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dolariThat got me thinking REALLY hard.
Character creation usualy starts as note on a neuron in my brain. I take this blank form, send it on it's way, and a few months later, it comes back to me as a fully fleshed person.
All my characters talk to me. They talk to me as if they were actors playing roles, and events in their lives, and how something needs to be portrayed. There have been two times where the characters have stepped so much farther out of their roles that I actually consider them sentient.
Zand has managed to take his role, that of a geeky, jovial techno nerd and expanded it to a 2,000 year old shaper of worlds, and a dinky little story about a kidnapping into roughly ten novels of material.
Carrie has become so sentient that she comments on things in the outside world, although she does it rarely, and even inserts herself into my dreams taking notes for story ideas that she plays back to me.
However, those two still live in their Universes. Zand lives, breathes and reacts to his world only. Carrie can "See" the outside, but uses the information she gains and applies it ONLY to her world.
When new characters present themselves, it's usually established characters who introduce them to me. It was Carrie who introduced me to Heidi. It was David who introduced me to Persephone. It was Hatchaya who introduced me to Kalera. When they are shown to me, they are usually in a fairly complete form, with rough edges to be sanded away. Heidi turned into a major character. PErsephone eventually became an alien brought to Earth as a human's lover. Kalera went on to become a high priestess in her tribe.
And they all live in Zand's universe, even if they had nothing to do with Zand.
Lately, though, something has changed.
I had an excellent idea to write a story. I had just seen an anime called "Risky/Saftey" about an Angel and a Demon in training. It got me thinking about a story where a little girl decides she wants to be an angel. So I went into the back of my mind to create these character...but they were already there. They weren't the perfect characters I usually get after months of "Go do your thing" but they were already created. It was a little girl named Hanna, as well as shadowy version of her at 17 and 27. I never created them. They created themselves, and they created their own Universe away from Zand's world in order to survive (The Creator in Zand's Universe is hell bent on destroying Zand, and preventing timelines that can create him...much too busy to be supervising angels). I didn't create it, they created it themselves. Eventually, Hanna changed her name to Andrea, and introduced me to Hanna, an Angel. Hanna, too, was mostly complete. To the point where I left her mostly alone. And then she hit me with a bombshell that I won't reveal here for fear of ruining the story. It was something unexpected, and , yes, has to do with the reason she is "recruiting" for the Shadows.
Zand and Carrie didn't gain sentience for years after I created them. And it's a limited sentience. Andrea, by three months, was able to not only detect the outside world, but fully interact with it. She has not done so since, by my request.
Something is going on here that I'm not completely cognizant of. All of my stories, and characters I have SPEFICIALLY created. Those that are brought to me, are specifically NECESSARY for certain parts of the story they are written for, created by my own constructs. But the AWFW story doesn't seem to be mine. I've plotted it all out, yes, from a basic idea. But certain plot elements are not mine. They've come out of the blue. For no erason that was told to me until I specifically ASKED for them. The Andreas are NOT my constructs. They were already there when I went to make up a character. And there were THREE of them. The Human Angels, the True Angels, the Infinite Secretarial Pool. All introduced to me by Hanna. My only contribution was the Shadows, which were things I saw as a child, and Morningstar, who came up AFTER Hanna told me Her Big Secret That Has Her Recruiting For The Shadows.
This story is my friends car. I'm driving it, but it's not completely mine. I can take it where I want, but it ultimately goes back to where it belongs.
This greatly disturbs me. But it also intrigues me.
And now, Hanna has introduced me to another character we won't see till the end of the story, who I will not name for fear of ruining the plot. This happened a few days ago (June 10th, as a matter of fact). This character again has come to me, but this time in a completely perfect form. No rough edges to work on. She's come to me perfectly.
And...she is a specific person. A specific role. Most importantly, a role that not only the story needs at that time, but a role that I think I personally need.
Considering that AWFW is so opposite from the stories I usually tell, and how quickly it formed, and how radically independent the characters are, I wonder where it's come from.
I will ask our New Character about this tonight.
