The fact that you're writing about imaginary people

scribbledoutname · May 6, 2013

Heh!

There are times when I sort of wake up and realize that wait a minute, I'm trying to interest people in these weird characters doing imaginary things and I expect people to take it all seriously.

Sometimes writing just feels really strange...

Layla Nahar · May 6, 2013

Yes - actually, I get something like that. I kind of get a kind of 'where is this coming from?' and 'why does this work?' - that is, why or how is it that from my mind I can describe a place, even a distant time or world such that another person will believe in and care about what happens - all to a figment of the imagination. The part that's really hitting me is that a writer of fantasy or sf can describe a place and culture such that is seems as real as a place you could visit.

Kerosene · May 6, 2013

Go read a book. Report back and tell me that you don't give a shit about the characters, their actions, what happens, and what results and it's all make believe. Good chance, you do give a shit.

Everything around us is a fabrication (I'm not talking the matrix, people. Just being philosophical), but you believe it everyday. What's the difference with literature? How that fabrication is delivered and how hard the author works to make you believe in it.

thothguard51 · May 6, 2013

Do you believe in everything your elected officials say?

BenPanced · May 6, 2013

That line of thinking can only gum up the process and make you self-conscious of everything. It's enough you need to think about the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, plus you need to keep your characters' names, settings, and plot straight. Little abstract thoughts like ermagerd! these people are FAKE and they AREN'T REAL and NONE OF THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING ermagerd! are only going to drag you down into a quagmire of inactivity and paralysis.

buz · May 6, 2013

Anyone who hasn't seen the Imaginationland episodes of South Park should do so.

...unless you're easily disturbed...

(I should say that if you can generally stomach South Park, you should watch them...hurr)

But the Point was that imaginary characters can have a greater effect on culture and the individual than real people. (Or at least equal effect...

)

Imaginary people are important.

Mr Flibble · May 6, 2013

It's a time honoured profession

Don't worry about (or that bit at least!)

Cyia · May 6, 2013

Don't think of them as imaginary, think of them as occupying a different space. I've never been to Ohio, but if I hear a happy/sad whatever story about Ohio on the news, I will usually feel happy/sad whatever by virtue of empathy. It doesn't matter that Ohio actually exists, I've still never physically experienced it.

Same for a story set in ancient Mesopotamia, using real people who are now several centuries worth of deceased. They could just as easily be fictional for all the luck I'd have trying to find a real, live ancient Mesopotamian.

Apply the same principle to fiction and make your reader believe that these characters actually live somewhere. They just can't ever get there to meet them.

Beachgirl · May 6, 2013

They're all imaginary?!?

Damn. I guess I'd better amend the number of dependents on my income tax return.

Nox the Many · May 6, 2013

I had the same thought attack me the other day; it's bizarre that I found it bizarre ... like it was something so obvious, and I'm suddenly reacting as if it were new information.

Dude, look at my hand. How weird is my hand? It writes people who are reality-challenged.

Filigree · May 6, 2013

We are writers. We hold multitudes within our brains. When it gets out of hand, we're labeled as 'unstable' but most of us manage quite well. We cannot write effectively and emotionally about a character if they are not, in some sense, 'real' to us.

This line of thinking is a philosophical construct that can be interesting - or it can become a crutch.

gothicangel · May 7, 2013

Not all my characters are imaginary. Emperor Hadrian and his wife Vibia Sabina where real people, as where the Praetorian Prefect Turbo and Julia Balbilla. :tongue

seun · May 7, 2013

Compared to some real people, I often much prefer the company of fictional people.

kuwisdelu · May 7, 2013

I reject your reality.

Cathy C · May 7, 2013

kuwisdelu said:
I reject your reality.

And substitute my own...

It's a very cool thing.

ellio · May 7, 2013

Yeah I get that a lot.

