a reader I tend to get into a story in a very personal and almost real way, so I empathize with characters a lot and prefer not to read stories that have tragedy in excess. Not that a story can't have tragedy, or even that it has to have a happy ending, but I prefer a healthy balance of laughs and tears. Then again, one of the novels I'm writing is nothing but tragedy, which is probably why I can only write about a paragraph every month or so. Oh, it's the most horrible story ever! *tear

 

I suppose I am of the belief that life is about suffering, that character is formed by suffering and that it is when someone is suffering, whether mentally or physically they are at their most... real, with the mask ripped off so to speak.

 

I agree, but again it's all about balance for me. Life would be boring without any suffering, but it would also be boring if you were just always suffering. You need the contrast of both highs and lows to be able to appreciate either. That's my feeling anyway.

 

I get very very attached to my characters and often the things they say move me to tears... but the things that happen to them... I don't really get emotionally involved in that.

 

Anything your characters are saying is something you're saying, since you're the writer. I personally feel that anything that happens to the character is in some ways happening to me, also, because my characters are not only my creation, but they're also a literal part of me, though only a mental and emotional one. I'm even toying with the idea that characters a writer creates are an actual extension of ourselves. In that way, anything that happens to poor Ollie is happening to me, and since I'm the writer, I'm making it happen to myself. It's sick!

[Nephylim]

I absolutey agree. With everything. I do write sweetness into my story and great joy as well as suffering. I agree that it would be pointless to write a story that is nothing but suffering from beginning to end.. I wouldn't want to read a story like that so I don't write them. And I agree that characters are an extension of ourselves... at least parts of ourselves... and when we torture them it's an extension of the torment we experience. I suppose I am a selfish writer and I just write what comes without really thinking about how it pleases, or not, the reader and I have found writing a great therapy. I think that writing is far more than just the experience of writing... it's putting part of yourself on paper... or the screen and that is why it is so important for writers to have review and feedback... because you are exposing yourself for all to see and whether people see you as good or bad is irrelevant... the importance is that they see you and acknowledge you. Well that's my psychology for today

[W_L]

I dunno why I didn't think of this earlier, but I just had an epiphany! It occured to me that as a writer, I'm not playing God or the Devil; I'm playing both! I'm both the Creator and the Destroyer! That's a lot of responsibility...

 

I know this isn't the place to get philosophical, but perhaps this is a fractalogical framework that can be applied to larger arenas? Theology perhaps? (Not sure if "fractalogical" is a real word, but I'm referring to the mathematical theory of fractals, and the ancient Hermetical principle of "as above, so below"...)

 

 

Sorry! Sorry!

 

Haha!

 

You posed the same question I did about a year ago about the reality of characters.

 

For me, I not merely dream of character; I dream of their universe and everyone around them. There is a lot of stuff going on with mulitple levels of actions each affecting one another in many profound and unexpected ways. Living through a fictional character makes you a escapist, but making your own world around them, makes a you God in your own right.

 

What I have come down to is that I have an obligation to all my characters and universes to keep them in my thoughts, to work with them on their lives, and allow their mundane experiences and non-mundane experiences to work through the story.

 

I am the Alpha and Omega to my character and their universes, I can think them into existence and destroy them on a whim. Yet, you will grow through time to care about these people and their lives. On good days, you will seek to add a little spice in their story like a bomb on a plane or your school is taken over by zombies due to a failed medical experiment . On bad days, you may want to reflect on your own life and add elements like the character comes out to their homophobic family or your character gets critically injured by demon, while his partner is being violated in front of him.

 

If God and Man are one in the same, whether you are a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Daoist, Buddhist, Atheist, or any faith in such an assessment, then we share similar shift in our moods. Whether it is man who created God or God who created man, we are still stuck with the emotional swings from both.

 

Philosophically speaking, I believe most stories come as a reflection on a person and their beliefs, while arguable shifting and changing through the duration due to their emotions.

[Guest kayden]

Living through a fictional character makes you a escapist, but making your own world around them, makes a you God in your own right.

 

 

Yes, it most definitely is escapist. Funny, I never considered escapism such a divine personality trait!