(And no, it's not just me evolving my storytelling - the Corporate World story still doesn't even have a name, even for most of it's characters, or even a finale)
Character creation usualy starts as note on a neuron in my brain. I take this blank form, send it on it's way, and a few months later, it comes back to me as a fully fleshed person.
All my characters talk to me. They talk to me as if they were actors playing roles, and events in their lives, and how something needs to be portrayed. There have been two times where the characters have stepped so much farther out of their roles that I actually consider them sentient.
Zand has managed to take his role, that of a geeky, jovial techno nerd and expanded it to a 2,000 year old shaper of worlds, and a dinky little story about a kidnapping into roughly ten novels of material.
Carrie has become so sentient that she comments on things in the outside world, although she does it rarely, and even inserts herself into my dreams taking notes for story ideas that she plays back to me.
However, those two still live in their Universes. Zand lives, breathes and reacts to his world only. Carrie can "See" the outside, but uses the information she gains and applies it ONLY to her world.
When new characters present themselves, it's usually established characters who introduce them to me. It was Carrie who introduced me to Heidi. It was David who introduced me to Persephone. It was Hatchaya who introduced me to Kalera. When they are shown to me, they are usually in a fairly complete form, with rough edges to be sanded away. Heidi turned into a major character. PErsephone eventually became an alien brought to Earth as a human's lover. Kalera went on to become a high priestess in her tribe.
And they all live in Zand's universe, even if they had nothing to do with Zand.
Lately, though, something has changed.
I had an excellent idea to write a story. I had just seen an anime called "Risky/Saftey" about an Angel and a Demon in training. It got me thinking about a story where a little girl decides she wants to be an angel. So I went into the back of my mind to create these character...but they were already there. They weren't the perfect characters I usually get after months of "Go do your thing" but they were already created. It was a little girl named Hanna, as well as shadowy version of her at 17 and 27. I never created them. They created themselves, and they created their own Universe away from Zand's world in order to survive (The Creator in Zand's Universe is hell bent on destroying Zand, and preventing timelines that can create him...much too busy to be supervising angels). I didn't create it, they created it themselves. Eventually, Hanna changed her name to Andrea, and introduced me to Hanna, an Angel. Hanna, too, was mostly complete. To the point where I left her mostly alone. And then she hit me with a bombshell that I won't reveal here for fear of ruining the story. It was something unexpected, and , yes, has to do with the reason she is "recruiting" for the Shadows.
Zand and Carrie didn't gain sentience for years after I created them. And it's a limited sentience. Andrea, by three months, was able to not only detect the outside world, but fully interact with it. She has not done so since, by my request.
Something is going on here that I'm not completely cognizant of. All of my stories, and characters I have SPEFICIALLY created. Those that are brought to me, are specifically NECESSARY for certain parts of the story they are written for, created by my own constructs. But the AWFW story doesn't seem to be mine. I've plotted it all out, yes, from a basic idea. But certain plot elements are not mine. They've come out of the blue. For no erason that was told to me until I specifically ASKED for them. The Andreas are NOT my constructs. They were already there when I went to make up a character. And there were THREE of them. The Human Angels, the True Angels, the Infinite Secretarial Pool. All introduced to me by Hanna. My only contribution was the Shadows, which were things I saw as a child, and Morningstar, who came up AFTER Hanna told me Her Big Secret That Has Her Recruiting For The Shadows.
This story is my friends car. I'm driving it, but it's not completely mine. I can take it where I want, but it ultimately goes back to where it belongs.
This greatly disturbs me. But it also intrigues me.
And now, Hanna has introduced me to another character we won't see till the end of the story, who I will not name for fear of ruining the plot. This happened a few days ago (June 10th, as a matter of fact). This character again has come to me, but this time in a completely perfect form. No rough edges to work on. She's come to me perfectly.
And...she is a specific person. A specific role. Most importantly, a role that not only the story needs at that time, but a role that I think I personally need.
Considering that AWFW is so opposite from the stories I usually tell, and how quickly it formed, and how radically independent the characters are, I wonder where it's come from.
I will ask our New Character about this tonight.
(And no, it's not just me evolving my storytelling - the Corporate World story still doesn't even have a name, even for most of it's characters, or even a finale)
