Creating, or discovering?

[Incanus]

The further and deeper I get into my novel (close to finishing my 'half' draft), the more I get this feeling of uncovering the characters and story, as opposed to having created it myself. It's uncanny sometimes.

Has anyone else been experiencing anything like this?

It's kind of like I'm an archeologist digging up some ancient and previously unknown city. From what I've dug up so far, I make guesses about what else I might find, only to be surprised with what I actually end up uncovering. Or so it seems.

My sense is that this is a good sign. More than ever, I think I know what some authors mean when they say something like, "...and from there the story just writes itself..."

 

[skip.knox]

It's very much my experience. In your simile I would emphasize that you still need the shovel and you still need to dig. That is, the discovering doesn't just happen by itself. I only discover character and plot after I have been writing. None of my characters "talk" to me, but after I have put them into enough situations, I start to gain a sense not only of their voice, but also of when they would talk, when they would clam up, how they would behave, how they would feel. And, as important, I gain a sense of what they would not do, what would ring false with them (but might work from a different character). The more scenes the character is in, the better is that sense.

And it comes sooner with some characters than it does with others, and I rarely can guess which will be which.

Much the same goes with plot. I can invent or imagine situations and consequences, and I start writing those, and it's only after I've written them that I see that this scene just isn't going to work, or that scene can't possibly go where I have it now. But also there's this opportunity for something that I would never have come up with except that I have written myself to the point where I see it.

I think of it as a dialectic. I have this shovel and I think I know where to dig, so I start digging. After a while I find something and that leads me to start digging in a different direction. Sometimes I break stuff and have to start again. Sometimes I break the damn shovel and just sit there sweating (why do I always imagine archeologists working in the hot-and-dry?). But I know if I just keep digging, one day I'll reach Homer's Troy. But boy do I move a lot of dirt!

 

[Diana Silver]

my story has been running away with me for many chapters now and yes, it is uncanny. In part it happens because as I write it, I feel out what the story needs and try to give it those elements as best I can. But the places it then ends up in are weird and feel like it didn't come entirely from me.

 

[CupofJoe]

More than once I've gotten into a story and then realised that the MC was not going to be who I thought it was.
And then the story turns...

 

[pmmg]

Yep, pretty much exactly that.

The number of characters who became important to the story from just a walk on is incredible. And I pretty much write now with the confidence that, while I don't know who this character is currently, I am sure he will start to flesh out as the story goes along. And...sure enough, they do.

This is one of the reasons I look forward to rewrites, cause I can go and make all their scenes stronger, by including stuff I did not know at first earlier on.

 

[Incanus]

Very nice. Glad to hear some similar experiences.

I feel quite certain this feeling will continue as I tackle the second half of the draft (what others might refer to as 'revision').

I think I have a guess as to why this happens, at least in my case.

I've got an awful lot of ideas that drive this story, maybe thousands. They belong in different categories. Many exist only because an idea one level up got invented (or discovered?). The deeper ideas come about only because of previous ones. Eventually, an idea will come around that is born of ideas from two different categories--when that happens, I don't feel directly responsible for the idea, it just sort of 'happened', or it was somehow inevitable.

Anyway, right or wrong, it's pretty neat.

 

[Fidel]

Good question, Writing feels like a mix of both, creating worlds while discovering the story as it unfolds. It’s like digging for treasure and building the map at the same time.