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First, FYI those who I've been reading on both DW and LJ, I will probably be reading you on DW and may defriend on LJ (or just take you off my reading list).
Second, obsessive but unfortunately dim DW icon and epic fic in progress aside, this is mostly a non-Lewis post! Well, partly, anyway.
Since I am spending my free time otherwise (ahemrewatchinglewisepisodes) I haven't been reading as much, but one book I did get to in the last month was Stephen King's The Dark Half. I had never read a Stephen King novel, so thought I should remedy that. It's a horror story about a writer whose pseudonym comes to life and kills people horribly, and the writer is horrified and it's all very horrid. It was enjoyable reading. There's lot of nice stuff about who we are when we write, which I always find fascinating because I don't know. I mean, there are character voices, and I've long accepted the illogic that being in total control of the writing process and letting the characters take over can happen simultaneously, and that they are completely real and merely a part of my imagination at the same time. (I'm talking about original characters mainly, as characters in fanfic are part of someone else's imagination too - but then of course I hope that my characters will be part of other people's imaginations as well, so perhaps it's all the same in the end.)
That's different, though, from the writer's voice and how it is and is not me. I suppose I can say that when I write things I would never feel or think or do, that it's the characters making me do it, but if I've made up the characters, then...? It's actually kind of fun to think about, but I can see how it could drive someone crazy. Not that that's what the Stephen King book is about, exactly; it might have been more interesting in the end if it had been.
Another writing topic I've been considering, this one fanfic-related, is: what does it do to our writing brains when we make up stuff about characters from TV/movies as opposed to from books? I was mostly a book-fic writer until I launched into "Lewis," and it really does feel like a different process. I'm good at dialogue (she said modestly; I keep getting comments to that effect, though) but it's so different writing dialogue in, say, Vorkosigan fic, when I've never actually heard the characters say anything and have to make up their voices in my head, somehow synthesizing the canon dialogue (which, not irrelevantly, was written by an American about people with European-like voices) into something not too different but in my own voice, than it is writing dialogue between characters I've heard talking. And seen, too, though that in my brain seems yet a different process and oddly similar no matter what media I'm working with. I'm not intensely visual, though I try to make an effort. I describe people's facial expressions far too much, of course.
I don't actually think one fic-type is easier than the other; in the visual-media fic, of course, you have to satisfy your audience with a more precise echo of the original, but it's not like book-fic audiences can't be picky as well. But I find that writing dialogue for "Lewis" I can hear Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox saying it in my head, and can usually tell if it doesn't sound like something they'd say. When I write dialogue for Miles Vorkosigan or Gregor Vorbarra, they often end up sounding like me if I'm not careful.
And this is again all different from the process in original fiction, where the characters are one's own and therefore merely need to be internally consistent (and not remind people of characters they've seen elsewhere). Which isn't always easy either.
Thoughts?
Second, obsessive but unfortunately dim DW icon and epic fic in progress aside, this is mostly a non-Lewis post! Well, partly, anyway.
Since I am spending my free time otherwise (ahemrewatchinglewisepisodes) I haven't been reading as much, but one book I did get to in the last month was Stephen King's The Dark Half. I had never read a Stephen King novel, so thought I should remedy that. It's a horror story about a writer whose pseudonym comes to life and kills people horribly, and the writer is horrified and it's all very horrid. It was enjoyable reading. There's lot of nice stuff about who we are when we write, which I always find fascinating because I don't know. I mean, there are character voices, and I've long accepted the illogic that being in total control of the writing process and letting the characters take over can happen simultaneously, and that they are completely real and merely a part of my imagination at the same time. (I'm talking about original characters mainly, as characters in fanfic are part of someone else's imagination too - but then of course I hope that my characters will be part of other people's imaginations as well, so perhaps it's all the same in the end.)
That's different, though, from the writer's voice and how it is and is not me. I suppose I can say that when I write things I would never feel or think or do, that it's the characters making me do it, but if I've made up the characters, then...? It's actually kind of fun to think about, but I can see how it could drive someone crazy. Not that that's what the Stephen King book is about, exactly; it might have been more interesting in the end if it had been.
Another writing topic I've been considering, this one fanfic-related, is: what does it do to our writing brains when we make up stuff about characters from TV/movies as opposed to from books? I was mostly a book-fic writer until I launched into "Lewis," and it really does feel like a different process. I'm good at dialogue (she said modestly; I keep getting comments to that effect, though) but it's so different writing dialogue in, say, Vorkosigan fic, when I've never actually heard the characters say anything and have to make up their voices in my head, somehow synthesizing the canon dialogue (which, not irrelevantly, was written by an American about people with European-like voices) into something not too different but in my own voice, than it is writing dialogue between characters I've heard talking. And seen, too, though that in my brain seems yet a different process and oddly similar no matter what media I'm working with. I'm not intensely visual, though I try to make an effort. I describe people's facial expressions far too much, of course.
I don't actually think one fic-type is easier than the other; in the visual-media fic, of course, you have to satisfy your audience with a more precise echo of the original, but it's not like book-fic audiences can't be picky as well. But I find that writing dialogue for "Lewis" I can hear Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox saying it in my head, and can usually tell if it doesn't sound like something they'd say. When I write dialogue for Miles Vorkosigan or Gregor Vorbarra, they often end up sounding like me if I'm not careful.
And this is again all different from the process in original fiction, where the characters are one's own and therefore merely need to be internally consistent (and not remind people of characters they've seen elsewhere). Which isn't always easy either.
Thoughts?
no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 05:19 pm (UTC)From:Also, a big YES to the mystery of both being in complete control of what you write and simultaneously writing what the characters want/need to say and do. I try not to think about that too hard because it just makes my head hurt and doesn't seem to help the actual process of writing.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 05:27 pm (UTC)From:I think the control/leniency aspect of writing must have to do with different parts of the brain blindly cooperating, but yes, it does no good to think about it.