It really is.
I can’t speak for other writers, but for me it’s really weird.
I feel like I don’t make up the characters/plot/story, it just comes to me. I’m a very visual person and it’s like a movie is playing in my head. I’m just writing down what I see and hear.
It sounds crazy, but the characters I make up, they actually talk to me.
This week during lunch I found out something big about one of my characters. BIG. I spent the rest of the day trying to focus on work while him and another characters were chattering away in my mind.
Even crazier, there’s someone who reads my first drafts and helps me with plot edits, my characters talk to him!
Since I’m female, it’s a tad hard for me to write male characters. Getting easier, but something slipping into that male voice and keeping it male is a big difficult. My friend once called me and told me something real big about one of my male characters. It was huge and completely changed his character and motivation.
It made a lot of sense, but I would of never noticed it on my own.
During the time we write, these characters become so real to us. I wrote a character who right now, it doesn’t seem like she’s going to get a happy ending. It’s just more of an… okay ending. Because I’m not sure how to make her completely happy.
This honestly upset me. Like, to the point I was crying a little bit. Because I felt her loneliness and sadness. It was very intense.
Those are my weird author stories. I make up characters who seem so real to me, I cry over them and then have full conversations with them. People who aren’t real but seem extremely real to me.
Anyone else got anything?
~Ames
livingthewritelifeblog 
Of course being a writer is weird! Why would anyone work so hard to produce copy, then beg a agent to read it, then have to spar with a publishing editor over details and paragraphs? Only a weird person would do this.
I agree, characters do talk to us. They know what direction to take the story. It’s not crazy when your characters talk to another writer. When we, as writers, get invested in another writers book, because we edit for them, or bounce ideas off each other, the characters should talk to the other person. The other writer cares, so it’s a natural conversation with the characters.
I understand. As a man of a certain age, I often have trouble with female characters and especially writing younger characters. I have a writer friend, a younger woman, who helps me with writing female characters and younger characters. Without her, I’d be lost.
Some characters won’t get a happy ending. We have to accept this.
Here, I’ll disagree. Characters are real. They just live in a different place, a place of print, paper and hard drives.
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Oh yeah. Writing is just plain weird, but it’s the best kind of weird. Thanks for your comment =)
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