 

I'd also like to apologize. It appears as though a topic similar to this one had been started by jamessavik here.

[gardentuber]

Good subject, Kayden.

 

I've been reading the responses with interest. Sometimes, I find I have to rewrite a scene because I've written dialog in a voice that's not the character's. They speak differently than i speak or should... But a more serious problem has been writing my characters too be too nice to one another. Like when a character is tired, but his dialog doesn't express fatigue. In that way, writing has been a mirror onto my state of mind. Personally, I would like to be a kind, personable and attentive individual, so that's been the default of my characters, but where's the drama in that?

 

And then there's Nephylim! She's been a bad influence on me, probably mesmerized me! I just stabbed my favorite character in the back! Reading Nephylim's posts about torturing her characters must have had in affect on me! A bad one! :mace: And worse, :mace: :mace: I enjoyed it! Something's really wrong here. :mace: :mace: :mace: Am I not the nice, personable and attentive individual I'd like to be?

 

Keep an eye on that Nephylim! She might draw you to the dark side, too!

[Guest kayden]

Good subject, Kayden.

 

I've been reading the responses with interest.

[Myval]

Hehe,

 

I've came to realize, that when i create a character, they always have a similarity to me, even if its tiny...

 

 

hehe, I just had on of my character Tase someone on the highest setting

 

That shoud teach them hehe :devil:

[Emulated]

I think it's perfectly normal for a writer to have some sort of 'relationship' with his/her characters. Similarly, if you ask a writer about their favourite character, they'll undoubtedly have one, so I see this as a part of that relationship.

 

As long as they're recognised as characters (i.e. not real people), then I don't see any problem with it. It's a good thing and can only work to improve one's work.

 

...I don't write trauma and torture deliberately...

There ya, fixed it for you!

[Nephylim]

I think it's perfectly normal for a writer to have some sort of 'relationship' with his/her characters. Similarly, if you ask a writer about their favourite character, they'll undoubtedly have one, so I see this as a part of that relationship.

 

As long as they're recognised as characters (i.e. not real people), then I don't see any problem with it. It's a good thing and can only work to improve one's work.

 

 

There ya, fixed it for you!

 

 

Thanks for that I must have overlooked it

[Camilo]

Hmmmm..... I guess you guys are right, you live your characters and feel responsible. I don't know, I really don't consider myself a writer per se as you guys. I wrote Perks as a way to accept my uber gayness and to cope with some other aspects of myself. At first, I tried really hard to seperate myself from the story and just make it a "fictional" story about "fictional" characters in a "fictional" land. Well............. I failed completely at it, lol. Perks has become so biographical that it's scary. I mean, it's like i'm writing a journal and writing a response to what I think I would feel and react to. Hehe, even the dialogue is verbatim of some of the stuff I say

 

But anyhows, I do get attached to my character Casey because he is such a part of myself. Hehe, it's like having a split personality from whom you can bounce ideas and thoughts off. Perks is the only story I've written so far, so I don't know how I'll react to other characters. I mean, what Casey feels, I feel. When he gets sad, I get sad. When he is happy and excited, I get happy and excited. When he's horny........... well, you guys can figure it out

 

About making him sad and causing him anxiety........ it comes at its own time. I know that certain things need to happen in the story for it to be fully developed, but I don't set the timing in advance. I remember that Casey's confession to Luca about his brother was "planned" to be in chapter 3/4...... yeah, that came out like in chap 9-ish. It's just, I felt that he wasn't ready to handle it that early, so I waited until it felt just right.

 

Hehe, yeah, that's about it. It's weird but I pretty much daydream about future events in the story as if they are memories. But when it comes down to writing them, bleh boring!. Hey, I'm not a writer!!!

[Nephylim]

Welll... how about daydreaming another chapter? I love this story and could do with another chapter soon

 

 

[Camilo]

Welll... how about daydreaming another chapter? I love this story and could do with another chapter soon

 

 

 

.................. so back to what kayden was saying. I think it's a growing experience to make your characters suffer through something. They learn about themselves and grow and develop. And you can't help but learn yourself.