Writing meme, day 5, (characters) and vacation!

[gryphonrhi]

5 - If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a fic, whether your "muse" or not, what did you do about it?

Let them, of course.  ::shrugs:: I learned about, oh, two years in, that my stories work *better* if I let the characters do whatever my flying fingers say they did.  If I type something, stop, stare at it, and go, "What the

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[beccadg]

Do any of y'all have this happen too?

Yep. There was a TIME Magazine article, titled "The Power of Make-Believe," in the February 14th, 2005 issue that I keep an excerpt from in my journal because of it touching on the, "Illusion of Independent Agency." My journal entry with the excerpt is here, and in the responses to it someone gives a link to the full article. I've since seen a journal article on the research Marjorie Taylor was doing with adult fiction writers. Its title is, "The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?" In the article the researchers say, "Almost everyone (92%) in our sample reported at least some experience of the illusion of independent agency." ;)

[gryphonrhi]

I was at... hmm, either Gateway Con (Dragon says) or Archon (I say), but anyway, a con at St. Louis with Laurel Hamilton and Terry Pratchett as the GOHs. (This was *just* as Hamilton was sliding from plots into porn, which gives you an idea of how long ago we're talking.) And one of Hamilton's writing group members was talking in a panel about "My characters always do exactly what I tell them.' In unison, Merewyn and I looked at each other and said fairly softly, "Well, no wonder we've never heard of you."

She was the *only* writer on a four or five person panel to say anything like that. There was much eye-rolling on my part.

(God, that was years ago. I finished Incantations and Imaginings in my room at that con, back with Coyo was still writing HL. Now I feel OLD.)

[beccadg]

This was *just* as Hamilton was sliding from plots into porn, which gives you an idea of how long ago we're talking.

*Whistles.* Yeah, that does.

Merewyn and I looked at each other and said fairly softly, "Well, no wonder we've never heard of you."

I don't remember for certain now, but I think the researchers did say that there was some correlation between how much IIA an author reported and how successful the author was. I believe that the professionals reported more IIA than the amateurs.

Now I feel OLD.

Happens to all of us. I realized I've been an X-Men fan 25 years this year the other day, and after Peter Wingfield announced his retirement from acting I thought, "I've been a fan of his for 16 years."

[gryphonrhi]

I think it was how smug she sounded about keeping her characters in line... at a con where where the other authors are talking about their characters as people.

Yeah. I was following X-Men in, um, '81? Wow. I'm sorry to hear Wingfield's leaving pro acting, but he'll make a great doctor, I don't doubt.