(no subject)

I'm formulating a vague theory about my writing, which goes as follows:

When I first come up with a story idea, or I haven't taken it terribly far, I naturally love* the main character best. They are, after all, what comes with at least one of the most central story kernels. This is true right now of Merlin's Dive, or the Gods in Flight ideas. Colleen/Coleman is the reason I'm writing Merlin's Dive, and I'm still too busy digging into hir psyche to really stop and examine the people around hir, Audrey and Proserpina and Rashid, beyond what se knows about them, and how se feels about them, and who they are filtered through hir perception. And what they do for the plot.

But once a story has been in development for a while, once I've been in and out of that protagonist's brain long enough, they - I can't say I don't love them, for I still do, with a deep tempered feeling - but something has changed, and I find myself feeling more of the wild deep passion for the people that the protagonist loves. Carl becomes less interesting, less deep and abiding, than my feelings for Gaitann. Patar is established, but I'm fascinated by the dynamics between Elen Marah and Tarrias. Finno loses place to Jen (Oh, how I adore Jen) and Dave and (spoiler).

The fun thing about this is, while it's the protagonist's affection for them that causes them to catch my attention, I get to explore them in ways said protag can't. And usually, I get to find out that what i thought made them tick isn't right at all. Which is when they start to cause the plot to turn in strange directions, by refusing to play their assigned roles. Which makes me love them more, obsess over their quirks more.

It can also hit tertiary levels; because of Gaitann's problematic fascination with Korollo, I started to feel a kind of affection, even sympathy, for a villain I'd have a hard time pardoning. (He's probably still my favourite villain.)

And I think this is a necessary step in my creative process; it leads to the supporting cast developing all three dimensions, including the things the protagonist doesn't learn, or doesn't learn until late. Without it, I don't end up with a cast with depth. Or if I do, I have to dig harder for it, and find it rather more painfully, than if I had been able to study characters because someone else in the cast loved them enough to hold them up. Because I don't have a secondary character who loved any of the villains in Bird of Dusk**, I had to force myself, much less smoothly and naturally, to brainstorm to determine what they were and wanted. (I'm hoping the rougher path doesn't show too much; I confess, three of the six villains are still dangerously close to ciphers, but two are bit parts, and the third, nothing in the world will induce me to get into his psyche further than I had to already.)

I worried about this, that I seemed to stop loving my protagonists, until I finally twigged to the fact that I do still love them; I've just internalized them, past the giddy and almost obsessive sweep of early romance. The protagonists are at the point where, never mind that I'd be hurt if others don't like them, my life would lose a very great swathe of meaning were I somehow to magically lose the memory of them. Which isn't true of the newer, shinier protagonists, or some of those secondary or tertiary characters I've only begun to peer at. (Although Jen and Gaitann are Right Up There with the protagonists now.)


* Love in this entire post should be understood to be making no assumptions regarding how I love them, or they each other. Frex, Finno's love for Jen he describes as brotherly, though the truth is it's closer to fatherly, and though he probably loves her more than anyone else in the story, he'd be appalled at anyone taking the slightest romantic or sexual connotation.

** Actually I do. But I found that out this week, after I'd already had to do all the scraping and hard work to figure out what s/he wants. Stupid character, keeping secrets again.

(no subject)

I'm formulating a vague theory about my writing, which goes as follows:

When I first come up with a story idea, or I haven't taken it terribly far, I naturally love* the main character best. They are, after all, what comes with at least one of the most central story kernels. This is true right now of Merlin's Dive, or the Gods in Flight ideas. Colleen/Coleman is the reason I'm writing Merlin's Dive, and I'm still too busy digging into hir psyche to really stop and examine the people around hir, Audrey and Proserpina and Rashid, beyond what se knows about them, and how se feels about them, and who they are filtered through hir perception. And what they do for the plot.

But once a story has been in development for a while, once I've been in and out of that protagonist's brain long enough, they - I can't say I don't love them, for I still do, with a deep tempered feeling - but something has changed, and I find myself feeling more of the wild deep passion for the people that the protagonist loves. Carl becomes less interesting, less deep and abiding, than my feelings for Gaitann. Patar is established, but I'm fascinated by the dynamics between Elen Marah and Tarrias. Finno loses place to Jen (Oh, how I adore Jen) and Dave and (spoiler).

The fun thing about this is, while it's the protagonist's affection for them that causes them to catch my attention, I get to explore them in ways said protag can't. And usually, I get to find out that what i thought made them tick isn't right at all. Which is when they start to cause the plot to turn in strange directions, by refusing to play their assigned roles. Which makes me love them more, obsess over their quirks more.

It can also hit tertiary levels; because of Gaitann's problematic fascination with Korollo, I started to feel a kind of affection, even sympathy, for a villain I'd have a hard time pardoning. (He's probably still my favourite villain.)

And I think this is a necessary step in my creative process; it leads to the supporting cast developing all three dimensions, including the things the protagonist doesn't learn, or doesn't learn until late. Without it, I don't end up with a cast with depth. Or if I do, I have to dig harder for it, and find it rather more painfully, than if I had been able to study characters because someone else in the cast loved them enough to hold them up. Because I don't have a secondary character who loved any of the villains in Bird of Dusk**, I had to force myself, much less smoothly and naturally, to brainstorm to determine what they were and wanted. (I'm hoping the rougher path doesn't show too much; I confess, three of the six villains are still dangerously close to ciphers, but two are bit parts, and the third, nothing in the world will induce me to get into his psyche further than I had to already.)

I worried about this, that I seemed to stop loving my protagonists, until I finally twigged to the fact that I do still love them; I've just internalized them, past the giddy and almost obsessive sweep of early romance. The protagonists are at the point where, never mind that I'd be hurt if others don't like them, my life would lose a very great swathe of meaning were I somehow to magically lose the memory of them. Which isn't true of the newer, shinier protagonists, or some of those secondary or tertiary characters I've only begun to peer at. (Although Jen and Gaitann are Right Up There with the protagonists now.)


* Love in this entire post should be understood to be making no assumptions regarding how I love them, or they each other. Frex, Finno's love for Jen he describes as brotherly, though the truth is it's closer to fatherly, and though he probably loves her more than anyone else in the story, he'd be appalled at anyone taking the slightest romantic or sexual connotation.

** Actually I do. But I found that out this week, after I'd already had to do all the scraping and hard work to figure out what s/he wants. Stupid character, keeping secrets again.