The Problem with Character-Driven Writing: You Never Know What Kind of Drivers the Characters Will Be
Truth is, stories are not really told. They tell themselves.
Some writers seem to be so endowed with talent that their stories tell themselves in whole cloth. The final draft is unchanged from the first, all evidence of missteps and detours erased like one of those military vehicles that drags behind each wheel a broom to eradicate all trace that it was ever there.
I, on the other hand, don’t have a clue where a story is taking me. I decide which character’s voice should start the story, and in doing so deceive myself into believing that I’m in control of the process.
Just when I’ve begun to make sense of what the character is saying, she clams up. Ends the section. Turns away.
“I’m done.”
She flips her dark hair as she trounces off the computer screen. I think she was still wearing that howler monkey on her shoulder, the one she stole from her mother-in-law.
“Union rules,” she says with that seductive smile, the one she’s already used on Attorney Halbrecht Govinder, causing him to trip down the courthouse stairs and crash into Judge Whisky Parabolar as she was headed for her chambers. (When they meet up in court, the Judge presiding in a wheelchair because she’s in a full body cast, and he giving his opening argument in a neck brace, it won’t be pretty.)
“You can’t be in my head for more than 4 hours or 16.25 pages, whichever occurs first. Get out of my head and climb into someone else’s ear. You writers,” she adds dismissively, slamming the door behind her, “parasites, every last one of you.”
So, like the parasite I am, I exit her head and climb into someone else’s, and there I stay until he gets tired of me.
And so it goes, until I end up with a bunch of short (shortish) pieces by self-involved characters who have no concern at all for the integrity of the final work. I’m left to pick up the pieces, to cut and paste, until I have something that resembles a coherent story.
It’s hard work. The pay is terrible. I don’t need a lot of respect, but some small amount of consideration from the characters I bring to life would be nice. Who put these people in charge anyway?
Photo: MartaZ*/Flickr