Every once in a while, I talk to my family about my writing
and I forget that some of my comments may be considered ‘strange’.
Last week, I mentioned how I hadn’t planned on writing the
sequel to my Red WIP until two of my minor characters told me that they had a
story that they wanted me to tell. I got
a strange look and the question:
Do Your Characters
Talk to You?
I forget that this isn’t something that most people deal
with. As a writer, I’m always
accompanied by a crowd of characters that are always trying to get my
attention. With four novels written, and
three more waiting their turn, there’s dozens of characters that I know like
best friends. And the only way that I
can get to know them is to talk to them.
I have to find out their stories so that I can accurately portray them.
These characters are a large and essential part of my
life. Not to sound like I’m lonely, but
because I spend such a large amount of time with them, they’re often on my
mind. Though I do hear them in my head,
usually they’re not talking to me, but to one another. I love watching the way that they interact
and the way that they behave around each other.
There’s always something new to learn.
Those are the people in my head. I don’t know what I would do without them.
I hear ya Girl! My daughter often catches me laughing or smiling at nothing at all and it's usually because I imagine my characters in a particular scene. For example, the other day I was stuck in traffic for 2 hours on a ride that usually takes twenty minutes (Damn snow!) I started thinking about a character from a novel I'm still unraveling. I asked myself "What would 'J' say if she were stuck in this muck of traffic and meteors suddenly came shooting from the sky?" And of course J cursed right at me in a thick Spanish accent, in both English and Spanish (think Sofia Vergara) and I just couldn't help but smile.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter looked at me like I had two heads.