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Recently I had a conversation on Facebook with several writers who all said how much they loved the moments when their characters said or did something that surprised them. We decided that non-writers probably wouldn’t understand this – and might even think we are insane, listening to the voices in our heads!
However, I think it happens to every writer – not all the time, but certainly more so as we get to know our characters. We can be writing (or typing) away and suddenly a character says something, and we stop and think (or even say out loud), ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that’ or ‘Oh, I hadn’t realised that.’
I’m not sure just what causes this phenomenon. Maybe it’s something buried somewhere in our subconscious that only comes to the fore when we give free rein to our characters.
My very first experience of this was with my first novel, back in the 1960s. When I was writing the story, I realised the heroine’s ex-boyfriend also deserved a happy ending, and decided to go back and drop some small hints indicating he had met someone while he was working in New York. I found, to my amazement, that I didn’t have to insert anything into the story. The hints were there, not necessarily in what he said, but more in what he didn’t say.
A similar thing happened when I was writing ‘His Leading Lady’. I needed someone else to show an interest in Jess, the heroine, but wondered how and where I was going to bring in a new character. Then I realised I didn’t need a new character. The other man had been mentioned a couple of times, so he was already there in the background, waiting for me to bring him to the forefront.
Sometimes a new character pops up unexpectedly. In ‘Her Only Option’, Ross tells Neve that he always uses the same boat when he crosses the Nile at Luxor, and refers to the boatman as ‘Elvis’ because he always sings Elvis songs. I still remember doing a double-take at what I’d written, and saying, “Where on earth did he come from?’ In fact, my Elvis-singing Nile boatman was going to play an important role in the later part of the story, so it was almost as if he had been patiently waiting for me to find him because he knew I’d need him later!
Another example occurred in ‘Irish Inheritance’. I had no idea how I was going to end a particular chapter, but knew the ending needed to add another strand to the story. I reached the point where the hero receives a phone call from the lawyer he’d met in Dublin, but I didn’t know what the lawyer was going to say - until he said it. He even gave me the name of the new character, without me having to look up a suitable Irish name. Again this character was going to play an important role later in the story.
Sometimes these subconscious prompts may not lead to any major development of the story, but can still add layers to your characters. In a sense, I get to know my characters as I write them, just as you get to know people in real life. I didn’t know one of my heroines was brought up on a farm until she ‘told’ me, and another revealed her phobia of hospitals. That’s why I could never write a ‘character analysis’ before I start a story. I wait for my characters to tell me more about themselves.
In that sense, I can relate to something C.S. Lewis once said: “I never exactly made a book. It's rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say.” (and thanks to my friend Tonette Joyce for giving me that quote)
What’s the biggest surprise one your characters has given you? Or what character ‘invented’ themselves out of the blue for you?
This is a really interesting post, Paula. I started reading it with the idea that, no, I don't think my characters surprise me. But the more I read what you wrote and the ways in which your characters surprise you, the more I realized that it happens to me too. I just haven't really noticed it at the time. But they do go off in different directions than I had anticipated at the time and I think that's kind of the same thing.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's a similar thing. My characters do the same, and sometimes I have to haul them back! I was thinking more of the times when they do or say something that I didn't know about!
DeleteThanks for the mention, Paula! My biggest surprise has been a full, real conversation , normal , civilized bickering, between a husband and wife that I simply never planned to write.I couldn't type fast enough as they kept answering each other too quickly!
ReplyDeleteIt's fun when the characters do that, isn't it, Tonette? They talk and we simply write down what they're saying! And often that kind of conversation is one of the best parts of the story, and comes over better than other conversations over which we've agonised.
DeleteMy biggest surprise was when I was almost finished with my original draft of my WIP. The heroine returns home after a brutal ordeal and learns the man she thought was her father is not her father. I had no idea this was emerging--or even important. As soon as the scene between heroine and read father "wrote itself," I knew I would have to rewrite the story.
ReplyDeleteIt's great when something like that happens, isn't it? Almost as if the characters knew it all along but were waiting for the right time to tell you!
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