"Since when the hell do you play the piano?"

blueobsidian said:

Completely driving this thread off course, but:

Semantics are important when it comes down to excuses. Unless you are physically unable, it's not that you can't swim but that you won't swim. You could take lessons and learn how to tread water, but you won't.

Drives me crazy when people say they "can't" do something that they are perfectly capable of learning if they took the time to do so. If we are all writers, the meanings of words should be important to us. Cannot and will not are not interchangable.

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Right. Well, thanks for that. I still say I can't swim.

Just like I can't speak German, or drive a car. Why? Because I haven't learned.

Saying I could learn to do all of the above doesn't make me magically able to do it all now.

I mean..."You can do it, you just haven't learned yet?" Uh...yeah.

By that token I can fly a plane, do karate to black belt standard and walk on my hands. You want to see me do it? Oh, sorry. I just haven't learned yet.

scarletpeaches, who can also speak Japanese, sail and bake three-tier wedding cakes.

scarletpeaches said:

Right. Well, thanks for that. I still say I can't swim.

Just like I can't speak German, or drive a car. Why? Because I haven't learned.

Saying I could learn to do all of the above doesn't make me magically able to do it all now.

I mean..."You can do it, you just haven't learned yet?" Uh...yeah.

By that token I can fly a plane, do karate to black belt standard and walk on my hands. You want to see me do it? Oh, sorry. I just haven't learned yet.

scarletpeaches, who can also speak Japanese, sail and bake three-tier wedding cakes.

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Quoted for truth. "Can't" doesn't necessarily mean "can't EVER"...just "can't NOW".

OT...

I'm terrified of water--can't even take a shower or put my face underwater--so I would say that I CAN'T swim, if only because terror keeps me from doing so.

*shrug*

*creeps off from vaguely derailed thread*

I had an MC once announce that she was pregnant - PREGNANT - over 30k into the story. It would have been nice to know earlier, I have to say.

ccarver30 said:

My male MC sprung this on me the other night. I had no idea he could play. It's nice to know he can still surprise me.

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Ack!! Mine did the same thing! He had an incredible singing voice too *swoon*

I love it when characters spring things on me. I know they only appear on paper (or screen, rather) but it makes them seem more real. Their activities come from my subconscious but because it's not my conscious mind we're talking about, it's almost as if I didn't think of them at all and they've come to life!

Sidenote: both thethinker42 and myself are in love with my male MC.

ccarver30 said:

Wow! That's a big thing to keep secret from you!

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I know! I had to go back and change stuff to make it fit. It could have been so much more painless.

*Sigh*

I once learned towards the end of the book that my MC's name was just a nickname. Who knew?

My characters don't really develop fully until the editing/rewrite stage. This is particularly true with the second narrator in the novel I'm partially rewriting now. Here's his evolution.

1.) Not-so-humble beginnings. He was preachy and raving mad.
2.) Reigned in his preachy tendencies a little, but remained raving mad.
3.) Became the misunderstood one. People only thought he was raving mad.
4.) Changed to the snarky, cynical, sarcastic guy. Learned he could actually be entertaining at this point.
5.) A well rounded freak, now, as I like to call him. Found out that, instead of an inner child, he has an inner old perv. It was coming naturally, then I swear it was like my character recognized that it wasn't much like his usual self before I did, which makes little sense because all a writer's characters are technically him/her, but I think you get the point.

P.S. Since this most recent revelation, he's become even more fun to write.

Two of my characters were sleeping together without telling me.

Ooo! Ooo! This happens to me all the time!

I had this whole story planned out to be a certain way, with this girl's first boyfriend intended to be a using, manipulative jerk. But once I got to know him, I realized he wasn't so bad at all. In fact, the more I found out about him and his background, the more I "watched" him interact with the girl in question, the more he grew on me. He still had his flaws, definitely, but suddenly the entire thrust of the story was totally, completely altered, so much so that a second novel became necessary to explain what happened to each of them, the girl and the boyfriend, after the inevitable breakup.

Amazing. It really is like getting to know someone in real life. That pushy co-worker you didn't like at first sight turns out to be not such a bad sort once you get to know her, her pushiness intriguing rather than repelling you from then on. I feel the same way about characters. Freaky how they surprise me, the one who created them. Humbling.

Damn, I love writing!

--Q

I have a similar account, Quossom. My MC has (well, HAD - she's just made her grand exit)a very pushy, difficult co-worker. She sucked up to her bosses by playing sweet and innocent, but secretly schemed to make everyone else look bad to earn herself promotions. The more I worked with her, though, the more I learned: she was a brat, yes, but she was so stricken with fears of incompetence and self-doubt that she behaved the way she did in an attempt to be strong and take care of herself. She was still plenty obnoxious, but there were layers beneath it I knew NOTHING about.