But in the sense that it's crazy my mind can even invent something it's not ever experienced and what if that serves to prove that my mind could exist separate from my body or does it just abrogate the idea that theres nothing more to our mind than the behaviours we display or what if what i'm writing is the actual reality and what i think is reality is just a dream i've created and what if it's someone writing about me typing this is what's making it happen in the same way me writing about my characters makes their life happen and wait, shit, what about all those character's i've killed and could that possibly make me a murderer and is it even possible to be a murderer if i'm not real myself and what if none of you are real, what if you're all just simulated computer responses and everyone i meet is just a hologram controlled by a really advantageous omniscient narrator and i'm literally the only mind in the whole universe that exists separate from his and hello there?? where have you all gone????

Axordil · May 7, 2013

I tried introducing myself as a professional liar for a while. It didn't end well.

Phaeal · May 7, 2013

It's not the reality of the characters, or the setting, or the plot that matters. It's the reality of what you're saying through them.

Storytelling exists to make sense of the world, or, at times, a sublime nonsense.

Marian Perera · May 7, 2013

It never bothers me that I write about imaginary people, because they all have real needs.

They need to feel safe. They need to earn money. They need to know if the person they love cares about them. They need to live.

I take those needs very seriously when they apply to me, so I can take those needs seriously when they apply to other people too, even if those other people aren't real.

CJ Knightrey · May 7, 2013

It's a weird thing to realize. And it's not even that I completely believe that they're real, but I've spent such a long time with them living in my head and seeing their lives play out that sometimes I just forget that they're not.

ishtar'sgate · May 7, 2013

scribbledoutname said:
There are times when I sort of wake up and realize that wait a minute, I'm trying to interest people in these weird characters doing imaginary things and I expect people to take it all seriously.

That's something I've never even considered. Maybe it's because I think about them so much before I begin writing their story that they don't feel imaginary, they feel like flesh and blood people I could reach out and touch if only my hands could reach into my mind.

Nox the Many · May 7, 2013

Some authors subscribe to the alternate existence idea. We're not creating a story, we're able to pierce through the veil and take down what we see. Most of the time, this doesn't make sense to me. But then there are those times when I'm screaming at a story for something a character said or did, something that makes no sense, something I'm just going to have to edit it out later ... then three months down the line, it makes sense. More than that, the story couldn't have been finished properly unless that thing I didn't even know was right had been planted at the appropriate time. Then, it makes total sense that i'm not making it up as I go, but transcribing it.

Of course for me, that way lies madness.

Filigree · May 7, 2013

When I've done a good enough job of worldbuilding, establishing characters' parameters and personalities, then writing them can assume aspects of journalistic interviews.

Am I in control of the story? Mostly. I know where I want it to go. I'm willing to tolerate side-trips if they advance the plot without too much extra wordage, and they are always good for background info on characters.

When 'autonomous' characters occur, it nearly always freaks out new writers. Stephenie Meyer made a huge deal about it, over how the characters somehow took over while she was hammering out the first draft of 'Twilight' ten years ago. It's not that big a deal. It's fun, even. When my characters don't talk to me, I know my writing is in a rut.

I think it must be closely related to the sheer enjoyment and meditative states that some hobbyists achieve, when they cut loose in an art class for hours. Most of us are not trained to accept or engage that part of our brain, so just getting there can be a revelation.

Myrealana · May 7, 2013

I don't know. I frequently have to forcibly remind myself that these AREN'T real people.

They have led me astray on many an occasion. This guy I thought was a throw-away character suddenly became a love interest. He wasn't supposed to be. I KNOW who my MC is in love with, but apparently she didn't get the memo.

folkchick · May 7, 2013

I'm reading The Outsiders and there is not one word in that book that I don't believe. I know it's fiction, but it's the most realistic narrative I've ever come across. You have got to allow yourself to believe in the story and characters when you write. If you don't, the reader won't either.

The fact that you're writing about imaginary people

Nobody said I couldn't.

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