Comments on Pens Fatales: Characters Behaving Badly

I have my characters completely under control. An...

2009-06-22T06:03:40.846-07:00

I have my characters completely under control. And I have their permission to say this.

It's not as romantic as having a devasting men...

2009-06-20T14:52:52.530-07:00

It's not as romantic as having a devasting mental illness or channeling actual ghosts or anything, but I've always thought that when my characters get all unruly, it's because my subconscious has matched a pattern that is contrary to my writer's will. You know how you just look at a person and you know they mean to mug you? Your subconscious (R cortex?) has put together a million little physical and behavioral cues -- he's been watching you, his breathing is shallow, pulse elevated, even though his looks are calm, etc. I think it's the same with writers -- we may have decided to use a certain character in a certain way, but once we've thrown together a few events, a few traits, the part of us that gets character, that storyteller within, has put together a more powerful scenario than the one we're currently consciously willing. Very frustrating, but ignoring that impulse is a mistake, I think.

Like, when you suddenly have a character say in dialog, "Now, you might find this boring but really it's not," to another character, that's really your writer's inner mind talking to you, trying to get your attention, telling you that YOU think something's boring. A screenwriting mentor taught me that ages ago. Same thing--we're wiser than we know, and sometimes we are wiser than our will.

I was talking with my mother once about characters...

2009-06-17T21:28:51.234-07:00

I was talking with my mother once about characters doing this, and she told me about how *her* bit character who was supposed to deliver a message and then disappear insisted on turning into the villain! None of my characters have misbehaved that badly *yet*.

This is why outlines, although handy enough to hav...

2009-06-17T13:22:49.249-07:00

This is why outlines, although handy enough to have as a suggestion as to how to write the book, are essentially worthless to me.

Hey...Juliet...wanna be dinn...er...come over for dinner?

One of us. One of us. One of us. Ok, enough with t...

2009-06-17T07:52:48.414-07:00

One of us. One of us. One of us. Ok, enough with the Freaks chanting.
Don't think you would get off the gruesome hook if you switched over to romance. My current book has two brutal beat downs, a stabbing and someone gets shot in the head.
Oh, and I LOVE characters who swing open the door, all John Wayne style and announce, I'm here to take over this book.

This happens to me all the time. And sometimes the...

2009-06-17T07:39:07.951-07:00

This happens to me all the time. And sometimes the character who jumps in wasn't even supposed to be there at all. I've got one of those in my new book. He wasn't in the proposal or the series bible, but there he was, he just showed up. And became a big enough character so he's in the second book, too!

oh my oh my sugar.....you have a definite bad boy ...

2009-06-17T00:20:29.138-07:00

oh my oh my sugar.....you have a definite bad boy on your hands. luckily i am fairly certain you will know exactly what to do with him....