MOST AUTHORS CAN HEAR THEIR CHARACTERS SPEAKING TO THEM
Oct 5, 2020 13:24:03 GMT -6
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Post by auntym on Oct 5, 2020 13:24:03 GMT -6
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-sensory-revolution/202009/most-authors-can-hear-their-characters-speaking-them
The Sensory Revolution
Most Authors Can Hear Their Characters Speaking to Them
Fiction writers hear, see, and interact with their characters.
Posted Sep 30, 2020
BY Ainsley Hawthorn Ph.D. /
Many famous fiction writers report interacting with their characters as though the imaginary people they write about have minds of their own.
Alice Walker has said that, when she was writing The Color Purple, her characters often visited her, choosing their own actions in her narrative and even commenting – not always favourably – on her life.
Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, had to negotiate with his glamorous character Mrs. Coulter to convince her to spend time in a dank cave.
When Robert E. Howard was writing his Conan the Barbarian novels, he felt that he wasn’t creating new stories but rather recounting events that had already occurred. Some sources say he even imagined Conan holding him hostage as he wrote, standing over his shoulder with axe drawn.
Researchers at Durham University surveyed 181 authors who were attending the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2014 and 2018 to find out just how common it is for writers to see, hear, or feel the presence of their characters. The writers were asked questions
*Do you ever hear your characters’ voices?
*Do you have visual or other sensory experiences of your characters, or sense their presence?
*Can you enter into a dialogue with your characters?
*Do you feel that your characters always do what you tell them to do, or do they act of their own accord?
The researchers discovered that almost two-thirds of the authors surveyed hear their characters’ voices, while over half see their characters or sense them in other ways; and 61% feel their characters have agency and can behave differently than the author wants them to.
“I hear them in my mind,” said one anonymous writer. “They have distinct voice patterns and tones, and I can make them carry on conversations with each other in which I can always tell who is ‘talking’.”
Several authors compared the experience to watching a movie: “I can watch [my characters] going about their business in a kind of inner cinema screen often complete with dramatic score...I find the imagined dialogue relatively easy to write: it seems as if I just have to transcribe what they say. I can also rewind the inner tape and listen again if necessary.”
CONTINUE READING: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-sensory-revolution/202009/most-authors-can-hear-their-characters-speaking-them
The Sensory Revolution
Most Authors Can Hear Their Characters Speaking to Them
Fiction writers hear, see, and interact with their characters.
Posted Sep 30, 2020
BY Ainsley Hawthorn Ph.D. /
Many famous fiction writers report interacting with their characters as though the imaginary people they write about have minds of their own.
Alice Walker has said that, when she was writing The Color Purple, her characters often visited her, choosing their own actions in her narrative and even commenting – not always favourably – on her life.
Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, had to negotiate with his glamorous character Mrs. Coulter to convince her to spend time in a dank cave.
When Robert E. Howard was writing his Conan the Barbarian novels, he felt that he wasn’t creating new stories but rather recounting events that had already occurred. Some sources say he even imagined Conan holding him hostage as he wrote, standing over his shoulder with axe drawn.
Researchers at Durham University surveyed 181 authors who were attending the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2014 and 2018 to find out just how common it is for writers to see, hear, or feel the presence of their characters. The writers were asked questions
*Do you ever hear your characters’ voices?
*Do you have visual or other sensory experiences of your characters, or sense their presence?
*Can you enter into a dialogue with your characters?
*Do you feel that your characters always do what you tell them to do, or do they act of their own accord?
The researchers discovered that almost two-thirds of the authors surveyed hear their characters’ voices, while over half see their characters or sense them in other ways; and 61% feel their characters have agency and can behave differently than the author wants them to.
“I hear them in my mind,” said one anonymous writer. “They have distinct voice patterns and tones, and I can make them carry on conversations with each other in which I can always tell who is ‘talking’.”
Several authors compared the experience to watching a movie: “I can watch [my characters] going about their business in a kind of inner cinema screen often complete with dramatic score...I find the imagined dialogue relatively easy to write: it seems as if I just have to transcribe what they say. I can also rewind the inner tape and listen again if necessary.”
CONTINUE READING: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-sensory-revolution/202009/most-authors-can-hear-their-characters-speaking-them