Do Your Characters Control You or You Control Your Characters?

Who's in control when you're writing chars?


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firejay1

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So, this is a really really old topic on an Iwaku-affiliated site that's now dead, but @WickedWitch and I were discussing it, and I was wondering what Iwaku's current crowd thinks about it.

My characters really seem to have a mind of their own. They often ruin my plans and plots bc they refuse to be anyone but themselves, and I like to joke that making a character sheet is like giving birth, because they often tell me who they are in vibes and logical leaps more than me deciding who they are myself. This does sometimes mean that characters don't "resolve" correctly. Like, y'know a grainy image resolving, and turn out very different from my original plan.

But I know some people are working on giving their characters more autonomy or think the idea of characters doing what they want is crazy. Which one are you?
 
I give my characters full autonomy and tell people it's not me, it's my character haha.
 
MOST of the time I have full control of my characters... but sometimes they go off and do things that weren't part of THE PLAN and thus ruin everything and I have to somehow pick up all the pieces. D:<
 
I can’t control what they do, I have something planned and then they’ll do the exact opposite
 
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My lot sometimes like to play by the rules, and other times it's "Rules? What Rules?" And chaos reigns. *shrugs* They do their own thing.
 
My characters do their own thing. They're my kids. I birthed them but I don't control them.
 
I always want better for my characters than they seem to want for themselves lol
 
I would say half-and-half. I feel like I'm in full control until I hit an unexpected situation in their development. Something considerably life-changing for them. Enough of a change to make me write them a little differently. I try to ask myself what the character would want or do, versus what I have in mind.
 
My characters do their own thing, they talk I just write their story lol. I have no control over them at all
 
We negotiate. Sometimes. Most times it are just arguments and me going: okay, fine, I will make it work. 🙄