No Limits on Imagination!

Another great time for devising promising ideas is when you are in fever. It would seem the high temperature helps you have a few... visions... like when I had this fever the other day... now it's gone... antibiotics played their trick

I find that the best time to write is when I am thinking like one of my characters, and that isn't an emotional state.

Originally Posted by PeterL

I find that the best time to write is when I am thinking like one of my characters, and that isn't an emotional state.

Ah... you have a point. But what about the emotion the character is feeling?

That's something that you have to create from your understanding of the character. Writing is a strictly left forebrain activity, because writing was invented by humans. It is not a natural semiotic system. You may be thinking of emotional matters, but tha has to be filtered through the left frontal lobe, which is where rational though is done. You can only writie about emotions if you understand them in your rational mind.

Originally Posted by PeterL

That's something that you have to create from your understanding of the character. Writing is a strictly left forebrain activity, because writing was invented by humans. It is not a natural semiotic system. You may be thinking of emotional matters, but tha has to be filtered through the left frontal lobe, which is where rational though is done. You can only writie about emotions if you understand them in your rational mind.

Ah. So my theory is proved wrong.

Your writing may elicit emotions, and it could be called emotional for that.

Yes. I guess it can. I guess though, that is why my stuff always seems like it's half baked and missing something. I don';t fully put myself in the other person's shoes. I shall work on that.
Maybe that's what soothes me is trying to make myself feel a different emotion that I am not feeling. Maybe unconsciously, that's what I'm doing when I am emotional myself.

You can never put yourself into the situation of another, but you can imagine what it might feel like.

Very well put. I shall take that into consideration...but wouldn't it be better to try to put yourself directly in you own character's shoes?

Your characters' shoes only exist in your mind, so te characters are part of you. Characters are different from people. You have to imagine everything that happens to a character, but don't assume that you know everything about them in advance. Charatcters have a habit of revealing new aspects of themselves, as if they had independent lives.

Originally Posted by PeterL

Your characters' shoes only exist in your mind, so te characters are part of you. Characters are different from people. You have to imagine everything that happens to a character, but don't assume that you know everything about them in advance. Charatcters have a habit of revealing new aspects of themselves, as if they had independent lives.

You know, that was one of the first things I learned when I first started writing my first story. Even though you create the scenario and put certain characters in it, the order of events do not line up with what you initially had in mind. That's one of the perks I love about writing.

Have you ever had characters decide to tell their own story?

Um...yes. Sometimes I'm surprised when I start a story and it ends up being the farthest thing from my own idea.

But it is an easy way to get a plot. I wish it would happen more often to me..

Haha. I know how it feels...somewhat...I feel the same way when I have an urge to draw, but I don't know what to draw...