Does your subconscious come out in your writing?

[Dwarven Gold]

I've heard it said that when you write for a good stretch of time, your subconscious shows itself in your writing. Internal stuff that you aren't aware of will make itself known.

This is happening to me. Characters say stuff on their own, and the story is going in an unplanned direction. If this happened to you, how did you make it work for you?

 

[Hans]

Well, being more of a worldbuilder than a writer I have lots of that stuff. Sometimes I dream details of my world and keep them, because they fit perfectly. Or I discover more about my world than I invent it.

Strange things happen, when I no longer understand what my people are doing. It's less a topic with individuals. I have the individual persons about whom I write stories better under control than the masses. (Nations declaring war upon each other without me knowing and I have to live with the consequences.)

 

[BeigePalladin]

I don't feel it's possible to write everything through direct personal thought. litreature is a create proccess, which means it needs the subconcious (and thus creative) part of the mind working, unless your building the whole thing from a template, or literasising someone elses notes where you have no freedom.

 

[Kelise]

It happens to me mostly with dialogue - in a bad way. Mostly my things are set far, far away from our time and anything Earth related, yet my characters start talking in local slang if I'm not too careful.

As for plot related things - my hidden wants or hates coming out... hrm. I hope not. My characters lead pretty tough lives. It would be a bit wrong if it was my subconscious that leads them into their dark little lives. So no, I haven't worked out if it happens to me, and I don't know how to make it work.

 

[Helbrecht]

Tangent: I mentioned to a friend recently that I'd realised I often find myself writing about family and poverty without even consciously acknowledging it. In response, he joked that considering various things that have happened to me in the past, he could pull off a psychological analysis of my subconscious mind through my writing. I'm unsure about letting him read any more of it, now - I don't want him getting any ideas about me. xD

More on subject, I think that is a character or setting is sufficiently fleshed-out, it's only natural for them to take a sort of life on their own. Apart from the framework you've devised for them, the only place they can draw from for this is your subconscious. So yeah, I think that after a point, it's bound to happen, at least to some extent.

 

[James Chandler]

This used to happen to me a lot when I first started writing when I was a teenager. I do not necessarily keep everything I write exactly as written, but it is often where my most creative ideas come from.

 

[Derin]

It often does, yes. Unfortunately, attempting to force my characters back on track makes their actions look flat and forced; they have to get their way.

It used to happen a lot more when I first started as a teen and didn't have conscious knowledge of most of the tropes and conventions I was using. Nowadays I consciously know more about my characters and stroy structure from the outset, so what they would do is accurately predicted during planning most of the time.

 

[CicadaGrrl]

All my books are in some way about me. I think I am being all original while writing, but when I look back and pry things apart, I notice each of the characters have an aspect of me. I plan a lot in advance so tangents don't happen as much in the book anymore. In general I say go with the tangents. It's usually your subconscious telling you something cool. In my planning phase I did have the main romantic relationship completely change characters once.