Gate Crashers

TheIT · Aug 8, 2007

Ever have unexpected characters show up in your story?

A couple of characters I've used before suddenly showed up in a scene I was planning. At first I wondered why they were there, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could use them to advance the storyline. I've got another couple of characters who have appeared but never reappeared in the story, so I'm waiting for them to either show me a reason for their presence or I'll excise them during rewrite.

KTC · Aug 8, 2007

Just listen to them. Sometimes characters who are supposed to be small bit players rise to the top. Just listen to them and write. I think it's great when it happens. It's exciting, isn't it!

JoNightshade · Aug 8, 2007

My characters like to be alone. And they don't want anybody else pushing in! I find the characters I really have to work at most are... that waitress, the busdriver, the homeless guy on the corner... Otherwise my characters end up walking around in a vacuum, a world that exists only for them.

Azraelsbane · Aug 8, 2007

Yes, when I first got the idea for my current wip, two of my MCs didn't even exist. I always wondered why the story wasn't going anywhere.

Wolvel · Aug 8, 2007

Same here, I had a minor character become a major mc and a major mc become a minor character.

mscelina · Aug 8, 2007

all the time. I had one character (intended to be a one-time mention) morph into a huge behemoth-type SC on me...and he rocked. So I just tend to go with the flow.

Shady Lane · Aug 8, 2007

I stared my last ms when I was in Spain on a school trip. I got a lot of writing done on long bus rides from one part of southern Spain to another. One friend always sat next to me on these bus rides. When I'm writing a first draft, I talk. I talk about the characters like they're real people. I talk about what's going on, trying to figure out what's happening next. This friend is fascinated by the whole writing process, and enjoyed being involved.

So whenever I came across a minor character like, "boy in purple sunglasses," I'd say, "Okay, Audra, what's the deal with this guy? Why's he wearing purple sunglasses?" and she'd think for a minute and then make up some big long story about how they were the sunglasses his father used to wear, and after Daddy died in a crossdressing accident, Boy starting wearing them in remembrence.

Or something like that.

It made these minor characters much more interesting. In the book, of course, he was still just "boy with purple sunglasses," but in my mind he had this complicated history.

She actually made up a little story in which my MC walked in on this chick Jackie Hurlwitz and her boyfriend having sex in a bathtub. And that made it into the book.

Mel · Aug 8, 2007

All the time. One did this week, although she won't be around long. Had a minor character switch sides, which I hadn't planned.

My characters surprise me all the time, and new ones jump in when I don't expect it. It's kinda nice.

AdamH · Aug 8, 2007

Wrote this story once that in the first draft this character popped up in a small role. Sort of a supplement to the MCs. She wasn't meant to be anything major. Then as I did the second draft she morphed into a bigger more mysterious role. The woman behind the curtain kind of thing. I got intrigued. Now, she's spun off into a story of her own...and this original story where she wasn't supposed to have a big role in...turns out she's the one behind almost everything that happens to the MCs whether it was intentional or not.

...and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Novelhistorian · Aug 8, 2007

Happens to me all the time, and I like it. But when I'm done, I have to be sure that everyone deserves to be there, because it's easy to fall in love with someone who makes one particular scene go like gangbusters, only to get in the way later.

wayndom · Aug 8, 2007

JoNightshade said:
My characters like to be alone. And they don't want anybody else pushing in! I find the characters I really have to work at most are... that waitress, the busdriver, the homeless guy on the corner... Otherwise my characters end up walking around in a vacuum, a world that exists only for them.

As I gather you're already aware, that can be a problem in fiction.

Sol Stein advises strongly against allowing wimps into your story -- characters that go along with whatever other characters (like authority figures) want.

I suspect that characters who want to be alone won't be a problem, as long as you don't let them get their way...

wayndom · Aug 8, 2007

Stop me if you've heard this...

When Margaret Mitchell sat down to write Gone With the Wind (which she wrote in longhand, in a pile of those black-ink-stained-looking school composition books), she was well aware of the problem of fictional characters not always doing what the author wants them to do, and sometimes leading the story in another direction from what the author intended.

But Mitchell knew, above all else, how she wanted GWW to end, so in order to keep the characters from straying away from that ending, she wrote the last chapter first, then the next-to-last (or "penultimate," one of my favorite words), etc., until she'd written the whole novel backwards.

And I don't even think she outlined it...

