wherein Liz bemoans her umanageable characters

[edenfalling]

Somebody -- I really cannot remember who -- once said that creating characters is sort of like programming a little AI in the back of your brain. You set it up and define the parameters, but once it's running, it makes its own decisions, and some of them can really surprise you.

I am trying to write about an amusing dinner party. Yukiko, however, took one glance around my description of Taizen's restaurant and started going on about what an interesting use of space it was, did she design it herself or hire an architect, how hard was it to get a building permit from the town, did she own the building or have to get permission from her landlord, etcetera, etcetera. I decided that Taizen hadn't owned the building at the time, but had bought it later, and Yukiko suddenly went "Huh. Say, I should talk to her about the building next door that I've been thinking of buying. Maybe I could remodel and put in a restaurant on the ground floor. Actually, if Yura wants to get out of the yatai business, I could rent to her..."

Characters.

*beats head against wall*

Comments

[redwolfoz.livejournal.com]

Whoever made the quote was dead on. Is strange indeed.

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

yeah..mostl ytahts' the chracters. bot sometimes it measn 'i dont' wantto write thenext scene."
It's amazign how hey soemtiem at lie kreal people isnt' it? Wondering off atthe stupidest tangents.

[edenfalling]

Well, I didn't particularly want to write the scene, but then again, Yukiko didn't want to go to the dinner party either. When both author and character would rather be doing something else, problems arise. *grin*

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

adn i namoment lie kthat..do yo uahet osubmit yoruself to whatthe story dictates(that soudns weird because you devent the story yourself) or liste nto acharacter'ssuggestions? adn of coruse if yo ufolwo that character the others are goign to protest..adn then the story itself take yet antoher different direction...

this is exaclty why I apparenlt ydon't hae whoel story plots inadvance. Whe ni start owrite something it feels abit liek starting to read a boo kof which I know abit wht it is about. I kwon the big points, but for one we'e not glued to it and for another I mostl yahve no idea how exaactly I get there. I dont' th nkI ahve write often enog hthoug hto find out how sophisticated m ychracters are.

Oh and I forgotto say I liekd the AI-refference. IT sometimes is liek that .and in fanfic it's someoenelse's brain snippet mutilated into yet antoehr figmentthat has a bit of yourself. I mean i'd love to meet someone who takes jrk's charactersand knows exaclty how they work in jkr's head and
then write with them.