Do My Characters Talk to Me?

I think it's the pragmatic part of my mind that rails against the idea of characters that "talk to me."

When I was much younger, I often talked about my "muse" and how it would slap me around with ideas, or else be difficult and refuse to work. It's not really all that uncommon to hear writers say this kind of thing. If it's not some mysterious "muse" then it's our characters themselves. Telling us their stories, revealing who they are, bombarding us with voices that keep us awake at night with ideas. Or else saying nothing at all.

Creativity is a fascinating process. Sometimes it can feel almost as if an outside force is feeding us ideas one after the other. The way our brains constantly process information, jump around between subjects, and associate one thing with another can almost spontaneously spark new thoughts and ideas. And it's pretty incredible. It's a beautifully organic process. And when you start playing those scenarios out in your head, characters, their stories, and their relationships develop in such a fluid and natural way that it feels like you barely had to do anything to come up with it all.

Conversely, when the ideas stop and you get stuck, it can genuinely feel like a physical barrier of some kind is preventing you from creating.

A lot of writers try to personify this process as their characters talking to them. Or refusing to talk to them. The rich worlds we feel exist inside our heads are populated with characters who can be too forthcoming with information or who can withhold it whenever they wish.

I understand the desire to explain the creative process this way. Our characters feel alive to us, and the creative process itself sometimes feels alive – like it has a will of its own that exists outside our conscious thought.

It's usually harmless.

We make jokes about our reticent characters who refuse to share their stories or tell us about themselves. These are batted around between writer friends. But I feel there are some inherent pitfalls in allowing ourselves to view the creative process as this magical thing reliant on how willing the characters in our heads are to talk to us. I've noticed that sometimes allowing our creativity to be fully embodied by mercurial characters who may or may not want to talk to us at any given time can sometimes affect the way we approach creating.

And the way other people see creative types.

In fact, I think my biggest issue with this kind of mentality is the way it undermines the very idea that writers, artists, and other creators actually work hard at their respective crafts.

Writing is not a magical talent. It's not a button we push to get it done in an instant. And it's not simply writing down what our characters tell us, as if we're nothing more than some kind of bizarre medium subject to the whim of our creations - but ultimately not taking part in the process of creating them. I sometimes struggle to understand why some writers so willingly remove themselves from the creative process and make it seem as if they're doing nothing but managing the keyboard for someone else.

Writers work hard to create stories. It's a difficult process that is also exhausting, stressful, discouraging, and fraught with self-doubt and frustration. It requires research into the most inane things at times, it requires late nights, and hours of hardcore editing. It requires discipline to meet those daily word counts. Some days it's difficult to just start. Writing well means understanding the technical aspects of storytelling as well as understanding how language can evoke emotion; it means understanding people and why they do the things they do. It requires you to look at your own words with a critical gaze so you can shape and polish them into something beautiful.

It's not easy. It's certainly not as easy as simply dictating what someone else tells you.

So few non-writers understand the hard work that goes into crafting an engaging and compelling story. Yet so many writers discredit themselves by dismissing their hard work as "Well, I just wrote what the characters told me to write" like this is some beautiful and amazing truth. As if writing is magical and effortless.

But I feel it just propagates the idea that writers (and artists – and, really, all creative people) don't work at what they do. So there's no value in it. It's sad that other people don't value what we do sometimes. It's even sadder to me that sometimes we don't even seem to value it a whole lot ourselves.

That's one big reason I reject this sort of mentality. I didn't simply dictate my stories – I created them. And I actually think that's way cooler.

My other issue with this kind of mind set is that it removes responsibility from the writer – and I think this is part of the allure - because it adheres to this idea that the writer didn't actually create the story anyway; the story was given to them. We're no longer under the burden of being in charge of our own work. We're simply at the mercy of the creative forces revealing it to us. So when we don't feel like working, when it gets too hard, when the ideas seem to fizzle…

It's not our fault. Our characters are just "being difficult." There's nothing we can do about it. 

This is probably one of the most frequent excuses for writer's block that I see. And for some people it becomes the reason to just give up. Many authors and writers joke about their characters being brats. I think that's normal. But I've found that some people get so caught up in this idea that their characters must reveal things to them that it becomes a genuine stumbling block to their creativity.

When you can fall back on the idea that you have "difficult characters" who "refuse to tell you" things, there's no reason to do the research, to make yourself brainstorm, or create things. You have to just sit around and wait for it to be revealed. It changes the creative process from something active to something passive.

What many people mean when they say this kind of thing is actually, "I have no motivation to write right now."

And that's fine – we all suffer from a lack of motivation sometimes. And some people like the idea of creating more than actually doing it. But when you constantly sidestep taking ownership of your choices, it becomes increasingly easy to continue down that path and never get anything finished. When you admit that the problem is your attitude and stop blaming it on your characters, it can become the catalyst for learning to become a more disciplined writer.

That's exactly the journey I had to make.

Some might argue that it's just a joke so it doesn't matter. But I feel that if we didn't really believe words can shape attitudes and thoughts, we wouldn't be writers.

Writing is work. Creating is work. There was a reason God rested on the seventh day. Creating worlds is hard.

Taking your writing seriously doesn't mean you have to give up joking about your characters and their annoying personalities. It doesn't mean you can't acknowledge how alive they feel or how the creative process can take on a life of its own as well. But I think it's good to draw a clear distinction between jokes and how you really view your creative process.

The creative process is fascinating but dismissing it as a muse beyond our control undermines our work, our passion, and sometimes the process itself.

We're not subject to the whims of our characters – they're subject to ours. Remembering who's in charge can help keep us on track and stop us from using our characters as an excuse to not work. And, as importantly, stop others from refusing to acknowledge the effort put into every single story, novel, play, screenplay, work of art, piece of music, or game out there.