So I've been living in this character's head for well over a year and I think I'm becoming her. I'm starting to talk like her and my first instincts when someone says something is to react like her...
Has anyone ever had this happen to them when they were writing a story over a very long period of time?
Or is this just one more example of how I'm a freak?
Pix
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
I don't think so. Were you like that before you created the character?
Throughout our lives, we constantly recreate ourselves. It's very much like creating a character. So it's no surprise that creating a character with whom you have some things in common would have an effect on your own self.
The last story I wrote had two main characters. A friend who read the story told me that even though the two characters were very different, each one separately reminded her of me.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Lisa: I was a little like her, yes. I like to think of her as "Me at my best" (at least in certain regards. In a lot of ways she's nothing like me.)
I'm not upset that I'm becoming more like her. Just surprised. I didn't think it was possible.
Pix
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
Have you ever read David Gerrold's Chtorr books? In the third book, the main character goes through what they call Mode Training.
It's actually fascinating. They (the characters; I know I should probably say "he", because it's actually Gerrold, but whatever) talk about how each of us has modes of behavior. Different personalities, in a certain sense. Not ones that identify as different persons, as in the case of MPD, but from a computer perspective, what could be called different interfaces.
(insert Billy Joel, singing "The Stranger")
When you get a new job, you mold your persona a little bit to fit in. Same with a new social situation. The you that is you never changes. Not really. But the interface you use to connect that you with everyone else out there... well, you create those and you discard those. Except that I think most people never really discard the old ones. Those modes of expression are inside of all of us waiting for their home turf.
Go to a family get together, and you find yourself acting like a teenager again. Go to a high school reunion, and you almost always find yourself acting sort of like you did in high school, even if you've changed a lot since then.
The cool thing that Gerrold did in A Rage for Revenge was talk about how it's possible to do this consciously. To roll our own modes by informed choice, and to move from one to another based, not on some unconscious association, which could result in some really inappropriate behavior, but on conscious volition.
If you're finding yourself acting like you at your best, that's a great thing. Think of the possibilities. You created that character. If there are things about you that you wish were different, or better, you can work those in and use that to get yourself used to acting that way as well.
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
I've consciously done that twice before. It was at points in my life when I felt too stressed and worried, like I couldn't deal with what was going on around me. So I actively decided to let my current character die and a new one rise up in its place. Very interesting, very scary experience.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Lisa: Yes, we all definately have different faces we present to different people. The Stranger is a perfect example of that.
I don't think I could change conciously. I'm not sure I would want to. It would feel too much like acting all the time. Even when the habits became ingrained.
If it's subconcious, at least it feels like it's me growing/changing.
Pix
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I wish I was like Isamu. Then my apartment would be clean and would look very japanese. But I'm not a half Japanese gay guy.... He does how ever love music, but he loves Morissey more than I do and the Smiths more than I do. Ken loves Pearl Jam and Nirvana a lot and is shy sometimes and bold other times like me. Neither of them love Dir en grey because they haven't heard of them since the story is set before they existed.
Posted by Kristen (Member # 9200) on :
My characters become LESS like me as I write them and more like individual people. Not that they are all similar to me in the first place, but there are shared traits and attitudes which tend to develop in a different way than me over time. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't. However, I get the occasional creepy thought of "man, if so-and-so saw this , she would x", like it was a real person.