When Fictional Characters Rant

There is a peculiar phenomenon which occurs during fiction writing. It has to do with character building. Although there’s probably some technical term for it, I’d prefer to focus on observations of the experience in this post.

In summary, the experience is very much like an actor who, during rehearsal on stage, suddenly breaks away from the script and asks the director, “Would my character really say ‘tenebrous’. I’m supposed to be a grade five student. Shouldn’t I say ‘gloomy’? And what about gum? I think I should be chewing gum.”

When you’ve been writing fiction for a while, you not only come to expect this behaviour from the characters you create but you want it to happen. It’s a sign that all the elements and building blocks you set in place have achieved cohesion. The character you set out to build has come into their own sense of being… and that’s when it gets fun (and sometimes a little annoying, especially when the character doesn’t want to do what you need them to do.)

I remember distinctly the first time this happened. It was a sunny, summertime afternoon on a lazy weekend. My Amiga 2000 (yes, I know this dates me) hummed as I typed away. I was in the zone, creatively speaking, while pouring my heart and soul into a would-be novel.

The story was based on a world building project I began when I was about eight or nine years old. Having revised just about everything—place names, character names, creatures, etc—the story, for some reason, remained somewhat in tact and I was simply expanding on events…

A princess, due to certain laws in her kingdom, is displaced as heir to the throne. When her father, the King, and his Councilors are murdered during a violent coup, she manages to escape and becomes the only one who can restore the monarchy. Simple and straightforward.

The original events that fleshed out this story were, in hindsight, inane. This princess ended up being sold into slavery and taken to a neighbouring kingdom, in which the royalty there eventually figures out she’s royalty. War ensues, the coup is vanquished, and the throne cleared for… you guessed it, this princess, who has had everything done to her or done on her behalf yet hasn’t done a thing herself.

I struggled with this original storyline, yet it began to evolve and change as well. As I added more elements, took some away, inserted more characters, I failed to pay any attention to the princess. No longer was she a survivor of the coup. Instead, she sought a life beyond the kingdom and settled down in the mountains with a group of mage workers.

On the path of becoming one of them, she learns about the massacre and that she must restore the monarchy. Upon her return, she manages to rescue a half-sibling, and together they go into hiding, and… they are sold into slavery and so on, as indicated in the original storyline.

It shouldn’t have come at a surprise on that wonderful sunny afternoon, while rapt in revisions and writing, when that poor, helpless princess finally screamed at me.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

It was soon followed by a lengthy rant a la Denis Leary.

“I’m a princess. You want me to be a Queen. What are you thinking? How can I rule a kingdom if you won’t let me rescue it myself? You’re letting all these other characters do my work for me. I can’t rule and be given the respect you want if I can’t get my hands dirty. What the hell? Take the scepter away and replace it with a sword. Let me be the one who kills those murdering scumbags. I’ll show you all how it’s done. Holy crap, there’s no way I’m going to continue to be this ninny princess. She’s useless. What’s the point? Grrrr!”

It was the quite the verbal blow. I listened. Her words resonated. I had to let go of the childhood fairytale princess and let this fierce, driven lady of the world take over. After writing 500 manuscript pages with this new, fully developed character and the story not being anywhere near completion, I knew it had to be put down and re-examined at a later date.

This is an extreme example of a character at some time becoming fully developed. When a character knows who they are and the writer tries to get them to do or say something that is not in line with their character, they will let the writer know.

Sometimes when this happens, it doesn’t necessarily call for a complete rewrite of the story. Sometimes a character will just subtly surprise you.

The other day while writing Ule the Unfurled, Ule finds herself trapped in a magical wood, and who should be creeping around? Istok, of course. Conversation between them ensues during which Istok venomously spews, “What else is there to do with a race of beings who live to eat and then eat to kill themselves. You over eat foods that aren’t intended for you and drink yourself into oblivion, because the world you created is intolerable and so you destroy yourselves. You’re existence has no point.”

Okay, they’re pretty harsh words but since Istok is one of the antagonists in the story, it’s expected. Still, I thought it was rather introspective of him, and it wasn’t in the script of dialogue I had intended, so it was unexpected. It also brought to light a theme in the story. All I have to say to that is, lovely, absolutely lovely.

Fictional characters need to come into their own. It isn’t enough to select your favourite uncle’s crazy nose as a physical attribute and combine it with the way your best friend laughs. There needs to be a moment when all these elements melt into each other and create a new being—someone whose neither your crazy uncle nor your best friend.

You may not be able to pinpoint the very moment when this has happened, but once it has, your characters will start to ad lib lines, walk into a scene where they weren’t intended, or yell at the writer when the writing doesn’t reflect their true character.

Having characters act out or chat with you may or may not be your experience as a writer. Everyone may be fundamentally the same on a basic human level, but let’s face it, our minds and perceptions make us different. If what I’ve described is not in your experience, don’t worry. If it is, don’t worry, you’re dealing with imagination here and there are simply no boundaries when the conscious and subconscious minds begin to dance.