“Six Characters in Search of an Author” is a famous play by Pirandello in which, among other things, several characters, asserting that they are literally “characters” from another script, demand that their play be staged to their own specific requirements. There’s a lot more to it, but for my purposes, that’s the gist. The point is, it isn’t just in this play where that happens. In truth, when there is credit given for the success of a book, it’s given to the author, when in fact much of it should be given to the characters.
When I last left off drafting “The Killing Scar,” not one, not two, but three of my characters had simultaneously run off in their own direction contrary to what I (being merely the author) had planned. One of them was a character who hadn’t even been introduced yet! Yet without so much as a by-your-leave, there she was, tapping me on the shoulder to tell me that this was where she would enter the story, not several chapters later, as I had planned. (The bad part was, she was absolutely right; she needed to come in then, not later. The book is 25% done, and I don’t think you should introduce any major characters after the half-way mark.)
And the other two? They were complicit, starting on a literal road trip well before I had thought they would, deliberately subverting the order of the plot–and admitting that they were doing so! Their little jaunt led directly to the introduction of the third character in no way that I had predicted.
What do you do with characters who won’t behave? They’re like those “darn kids” in the cartoons who do all the things adults warn them against, only to be proven right in the end when they unmask the villain. How can you discipline them when they are acting out for the ultimate good of the story?
Easy. When the compliments and the good reviews come, you take all the credit. You never say, “Well, actually, the characters wrote this. I just copied it down.” Take the glory, and if they complain, say: “Hey, if you don’t want to be in the next book, that’s okay by me.”
And don’t share your royalties, either. That’ll show ’em.
#SFWApro
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