JoNightshade · Aug 8, 2007

wayndom said:
As I gather you're already aware, that can be a problem in fiction.

Sol Stein advises strongly against allowing wimps into your story -- characters that go along with whatever other characters (like authority figures) want.

I suspect that characters who want to be alone won't be a problem, as long as you don't let them get their way...

Er, I didn't mean I just write about ONE character. I mean my MC's and supporting characters (of which I currently have six) don't like to share the limelight with random strangers at restaurants and stuff, so I rarely have "throwaway" characters who only appear once. Ergo, I rarely have an unexpected character take over. I figure, if they're going to be in the book, they should mean something. So either I use them a bunch, or I scarcely use them at all.

LisaHy · Aug 8, 2007

This happens to me all the time, as well. I was writing a scene on the fly one day and this boy showed up in it simply because I needed someone to hand the doctor his instruments. I had nothing for the boy to say, so he became mute. From there, he's become the repository of all the secrets my main character wants to discover but can't.

The only peeve I have with it is when these minor or even secondary characters start to get more 'air space' than the main characters. I feel that if this starts to happen, there is a problem with the main characters. If they can't hold their own over these unexpected visitors, then they shouldn't be main characters.

Cheers, Lisa.

Tracy · Aug 8, 2007

Likewise, I've had it happen to me. It's so fun and exciting. The writing coming through me rather than by me, is half the fun of writing.

And aren't we lucky to have this forum to talk about this. Can you imagine having this conversation with non-writers. They'd have us carted off by those funny men in the funny white coats in no time at all!

Saundra Julian · Aug 9, 2007

I used a band of Gypsies for one very important reason in my vampire novel and they wouldn't leave after I wrote that twist in the plot.

The last sentence in the book has a Gypsy in it! Talk about being pushy...

Raiyah · Aug 9, 2007

I love when unexpected characters crash in my literary world! Sometimes they seem to be more original than my own conjured up characters. When they come, I gladly give them the floorboard--I learned a long time ago that a great novel (or peice of writing) is never the same as what you originally planned.

ChaosTitan · Aug 9, 2007

Someone quite unexpected showed up in my novel last week. The heroine was surprised to learn that the hero had kept someone tied up in an industrial refrigerator for two days. Needless to say, I was rather surprised by this, as well. But the hostage has proven quite useful in layering the hero's motivations, and he's given me a wonderful plot twist for later.

Esopha · Aug 9, 2007

As I was writing Blue last month, I had no idea where the story was going. However, two characters appeared out of the blue (heehee) and turned out to be the major antagonists. I didn't know they existed before then, but now I understand the motivations of another minor antagonist, and the entirety of the plot is marked out in my head.

Spiny Norman · Aug 9, 2007

I do that all the time. I had my MC go home to meet an old friend, only he had an "associate" in tow, who was a sometimes-lawyer, sometimes "entrepeneur," and sold phones, laptops, and kitchen appliances out of the back of his car in the parking lots of bars.

Yeah, I ran with him.

Calla Lily · Aug 9, 2007

mscelina said:
all the time. I had one character (intended to be a one-time mention) morph into a huge behemoth-type SC on me...and he rocked. So I just tend to go with the flow.

Me too!

A tattooed copy shop owner/DeeJay on the weekends just showed up this morning. No CLUE where he came from. Wonder where he's gonig to take the story...

Sassee · Aug 9, 2007

Yup. Stan wasn't in my original plan at all... but in he came for chapter 1 and set the ball rolling for the rest of the story. Although, that is his type. He very much likes to be the center of attention. Figures he'd waltz right in and steal that role for himself!

MidnightMuse · Aug 9, 2007

Definitely. I've had characters that were dealt with in one novel return unexpectedly with unresolved issues in another. And one character who played a small but important role in one - who left the story with the MC vowing he'd sooner kill her than talk to her again - return in another novel and now, much to my surprise, they're sleeping together.

Go figure.

BarbJ · Aug 9, 2007

Just happened last night. He was supposed to be a walk-on, but turned out to be so interesting I'm now trying to figure out how to give him a larger role in my novel. Stupid side characters, come and take over my book, not even invited... *grumble*grumble*

Saundra Julian · Aug 9, 2007

I had to laugh the other night when I was talking to an author friend. She writes romance and I asked her how her latest story was coming along. Her answer, "Well, my MC doesn't like her name and won't talk to me until I change it!"

Are we all nuts?

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