Writers
often claim that their characters speak to them and have minds of
their own. Many say their ideas are somehow outside of them, waiting
to be found.
Like Stephenie Meyer, who said, "Sometimes ideas feel like they were already there, and that you're just discovering them."
I've
certainly experienced that kind of feeling when a character goes off
on a tangent of their own that I'd never have envisaged when I
started writing about them.
Where
do our ideas for characters and stories really come from?
How's
this for a theory?
According
to quantum physics, we live in just one of an infinite number of
universes. Many of these universes have parallel Earths, on which
there are other versions of you, who differ because they took the
opposite fork in the road to the one you took in this universe. There
will be parallel Earths which don't have a version of you at all,
because of a different decision made by one of your ancestors, like
your great great grandparents deciding not to marry.
There will be
people on parallel Earths which don't exist at all on ours. There
would be worlds where Hitler was never born, never came to power, and
others where he won the war.
What
if a writer is someone who can connect psychically with one or more
of these parallel universes, and know what is happening in them? As
some people claim they can "channel" ascended beings or
dead people, are writers channelling people who really exist in an
alternate universe?
This
would mean that Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Mr. Darcy,
Heathcliff and the Three Musketeers are actual historical figures on
a parallel Earth, and Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and the like were
picking up vibes from across the dimensions. It would mean that Harry
Potter, Bella and Edward from Twilight, Gandalf and the Hobbits
actually exist in some other quantum reality, too. There really is
a Hogwarts, a District Twelve and a Forest Moon of Endor - just not
here.
Just
as there could be slightly different versions of each of us, there
could be slightly different versions of our favourite characters,
too. Perhaps those who manage to connect with a writer here on Earth
are the lucky ones, for they are the ones whose stories will be told.
Only one Harry Potter could reach JK Rowling, for example, but other
versions have perhaps made inroads too - by latching on to the people
who write fan fiction.
Of
course, if this is what's happening, by the same token, your own life
may be the basis of a best-selling book or blockbuster movie
franchise in one of those other universes. A writer from one of those
other worlds could be watching you.
Writers
write based on their own experiences, you may be thinking. Many first
novels are to an extent autobiographical, not from another universe
at all. Could it be these writers are picking up information from one
of their alternate selves? One for whom life played out slightly
differently? Or do they form links with beings in the other
dimensions who've had similar experiences to them, or are similar in
character? Like attracts like is an oft-quoted spiritual law.
These
concepts are common in science fiction, where contact with, and even
travel between, such dimensions is possible. There is a novel in my
pipeline, a first draft right now, in which a bunch of characters
travel from an alternate universe to ours - or a version of it,
anyway.
We
all know that as far as our dimension is concerned, there are no such
things as zombies, vampires, werewolves, unicorns or dragons.
However, if we are considering this theory, then there must be
dimensions where such things do exist. Perhaps some of the
psychics who claim to be able to communicate with unicorns or fairies
are no more bonkers than your average fantasy author.They
say everyone has a book in them.
"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day," wrote Orson Scott Card. "The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any."
Could it be that everyone, writer or not, has a connection to some of these other dimensions, but the non-writers don't actively listen, dismiss any images or ideas which come to them as silly daydreams, or simply don't bother to write any of it down? Writers stop and listen, and want to tell the story.
It can feel like someone out there is communicating with you. More than once I have been pulled up by a character who wanted more of their story told. See "Characters in Control", an earlier post on this blog.
It's happened to me again since then. Another character in
a yet to be published book is a princess. When her mother, the Queen,
is considering passing over her son as heir in favour of her
daughter, she comments that the princess "couldn't rule a paper
bag." The princess was coming across as a dizzy blonde with few
brain cells to rub together; until she took objection to her mother's
opinion being the only one we get to hear about in this
universe. It was as if she started telling me her own story to set
the record straight.
She's
not stupid or dizzy at all - she is actually very smart indeed, and
the dizziness is all an act, which is so convincing at times that
even her mother is fooled. What she told me turned into a whole new
novel.
Since
I've been re-visiting stories I wrote many years ago, the characters
in them have been leading their lives over the years. Now I'm tuning
in again, I find out what's been happening in their lives. The
troubled teen got her stuff together and became a counsellor. A few
characters had children, who have now grown up, and I'm getting their
stories, too. I now know what kind of people they grew up into, and
the experiences, both good and bad, that they had growing up.
It's
like a "Where are they now?" article about stars of an old
favourite TV show. Some of my characters have readily shared with me
how their lives panned out. Others haven't, and I guess they won't
until they feel I need to know. "He/She hasn't told me yet,"
is how I'd answer readers' questions about whether a couple stayed
together, whether they had kids, or what they're doing to earn a
crust these days.
There
are characters who haven't even told me their names yet. Now and
again, some of them wave at me from their home dimension, but no more
than that. For example, the four sisters. They have told me that one
is a down-to-earth farmer's wife, another is a bit of a hippy chick,
another is a social climber and another goes off travelling and never
comes back.
They haven't told me their names, where or when they
live, or what their story is that could form the basis of a novel.
What is the problem they all have to come together to solve? What is
the deep, dark family secret they are going to uncover? Do they have
brothers, as well? Who, if anyone, do they marry? I have no idea.
They haven't told me yet. They just remind me every now and again
that they are there.
I
won't know until I decide to sit down and write about them, because
the act of writing, and getting into the creative zone, seems to be
the best way of opening up the channels between our world and the
worlds these characters live in.
In
the word of Beatrix Potter,
"There is something about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you."
NEW!!
Sweet Karma
More murder and mayhem along with moving statues, Ancient Egyptian magic pebbles, a World War II evacuee's diary and a bathtub full of marshmallows.
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