![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jun. 2nd, 2009 11:15 amI'm realizing that my moonbase full of cranky scientists is an awful lot like one of those reality game shows where they lock a bunch of egotistical and generally unpleasant-to-awful people up in a small house together, except they don't get the release of being able to vote people out of the moonbase (well, they could, and they might, but it wouldn't be a nice thing to do, if you get me.) Add in the stress of being up there trying to find a cure for a disease (my multiple-drug-resistant flesh-eating bacteria) that's rapidly decimating the population of Earth, with the added bonus that if they don't solve it they're ultimately doomed too, and you're going to have a lot of people who really can't stand each other really fast.
Which is all well and good for my story, except that I've got all these characters now in my head, and I've realized I have to let them have their tantrums and build their alliances and get through all that new-players-in-the-house stuff before I can get down to the business of really making their lives hell. They're already sorting themselves very handily into PCs and NPCs, and not exactly as I'd expected them to. So I haven't put any words down in over a week but the story is very much alive and sorting itself out.
All of which is to say that sometimes, you can be doing a lot of writing and have no wordcount to show.
And also to say I don't really understand writers who say their characters aren't anything more than the words as put down, and have no life of their own. I mean, sure, sometimes I wish they were more compliant and predictable (though not too much of either) but even if they only exist in my imagination, they're still very real, willful, and annoyingly independent.
Which is all well and good for my story, except that I've got all these characters now in my head, and I've realized I have to let them have their tantrums and build their alliances and get through all that new-players-in-the-house stuff before I can get down to the business of really making their lives hell. They're already sorting themselves very handily into PCs and NPCs, and not exactly as I'd expected them to. So I haven't put any words down in over a week but the story is very much alive and sorting itself out.
All of which is to say that sometimes, you can be doing a lot of writing and have no wordcount to show.
And also to say I don't really understand writers who say their characters aren't anything more than the words as put down, and have no life of their own. I mean, sure, sometimes I wish they were more compliant and predictable (though not too much of either) but even if they only exist in my imagination, they're still very real, willful, and annoyingly independent.
