Unhealthy relationships between writers and their characters...

[NightOwl88]

I have yet to write a charecter tragedy into my stories. All of the pain I've written about occures before the story takes place, but is re-lived, re-told, and re-felt through the course of the story itself.

 

Part of me has no desire to write pain and tragedy...I've explored the darker parts of my mind and have no real desire to put those things in ink. As a writer though I know it can't be all sunshine and roses and that eventually some darkness must take place.

 

The others are right though, your charecters should live and breath, you should feel what they feel; be happy when they are and sad when their tormented because in a way you are doing it to yourself lol.

 

Though if it gets to the point where you start dressing up and going out in public as your charecter, its time to take a step back lol.

[Nephylim]

 

Though if it gets to the point where you start dressing up and going out in public as your charecter, its time to take a step back lol.

 

 

I'll bear that in mind

[John Doe]

I keep thinking to myself that I should spend more time writing and less time in the forums but I have to familiarize myself with this place as I suck as navigating thru forums... okay that was my tangent. This is a good topic to talk and read about. I agree with everyone in that the characters in my story come to life and basically write their own tales. Sometimes I do wanna be the almighty creator to them and throw something randomly at them but then it either is way too weird or the characters no longer act like themselves. I also agree that it is very normal for a writer to be attached to one of their characters. I am writing a story now and I have to kill off a character I really like... and it breaks my heart to do it. I keep putting it off but now that I read this post topic I've come to accept that character's death. The characrter's death is needed because of the events and actions of the other characters led that character to that point. I want to be God and be like... "YOU SHALL LIIIIVE!" but seemingly as the real higher power just sits back and let things happen I guess I have to too. I think writers should have a relationship with their characters. Becuase to have a relationship is to know and to know is to understand and to understand means a complete picture meaning you'll have a decent good story.

[JMH]

Oh boy... this topic hit right on. In practically in everything I write the story never fleshes out as I first planned it. A lot of that I think has to do with whatever mood I happen to be in at the time given my habit of using story telling in a therapeutic manner. As for terrible things happening to your characters the best stories are those who take their readers on a roller-coaster with all the up and downs real life entails compared to those which stick to the up and up like an escalators. It is only natural to cringe when something happens in your tale. While it is illogical to be so emotionally invested, it is as another poster said... if you feel nothing towards the characters and the universe you've created then most likely your readers won't as well. In one of the Series I am working on a reviewer called the latest post 'haunting' which was close to the sense foreboding I was trying to trigger in this part of the Centurion series I've been working on. In the series character's die, fall into despair, or plunge into madness but I never try to leave the reader without leaving a little hope that all is not lost. It was a very hard thing to write, not to mention very long but most of it was written during a long difficult part in my life which made it all the more emotional to write. Now that things are much better than before I don't have it within me to write such a dark series, at least not on the same emotional level

 

In regards to the theological relationship to being both creator and destroyer that the original poster brought up, the only religious philosophy I know of that see god that way is esoteric gnosticism where the creator of the world and all life is also the source of all corruption. Not going to get further into it than that.

 

Anyhoo I don't really believe one can write without it somehow involving a part of who you are, be it the things you know, have done, not done, or find of personal interest. Even making a conscious attempt to write without bias is bias within itself. That's my 2 cents.

[zland666]

I connect with my charectors by portraying them as an event that has actually happend to me or a family member of mine..

sometimes it's to flow the story along and your charectors can speak to you