The roleplaying thing you refer to is "metagaming," or acting on OOC information. Which is still you deciding what the character will or will not do.
I don't think we really disagree on what is actually happening in our heads - the character is not a living, separate entity with its own mind and voice that tells you, the writer, what it's going to do. You decide what it's going to do. Some people talk about their characters as if they really believe the character is an independent entity (even though in the majority of cases, I am pretty sure they do not actually believe this), and that's... just something I find kind of pretentious, sorry. Like, "Oh, I was going to have my character do this, but no, she told me she was going to do this other thing instead, lol!"
I realize I'm probably being judgmental about someone just describing their writing process differently, but I was particularly thinking of Laurell K. Hamilton's infamous rant about how her character (Anita Blake, vampire boinker) is "real" to her and she thinks authors who are detached from their characters and think of them as purely fictional entities don't write as "real" as she does. Or various Tumblr fanfic writers who say their characters "announced" their sexuality to them, or they suddenly "found out" their character is trans or something, and I'm like.... no, you decided that. It might be an idea that popped spontaneously into your head, and it feels like inspiration from a muse, but your character does not exist, with whatever sexuality and identity, independently of the thoughts in your head.
Thanks for hanging around and reading all these years!
My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people.
-Laurell K. Hamilton, mega-bestseller
Nah, you're just being pretentious.
-Judgmental fan fiction author who's never been published
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More writer ramblings
Date: 2020-07-20 11:37 am (UTC)I don't think we really disagree on what is actually happening in our heads - the character is not a living, separate entity with its own mind and voice that tells you, the writer, what it's going to do. You decide what it's going to do. Some people talk about their characters as if they really believe the character is an independent entity (even though in the majority of cases, I am pretty sure they do not actually believe this), and that's... just something I find kind of pretentious, sorry. Like, "Oh, I was going to have my character do this, but no, she told me she was going to do this other thing instead, lol!"
I realize I'm probably being judgmental about someone just describing their writing process differently, but I was particularly thinking of Laurell K. Hamilton's infamous rant about how her character (Anita Blake, vampire boinker) is "real" to her and she thinks authors who are detached from their characters and think of them as purely fictional entities don't write as "real" as she does. Or various Tumblr fanfic writers who say their characters "announced" their sexuality to them, or they suddenly "found out" their character is trans or something, and I'm like.... no, you decided that. It might be an idea that popped spontaneously into your head, and it feels like inspiration from a muse, but your character does not exist, with whatever sexuality and identity, independently of the thoughts in your head.
Thanks for hanging around and reading all these years!