Impossible Escape!

Hey there! 

Louise here, with sarcasm about when your characters simply refuse to leave you alone.

Yes, I know I’m distracted, but there are people in my head 

I’ve talked to other writer friends, and they’ve told me that they too, feel as if their characters are real people. 

Not as in: we’re crazy people and think our characters ACTUALLY exist (unless you write historical fiction, then they really did exist) but that we feel like we know them as personally as we do our real family and friends. Which is amazing. 

But…sometimes they get a little too real, and won’t leave you alone. 

Think about it. 

They’re there. In our head. 24/7. 

And sometimes… 

 They won’t.

 Stop. 

Talking. 

It can be entertaining, like when you’re on a road trip, or at a family dinner and everyone’s talking about plumbing but you really don’t want to chime in. 

On the other hand,

There are times they won’t stop talking even when you’re begging them to. Like when you’re watching a legal thriller, and it’s so fast-paced that you have to pay careful attention to even understand who’s who, and remember the important people’s names (not to mention trying not to get the bad guy and good guy confused.)

But it can get worse. Oh yes. Much worse. 

Sitting in the church pew, minding your own business, taking notes, listening to the pastor. And all of a sudden, your most introverted character starts chatting. 

And what he’s talking about is brilliant. 

So you tell him to be quiet and tell you later. 

But he keeps talking. 

After several more tries you tell him you’ll write the ideas down. So you do, scribbling as fast as you can so you don’t lose the sermon’s thread. And it works! Your character leaves you alone and you breathe a sigh of relief, continuing on with Sunday morning service. 

Except next week you open your notebook and find those notes and he starts talking again. 

Oh the horror. 

The Solution, if there is one

I’ve wondered if there’s a solution to this one. 

And. Well. Um. *cough* 

I cannot scientifically prove anything. 

“Yeah, Louise, super helpful, you totally fixed my problem!” 

Sarcasm aside (is that possible though? Probably not.) notes just might actually do the trick. 

There have been times I welcome the endless chatter of my characters, and other times I find it impractical. The problem isn’t your character’s chatter, it’s how to handle that chatter when it is unwelcome or distracting from work that you should be doing. 

Like I said earlier, when I wrote on the church bulletin about my character’s idea  (hoping no one next to me could read my “cursive”) he felt satisfied enough to leave me alone. In fact, he was so satisfied he didn’t respond when I tried getting him to talk on the way home. 

(The scallywag.) 

Now, I’m not going to mention all the times I started writing notes in narrative format and ended up with about 1,000 words of story (never in church), but that’s just because I don’t want to tell you 12,000 words of my next book were written on my notes app (that’s almost an eighth of a book, guys.) 

All to say, if you like pursuing odd threads of information and delving deep into rabbit trails, making notes might be the thing for you. Just don’t get carried away, and make sure you KNOW where your notes are. More than once I’ve happened upon a scrap of paper or screenshot and was clobbered over the head with the old idea, before rushing to my laptop to enter it into my Need to Know. 

Making and maintaining notes seems the healthiest way to keep track of hundreds of bubbling ideas and scenes you want to write. 

But make sure they work within your story, that they don’t take you off course and distract your reader from the things that are really important in your writing. 

You want your character’s dialogue and actions to make sense, and you want them to seem natural. But if you use the idea in your writing, and it seems wooden, or totally irrelevant (as often happens with us Pantsers) don’t feel bad clicking that BACKSPACE key. 

Yes, it may be a sad occasion to do so, but copy the scene, idea, bit of dialogue, whatever it may be your character won’t stop talking about, and paste it into another document. Maybe you’ll find it works later on in the book.

You might also want to try giving your characters time to talk.

 Not just when you’re at the keyboard, but when you’re washing dishes, making a recipe, mowing the lawn, drawing, putting a puzzle together, eating lunch alone (how that happens in a house with six other people, I do not know.) Give them time to talk so that when the time comes for them to sit quietly in the back of your mind, it’s easier for them to do so. 

In fact, when you’re alone you can let your characters talk so loud you audibly respond back. 

Then, of course, you hold your breath and hope that you really are alone. 

Because do you  want your family to hear you tell your character that she’s being annoying and irrational? 

No you don’t. 

Because they might question your sanity. 

Or think you’re on the phone with your friend. 

And neither would go down well. 

Blessing or Curse? 

Yes, characters like to talk, to chatter and fill your mind with ideas you know are either good or bad (potential is the word we use.) 

But when it comes down to it, it’s rather good to know that they’ve got endless wells of ideas that pop up like bubbles on a warm breezy day. 

Because if they didn’t, we’d have to chase those bubbles down instead of blow them. 

And that’s an exhausting task that almost seems unproductive. 

We all hit those points. We feel as if we’ve got nothing to type, nothing to fill the blank space with, and wonder why our characters are being so stubborn. 

Which is why we should take advantage of all those times they won’t stop talking. We need to catch their ideas before they float away, and practice our craft enough to be able to discern when their ideas will improve our writing and when they won’t. 

Writing is hard enough on its own. Make it easier and take a pen and notebook with you and jot down those ideas they spring on you out of nowhere. 

So go enjoy those people in your head. When you find yourself stuck without inspiration, look at those ideas. 

And if you still aren’t inspired, go hunt down your characters and make them listen for once. They’ll be angry at you, but hey, if they want to get out of their present dilemma, they’re gonna need you. 😉 

And with that, I wish you the best! 

~Louise