by Kris
I've always thought the great thing about writing fiction is that you get to admit to hearing voices without being carted off to Funnyville, which I'm betting doesn't vie with Disneyland for being the happiest place on earth.
Non-writers may not believe it, but characters do speak to us. Long and loudly sometimes.
A writer I know recently conducted a survey among her writer friends, to provide material for a talk she planned. She asked the novelists she knew how their book came to them. In her admittedly unscientific survey, she discovered the majority of writers experience their books purely through the voices they hear. A smaller minority don't hear much because their books come to them through pictures, like a silent movie. And, according to my friend's study, only a tiny percentage experience the full movie: vivid pictures and robust sound, with all the characters' voices pitching in. My friend concluded that the latter are the fortunate ones, since it's as it they channel the book from someplace where's it's already written.
I never really questioned my own writing methods, or whether the way a book sprang to life in my mind was different from the way it happened for others. But after hearing the result of my friend's survey, I discovered I was one of the lucky ones, according to her. I see it and I hear it. Maybe it is easier for me, than it would be if I only heard it or only saw it. But I think I'm working awfully hard to get it down for something that already exists in the ether somewhere.
Whenever time doesn't press on me in the course of a project I like to schedule short breaks along the way. Generally, I schedule one of those rest periods about every quarter of the way through a novel. I need a little time away from it, so when I come back to it, I'm fresher. So I can evaluate where the story is headed with nearly new eyes. I also count on resting mentally in those breaks, those times when I shouldn't have to see or hear the book at all.
Only it's not working. I'm at the ¼ point in my first draft WIP, and at the ¾ point in a revision of another work. And I'm on a break. (Do I sound like Ross on the TV show, FRIENDS? Have I seen that show too often?) Only the characters act as if they don't know that. Not only do the pictures keep rolling, the characters keep talking to me. When I'm awake, when I'm asleep. They shout over each other, competing for my attention. I calmly reason with them, of course, asking them to be silent for just a little while, so I can benefit from my break and bring that freshness back to their projects. But they're talking so loud, they don't seem to hear me.
Really, until now, only my pets have ignored me like this.
Two mental movies rolling round the clock. Two casts of characters vying for my attention. And now some short story character I never heard from before is piping up with the rest of them.
Hey, I'm on a break. Be quiet, all of you!
For once, I think I'd like to be alone in here. Funnyville is starting to look good to me.
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