Assertion and Writing

[cacian]

shoukd you assert yourself as a writer and be in total control of characters and plots as well your ideas.

I often hear about writers out of control with certain characters and end up taking over the story.

[P K]

'read the writer, hear them sing!'
'the world must upgrade in mentality'

"Switch the disc the robot factory installs" P K

[Raaksha]

I actually appreciate it when the characters and plot grow into something else - when they go in a different direction than what the writer initially intended. That's been the case with a lot of my stories and my paintings as well. Although some degree of control is obviously necessary to convey your ideas as a writer, I think in a way, it's a show of success when your creations take on a life of their own.

[cacian]

I actually appreciate it when the characters and plot grow into something else - when they go in a different direction than what the writer initially intended. That's been the case with a lot of my stories and my paintings as well. Although some degree of control is obviously necessary to convey your ideas as a writer, I think in a way, it's a show of success when your creations take on a life of their own.

If and when the creations take on a life of their own are you entirely satisfied with the way they ended up?

[Charles Darnay]

It is a metaphysical notion that is fun to entertain but have no real bearing. I too enjoy the "experience" of characters taking over a story and taking in a direction I had not thought before - but this is not a case of non-assertion. Excepting maybe Hamlet - and I am being a bit Romantic here - characters cannot escape the confines of the writer. So when the characters do something you did not expect, it is just you doing something you had no planned. There is no way to not be in control of a story, save getting really drunk and smashing your hand on the keyboard (or scribbling if you are so inclined) and posting it.....which may explain some things.

[Raaksha]

If and when the creations take on a life of their own are you entirely satisfied with the way they ended up?

I usually am. But then again that's because my writing style is a certain way and because of my personal attitude towards spontaneity. There is no common rule for all writers for this sort of thing.

[WyattGwyon]

It is a metaphysical notion that is fun to entertain but have no real bearing. I too enjoy the "experience" of characters taking over a story and taking in a direction I had not thought before - but this is not a case of non-assertion. Excepting maybe Hamlet - and I am being a bit Romantic here - characters cannot escape the confines of the writer. So when the characters do something you did not expect, it is just you doing something you had no planned. There is no way to not be in control of a story, save getting really drunk and smashing your hand on the keyboard (or scribbling if you are so inclined) and posting it.....which may explain some things.

I'm not sure I agree. Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of dialogism leaves space for characters who attain the status of autonomous discourses. In such cases, or so the theory goes, the author creates a voice or point of view without necessarily understanding, at least not consciously, its defining traits or characteristics. Yet they "hear" when the voice is being true to its essence. Ultimately, the author may have no definitive explanation for why such a character did what he did, which seems to have been the case, for example, with Dostoyevsky and Raskolnikov. But perhaps this is just the author trading a certain kind of explicit control for a kind more elusive—a kind that may not feel like control at all.

By the way, when I said "I'm not sure I agree," it wasn't just a rhetorical figure. I love Bakhtin's idea, but I'm not sure it is true in any way that isn't metaphorical.

[caddy_caddy]

shoukd you assert yourself as a writer and be in total control of characters and plots as well your ideas.

I often hear about writers out of control with certain characters and end up taking over the story.

Just at the moment of composition I have a full control of my ideas. But the strange thing is that after the passage of time if I came back to my text to read it again , I read it as a stranger who knows nothing about it!!! Maybe the text becomes autonomous after the passage of time.

[cafolini]

Just at the moment of composition I have a full control of my ideas. But the strange thing is that after the passage of time if I came back to my text to read it again , I read it as a stranger who knows nothing about it!!! Maybe the text becomes autonomous after the passage of time.

You evolved beyond what you said and the writing has to be discarded. You don't feel like a stranger before the text. It simply feels useless, but you know you wrote it.
It would simply be stupid trying to recant it.

[russellb]

writing is at its most beautiful when you feel it comes from somewhere else