Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Characters Without Filters

I knew this book was going to drive me crazy.  I didn't know precisely how.

The general gist of the book I'm writing is that it takes place in a dream.  The arc words would be "It's a dream, but you're not dreaming."  Figuring out how the dream works and why the various odd events are happening is one of the main sources of conflict in the story.  It's also one of the main sources of my usual over-writing as the characters reflect, over and over, that they're dealing with some very strange stuff.

I love knowing that I'll be cutting out massive chunks of dialogue and internal monologue when it comes time to edit, really I do.  >_<

But knowing that the world itself is a dream has led to some interesting character issues.  Part of being in the dream is that, whether the characters realize it or not, they act without filters or deception, showing who they truly are inside.  It's not something that's said outright, but I've been working on this thing for about a week and a half and it's clear that's what's happening.

It's been a very strange way to look at characters.  Most of the time, when I do character work, I write about two pages of notes per person, really getting into who they are and figuring out as much of their past that I need to, leaving room for surprises that come up over the course of the story.  For this book, I have two to three paragraphs per character, nothing more.  That struck me as odd when I was plotting, but at the same time, I didn't feel like I needed to add anything more.

The dream world captures them as their purest essence, as exactly who they want to be.

I realized this when I was writing the first antagonist, who's greatly antagonistic because they think they're the greatest being who ever drew breath and everyone should recognize their perfection and bow down before them.  They're the sort of person who, in the real world, would hide behind false smiles and little lies, the type who would flatter people to their faces and mock them behind their backs.

Not a nice person at all, to be sure.  But there's something interesting about writing someone like that when they can't hide it, when it's out in the open, and when they find it incredibly hard to deal with the fact that not everyone sees them the same way they do.  It's also interesting when the world crashes down around them and they realize that everything they've had is just a dream, and they have to face the real world again.

I admit, writing that scene was more than a little satisfying.

The real challenge of this is going to be at the end, though, when the main character has to deal with a sudden and significant change, and only then will they realize that they've been acting as how they truly want to be, not the way they usually are when awake.  I still don't know how they're going to deal with that.  I really don't know how I'm going to get it across without getting all wordy and explanation-heavy.

Then again, not knowing how to deal with it pretty much describes my entire time working on this book since I first had the idea.  And it's coming along pretty well so far, surprising me all the while.  So I'm looking forward to seeing how things end up going.

Even if I still just say "It's insane" when people ask me what the book is about.

14 comments:

  1. That's an interesting way to do it, but on the plus side, you'll have some very real characters since they can't hide who they really are. The extremes will come out and that will be fun to write.
    And that would be satisfying to give Mr. Perfect a reality check.

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    1. The characters are surprising me - since I wrote so little about them before starting the book, I get to learn about them as the main character does. As usual, things aren't going exactly as planned.

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  2. "I love knowing that I'll be cutting out massive chunks of dialogue and internal monologue when it comes time to edit, really I do." BWAHAHA!!!

    Sorry, sorry, sorry, I couldn't help myself. First, because I DO THE EXACT SAME THING, and second, because as I was reading the sentence before this I was thinking, "Hmm, sounds familiar. I'll have to tell him to cut a lot of that."

    LOL! So, there you go. Good job for catching that early on :)

    Also, I love the idea that these characters are their purest essences, stripped of pretense. Makes it hard to write subtley, huh? But really interesting.

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    1. See, stuff like this is why we're critique partners. ^_^

      And yeah, there's not much subtlety in this story, until there is. I didn't expect that this was how the dream setting would work, didn't even plan for it - it just sort of came about when I got to that part of it.

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  3. It sounds like a pretty cool concept. I don't know what I'd do if I was ever stuck in a situation where I was what I truly wanted to be. There'd be a whole lot more frustration venting, and probably a few ruined relationships. I get resentful on the weekends because I'm cleaning house while my husband is playing computer games. Oh, how I would love to have the time to actually write, but no, I'm cleaning... again. I sit and grumble to myself, but I know he isn't lazy, that he does work around the house, that he does laundry, cooks meals, watches the kids. I go out more than he does, so I have no reason to be resentful, and I remind myself of that. I can't stop the feelings, but I deal with them and remind myself of all I do have. If I couldn't deal with them internally, and I was in a world where my purest essence was there for everyone to see, I would have hurt my husband by now.

    Man, that would be harsh. Please don't make me one of your characters! :)

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    1. Don't worry, I don't make real people into my characters. Except for that one guy in college and I got his permission and it was only a bit part anyway. ^_^

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  4. Good on you for thinking about how characterization in the dream world would be different. I don't think I would have thought to take away characters' ability to lie, but that makes absolutely perfect sense!

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    1. Ah, but I didn't say they couldn't lie - if someone's real nature is to be deceptive, they'd have no trouble with it. This is not a hypothetical situation. ^_^

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  5. Wait, wait--HOLD THE PHONE!--we act as our true selves in dreams? So then your true self is the one who drives a flying Uhaul and runs golfers off the greens (in same said flying Uhaul?).

    Don't get me wrong, but from the second you mentioned that particular hitch, all I could see was you in the flying moving van. And then it made me think about all the times I've realized I was dreaming and was like "whelp, this dream sucks, time to rewrite the universe!" Which just makes me wonder if you have a lucid dreamer. Which then makes me think about Neo and the lack of a spoon (whoa!). Did I mention I've been up for too many hours in a row? I go sleep now.

    (also, it sounds like a really cool way to do characterizations!)

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    1. I think we're both going to be laughing about that dream forever. My one lucid dream, and I wasted it running over golfers...

      And nobody in the book is actually dreaming, none of the main characters anyway. So they're all lucid, but it's not their dream. It's proving to be very strange for all of them.

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  6. This story sounds like a fascinating psychological study! Although, like Rena above, I'm worrying about the "true self exists in dreams" thing, because I have this recurring nightmare where I've done something really bad and I'm trying to cover it up. The bad thing varies from dream to dream -- but the panic at hiding it is always the same.

    SO WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT ME!!!????

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    1. It says you're clearly not in my book. :P I don't think that dreams always reveal our true selves, but that's what's happening in this dream, particularly because of the individual whose dream it is. In theory, this will all make sense in the end.

      In practice, I'll know when I get there... and after some editing. O_o

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  7. Writing in the dream world, now that's a concept. I can totally see where that would bring out the purest aspects of characters, but whew! That can also be a brain buster. Definitely on the insane side of things.

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    1. It's proven to be weirder than I expected, and things have only gotten worse. Saying the book would drive me crazy might have been an understatement. O_o

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