When the characters of your novel keep you awake...


Since last two days, I have had this eerie feeling that one of the future heroes of my upcoming novel is around me, watching me, stalking me, and promising me forebodingly that he is never going to stop chasing me! I have been thinking about him in every possible waking moment and of course, dream about him when asleep as if he is real. His eyes are so menacing yet they look at me as if they are begging me to go back to writing the book which I have left unfinished because something really important came up. I wonder if this is really nature's way of telling me that I am making a wrong decision and I should indeed be writing the book? Nevertheless, the point that I want to explore here is

One, has this happened to you? Because if it has, I would be delighted to know your feelings when you went through it.

Second, how can we channel this new found friend's (or foe's) energy in to writing our novel?

In my imaginative stalking, this character of mine (OK. Let's call him Mr. A), is playing his part to the T. He is evil, sarcastic, and he is pushy. Again, the best part of him is that he turns sweet suddenly and then just like a switch, he logs off my world! If he is in a good mood, he sometimes even lets me in his world to know him better which opens up windows to so many new angles to my story that I hadn't even dreamt about thinking previously. Also, Mr. A currently is giving me the exact feelings that I would want my characters facing Mr. A should feel. My fingers cringe with pain when I realize I do not have a PC to start typing those lines bubbling inside me right away.

I think somewhere I am thankful that I am experiencing such intimacy with my characters and I see my story evolving accordingly.

If any of you are feeling this way, I would recommend you to make the most of this motivated and charged environment and unlike me, write down whatever comes to you mind. Your characters are literally asking you to write about them and I am sure some of the best pieces, whether they go in to the book or not (yes, that happens too!), can be produced during this time!

Again, it would be great if you can help us all out on how you tackled this if you have gone through this. If this is how it is going to continue, I might end up being best friends with Mr. A very soon! What about you? ☺

Comments

  1. John JethiMay 28, 2011 at 11:18 AM

    Sounds eerie.. really eerie... but then that goes to show you are really passionate about this book you are writing and especially the character. :-)

    In bet, I like the layout of the blog...especially the font you chose for the post titles.

    keep posting more.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shilpa MudigantiMay 30, 2011 at 3:12 PM

    Thank you thank you..and you correctly guessed the character! :D

    ReplyDelete

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