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Jun. 3rd, 2006 08:45 amNormally, I don't analyze what I'm doing -- I think about it, of course, and I look at the work itself from every angle, trying to make the prose and the story better, stronger, more tightly constructed, if I can. But the actual process by which I do it? It's like walking, for me. Break it down into individual muscle movements, and you'll just as likely fall over your own toes and break your nose. Again.
But recent events and conversations have left me thinking about my characters, and how they're 'born.' Bear with me as I ramble.
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A lot of people over the past few years have announced, with great certainty, that Wren Valere is me.
She's not.
Yes, her ability to 'disappear' arose out of my youngest-child feeling of never being heard/never being seen. And she wears her hair in a braid, same as I do. But her dialog, and especially her humor is taken from a friend in high school (J, if you're out there, you're to blame!), and her pragmatic money-sense is from another dear friend, and her refusal to ever give up is something I envied and stole wholesale from someone else. Her sexual preferences are her own, arising from the life she's led. And Sergei? One woman and three different men went into Sergei's emotional and intellectual makeup, including my dad (waves at m'dad, if he's lurking. Surprise!). P.B.? I can name four different people on Livejournal who contributed to P.B.'s literary genetics, none of whom have ever twigged to it.
Short fiction? The characters may have been inspired by someone -- the narrator of "Apparent Horizon" was based on an old professor of mine, the cop in "Dragons" has many of the mental quirks of a certain LJer, etc. But there's bits and pieces that are picked up along the way, dumped into the mental storage bin, and pulled out without conscious thought when I need that bit. I am a magpie, as I suspect most writers are: we see, we pick up in our claws, we tuck it away into our mental nest Just in Case. Ohhhh, shiny! Mine!
So is there anything of me in my characters? Of course. I may have stolen their genetics from other people, but I'm still the one who carried them for 9-12 months (or longer) who nurtured and nursed them. And yes, I know I'm using very maternal metaphors here; your point? ( and I digress. )
And that's how it goes for me. No one character ever has one 'parent.' If you're trying to play 'name-the-source,' it's doomed to frustration, even if you know me really well. When I teach, one of the things I tell the audience is that you never ever waste anything. Me, I'm the original recycler: I may not know when, or how but somewhere down the road, a phrase you use, or a way you look, or the pose you hold when you're paying attention? I'm going to integrate that into a character.
And, likewise, the emotions of these characters. The emotion behind the story is mine, I lay total claim to that, otherwise I would never have been driven to write the story in the first place. I might not recognize it at the time (re-reading "Apparent Horizon" two years later made me realize something significant about my life at the time, something I hadn't been able to see then, but had clearly felt.), but it's there. But once the character moves into the story, the reactions to that emotion, both external and internal, are his/hers, not mine. If they were mine, they'd be a lot easier to create, and this damn book would be done by now. *ahem*
Which leads into the other discussion I had last week, about the "my character won't listen to me/won't do what I want" complaint. But that's another post for another time...
But recent events and conversations have left me thinking about my characters, and how they're 'born.' Bear with me as I ramble.
----------
A lot of people over the past few years have announced, with great certainty, that Wren Valere is me.
She's not.
Yes, her ability to 'disappear' arose out of my youngest-child feeling of never being heard/never being seen. And she wears her hair in a braid, same as I do. But her dialog, and especially her humor is taken from a friend in high school (J, if you're out there, you're to blame!), and her pragmatic money-sense is from another dear friend, and her refusal to ever give up is something I envied and stole wholesale from someone else. Her sexual preferences are her own, arising from the life she's led. And Sergei? One woman and three different men went into Sergei's emotional and intellectual makeup, including my dad (waves at m'dad, if he's lurking. Surprise!). P.B.? I can name four different people on Livejournal who contributed to P.B.'s literary genetics, none of whom have ever twigged to it.
Short fiction? The characters may have been inspired by someone -- the narrator of "Apparent Horizon" was based on an old professor of mine, the cop in "Dragons" has many of the mental quirks of a certain LJer, etc. But there's bits and pieces that are picked up along the way, dumped into the mental storage bin, and pulled out without conscious thought when I need that bit. I am a magpie, as I suspect most writers are: we see, we pick up in our claws, we tuck it away into our mental nest Just in Case. Ohhhh, shiny! Mine!
So is there anything of me in my characters? Of course. I may have stolen their genetics from other people, but I'm still the one who carried them for 9-12 months (or longer) who nurtured and nursed them. And yes, I know I'm using very maternal metaphors here; your point? ( and I digress. )
And that's how it goes for me. No one character ever has one 'parent.' If you're trying to play 'name-the-source,' it's doomed to frustration, even if you know me really well. When I teach, one of the things I tell the audience is that you never ever waste anything. Me, I'm the original recycler: I may not know when, or how but somewhere down the road, a phrase you use, or a way you look, or the pose you hold when you're paying attention? I'm going to integrate that into a character.
And, likewise, the emotions of these characters. The emotion behind the story is mine, I lay total claim to that, otherwise I would never have been driven to write the story in the first place. I might not recognize it at the time (re-reading "Apparent Horizon" two years later made me realize something significant about my life at the time, something I hadn't been able to see then, but had clearly felt.), but it's there. But once the character moves into the story, the reactions to that emotion, both external and internal, are his/hers, not mine. If they were mine, they'd be a lot easier to create, and this damn book would be done by now. *ahem*
Which leads into the other discussion I had last week, about the "my character won't listen to me/won't do what I want" complaint. But that's another post for another time...
