tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post1928180773095180354..comments2023-11-05T05:01:58.563-05:00Comments on Ward Six: "A life of their own"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-68449768839648845562011-04-25T13:48:47.634-05:002011-04-25T13:48:47.634-05:00Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds has a fu...Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds has a funny take on this. One of the characters in it is an author whose characters manage to escape his control. Then they drug him and keep him in deep sleep so they can do whatever they want while he's out. A bit of an extreme case perhaps...Kevin Spaidehttp://kevinspaide.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-77738916264212405492011-04-21T13:51:46.602-05:002011-04-21T13:51:46.602-05:00When ever I hear this discussion, I always say rea...When ever I hear this discussion, I always say read "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight".Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12921962815065923136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-1853068054929694812011-04-18T10:42:14.144-05:002011-04-18T10:42:14.144-05:00Great answer to your student's intelligent que...Great answer to your student's intelligent question. My main objection to the notion of a writer losing agency during creation is that it seems to suggest that thought in general is considerably more predictable, circumscribed, and mapped out than any of us experience it to be. Few would say, "Yesterday I took an eight-mile walk (or sat quietly in a room, or what have you), and it was the damnedest thing: despite having made an outline of what I intended to think about, I found that my thoughts very soon wandered into unexpected and sometimes interesting places, almost as if I didn't have full control over my own thoughts." <br /><br />I guess this gets into philosophical questions about to what extent the mind is an other.Dylan Hickshttp://www.dylanhicks.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-26746225779168567922011-04-18T09:18:16.062-05:002011-04-18T09:18:16.062-05:00What's surprising to me is when a character co...What's surprising to me is when a character comes to life. I never start a story unless the protagonist is fully alive to me, talking in my head. But I never know who of all the other characters in the story will engage my imagination sufficiently to leap to life. And when they do it is suprising. Control is all about making the story go where I want it. But within that limit I experience surprises, and sometimes characters can force a story to change, if not in its basic outcome,at least in the way it gets there. I don't lay it all out in great detail in advance. I definitely write from voices i hear in my head.jonhttp://lastbender.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-52511430824717372192011-04-18T08:15:46.411-05:002011-04-18T08:15:46.411-05:00Fractals!
I don't see or hear that word nearly...Fractals!<br />I don't see or hear that word nearly enough.<br />Thanks.Hopenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-513821685846498602011-04-17T20:44:43.313-05:002011-04-17T20:44:43.313-05:00Characters taking over a story smacks of a Twiligh...Characters taking over a story smacks of a Twilight Zone episode. All you need to do is add a ventriloquist's dummy to the mix and you're in creep city!<br /><br />The feeling that a story is writing itself or the characters have taken over just means that you've managed to surprise yourself.5 Red Pandashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15625556395114591952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-78568791128429406642011-04-17T19:19:08.478-05:002011-04-17T19:19:08.478-05:00Man, how big are your cuffs?Man, how big are your cuffs?Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2046663689477874544.post-46050851146872876772011-04-17T14:29:13.947-05:002011-04-17T14:29:13.947-05:00Whenever my writing professors talked about sittin...Whenever my writing professors talked about sitting back and "watching" their characters create the story, I thought about what John Cheever told The Paris Review:<br /><br />"The legend that characters run away from their authors—taking up drugs, having sex operations, and becoming president—implies that the writer is a fool with no knowledge or mastery of his craft. This is absurd. Of course, any estimable exercise of the imagination draws upon such a complex richness of memory that it truly enjoys the expansiveness—the surprising turns, the response to light and darkness—of any living thing. But the idea of authors running around helplessly behind their cretinous inventions is contemptible."<br /> http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3667/the-art-of-fiction-no-62-john-cheeverAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com