[ SECRET POST #4323 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4323 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[Iron Fist, season two]


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03.
[Venom]


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04.
[Dragonsphere]


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05.
[The Captive Prince series by C.S. Pacat]


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06.
[Sarah Michelle Gellar]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #619.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/YW9XVVd.png

[(Anonymous)]

News at ten: people have different experiences from you.

In other news: you're an asshole.

[(Anonymous)]

People do have different experiences, and people also have annoying affectations. Both of these things are true.

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes I say that, but it's more the story going in a different direction than me not being able to control them. Like I wanted A and B to be a couple, but there was more chemistry when A interacted with C in the scenes I wrote, so A and C ended up being the couple.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, for me, I KNOW that I make the choices to include or not include particular elements. If I use that phrase or a similar one, I just mean an idea came to me while writing that I had not been planning. Often I end up liking those moments because it seems right and in character and driven by the creative process. That doesn't mean I feel obligated to include it or like I don't control my own story-telling or that I feel there's some mystical phenomenon where a fictional character is speaking to me or that I'm somehow a better writer because I feel "closer" to my characters or whatever you're implying with this secret.

TL;DR It's just a turn of phrase that doesn't have to mean something "more".

[(Anonymous)]

I only half agree - sometimes I do find plotlines or characters going in a different direction that I originally intended. You can roll with it, or you can backtrack a bit and reign it in. I've done both in the past.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, but sometimes if a character is running off on their own or refusing to co-operate with what you as a writer want them to do, it's because what you want them to do is wrong for that moment and/or just plain OOC. Not saying people don't sometimes phrase it in an obnoxious way, but IMHO it's just another piece of the writer's instinct -- the character-voice part of your writer-brain saying "this ain't (or is) happening for a reason".

IMHO, if you're just shoving your characters around like pieces on a chess board, your characterization is going to be poorer for it in the long-run.

[(Anonymous)]

When I say "My characters do whatever they want," I think of it as a cute way of saying "I had an idea of how this story was going to progress, but as I wrote, I had a better idea so I wrote it that way instead." I'm not saying that fictional characters hijacked my brain. It boggles my mind that anyone would interpret it that way.

[(Anonymous)]

I just thought it meant the story gets away from them sometimes.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have any problem with people saying, "I was planning X, but it just wasn't working, so I ended up going in a different direction instead, and that felt a lot more true to the characters/story." Anything along those lines makes total sense to me.

But when someone talks about the characters like they're in charge, like the characters themselves make the choices, it does tend to feel weirdly kind of braggy, and affected. Like, "Look how in tune with my characters I am. Look how real they are to me. I am so authentically connected to the artistic process."

It's kind of like a writer's version of a humble brag. "lol, I don't call the shots; my characters do!"

Okay.

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes when I'm writing, the story goes in a different direction than I had planned and the ideas seem to be coming from themselves. I know that it is all from my head and yet I might describe it as the character fighting me or doing what they want, knowing that that is figurative. I'm sure there are some people who use as an affectation and I have seen some overly cutesy author's notes to that effect, but on the whole, I don't think most are.

[(Anonymous)]

I get how that could be annoying to someone who doesn't look at it that way. I think it's kinda cute, though. Of course people know their characters aren't REAL, and they're not like... connecting with them on the astral plane or some shit. You would probably hate it when I say "my inner [so-and-so]" is upset/acting up/whatever. I only say it to certain people, though. It annoys me to see any of that in an A/N, even if I relate to it.

Basically... different strokes?

[(Anonymous)]

What I getting from this secret and thread is that it's probably best to keep this sentiment to private discussions with friends who can relate, or risk looking pompous at best and mentally ill at worst.

[(Anonymous)]

*can't comprehend experiences outside your own, it must be that everyone ELSE that is wrong*

[tabaqui]

I remember when that was a *big* thing in writing circles on LJ and ff.net, and people would post 'conversations' they had with the characters/their 'muse' that were supposedly-cutesy 'arguments' about making the story go this way or that way.

It was *not* cute.

[(Anonymous)]

I always felt weird because I don't "talk" to my characters. The only time I do something like that is when I'm thinking up a conversation to write, and even then I'm not talking to them as myself, I'm thinking of what another character would say

[(Anonymous)]

I think the same people who say crap like this are the ones who also say characters "talk" to them. "The characters aren't talking to me today." WTF?

They tend to be writers I don't take seriously anyway, so that's fine.

[(Anonymous)]

It just shows that the author tries to stay close to the characters and doesn't force the plot if it feels OOC or too early re character development.

[seashadows]

I agree with this for the most part (I've had...one occasion in my life when "characters spoke to me" happened, and it was mostly a new dialogue idea popping into my head). The thing is, it's damaging to a writer's psyche to hear "the characters are the ones who make it happen!!!111!!!", because then you start feeling like if that doesn't happen to you, then your writing is shit and so is your imagination.

In short, yeah, spot on.

[(Anonymous)]

I usually assume it's just the author being overly self-deprecating and deflecting responsibility in a tee-hee way, akin to "This fic is soooo bad you guys, be nice!" You can't hate me for my story if the characters made me write it.

The story going in another direction is not how I see it used.

[(Anonymous)]

TL;DR but my first fic was a long winded 'Nsync fic that lasted 40 or so chapters where the Mary Sue was so emotionally fragile, pretty much all her and her 'Nsync bun did was fight and fuck. The fic ran out of steam when she got pregnant, they had a quicky wedding and I discovered that I can't write anything other than fights and fucking.

When I said 'My characters do whatever they want' I basically meant 'I can't write, I know as much about writing romance as I do nuclear chemistry and frankly, I have no idea what I'm doing"

[(Anonymous)]

OP, I'm with the ones on this page who state "I'm going to judge others who have a different experience from me."
When you write, do you pre-plan every action, every dialogue in your head? Or does it flow as you write? That's the way I perceive 'the characters got away from me'. Of course, it's not the 'characters' but sometimes even things that (in my experience) authors pre-plan in their heads go a different way when they're actually writing the fic.
This, to me, is the pleasure of writing.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, there's this small, pesky thing called characterization that can get in the way of the most carefully planed plot, because no, this character won't take path A no matter how much I want that character to do it.

Also, characterization can grow during the story, so even if at the start path A was perfectly IC, by the time the story gets there the only path for the character is B.

[(Anonymous)]

No, I'd have to say it really isn't like that...
Saying that the characters 'wrote themselves' is really just that, a saying. Not some pretentious claim that they know the characters so well they don't even need to try, or whatever else you see it as.
For me, it's like letting your mind go where it wants as you develop a story- taking it scene by scene, and letting your interpretation of the characters guide you. Oftentimes it leaves a chapter ending up not quite as planned. But generally people who write this way go by feel rather than by some sort of strict storyboard. (but then again, I don't even really write, so what do I know)
To be more than obvious, different people write differently... I'm sure there are a lot of pretentious asshole who do claim that, maybe, I don't know- but a way of writing doesn't make any writer somehow worse than another.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you, OP. I think it's just a way for the writer to get more attention.