Mean Poll

[mrissa]

I used to think that the people who posted "mean things" in their daily progress reports were reminding themselves not to go too easy on their characters. But no! No, they're giving themselves incentive! "C'mon, self, if you only sit and write this one scene, I'll let you chop that guy's head off." This is not to be neglected as motivating factors go.

[Poll #801757]

Comments

[pameladean]

Characters who don't behave aren't mean. They are trying to tell me something, usually something that I just really don't want to know. Hence the desire to commit mayhem upon them. But I don't find that that is usually the right answer. Perhaps my characters are just tame and some people's deserve worse treatment.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sadly, we've gotten past the point where they're telling me things I don't want to know and into the point where I'm trying to figure out how and where to put the said things I didn't want to know. Bleh. Stupid characters.

[pameladean]

Oh, I hate that part. It invariably messes up such structure as I have decided upon, and this upsets me unreasonably, given how my books end up as opposed to how they start.

Stupid characters. But bullets won't stop 'em.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hee.

And yes, exactly: stop messing with my structure, characters! Sigh. I suppose it'll wind up being their structure eventually.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

"Le crankiness a ses raisons ..."

I learned more foreign epigrams, including the original of that one, from Mrs Which than I have from any of source in my life, including actual language classes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, but we decided Sunday night that I am likely to grow up to be Mrs Whatsit instead.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Do you get to be a star first?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I mean, in the literal sense.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Umm...we sort of skipped that part."

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

No matter how much I hate characters on any given day, I couldn't hand them over to matociquala for mauling. I'm mean, but she's scary.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The symmetry with the little-b bears was too good to pass up.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Aren't there some very good recipes that use rum and raisins? Also, why are there no answers having to do with feminine hygeine products?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Which is just reminding me of the cartoon about 'feminine protection': "What the hell is that supposed to be? A lavender flame-thrower?"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hee.

[ysabel.livejournal.com]

*is assaulted by images of a Hello Kitty flamethrower*

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

*iconlove*

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

If I had a flame-thrower I'd want it to be of a purplish hue.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Many people do not know that Caterpillar will make your construction equipment any color you want. Sky blue with white clouds on it, purple with pink waves, whatever.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Maybe I can get a back-hoe in pink!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you can get a back-hoe, you can get it in pink.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

One of the most useless things we learned in first-semester Japanese was how to say/spell "rum raisin" in Japanese. Because it's a cognate, so who cares?

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

What a minute...isn't "rum raisin" nearly impossible for a native Japanese speaker to pronounce anyway?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, they do use the l/r combo sound we don't have. So it's midway between "rum raisin" and "lum laisin." Which is one of the things that drives me crazy about phoneticized accents: it's not an l! It's just closer to an l than we're used to for an r!

We were also taught to order "banira/banila" ice cream.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

This poll reminds me of my experience writing the end of my Viking revenge epic. I felt rather like I was snapping the neck of every scene as I finished it. The story wasn't being disobedient, exactly, but I really did have an urge to murder it. Maybe the subject matter was just getting to me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I'm drawn to that kind of subject matter, too.

Sigh.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Characters who do not behave themselves in my current WiP get options including having their heads bitten off by manticores, being consumed from within by rogue nanotech, getting crucified, and either getting impaled on a giant spiky ice statue or being crushed beneath a dinosaur skull. Lots of people also get killed more conventionally with axes and bows, but I don't think anyone with a name does.

Those are the lucky ones. In the second half, the survivors get to live with small children and sulky teenagers.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Fiend.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

made to sit in the corner and sent to bed without supper

It took me three readings to correct that from "made to sit in the corner and go to bed without stripper". Which is not a situation anyone in this WiP would notice as different from normal, thankfully.

[ I blame it on markedformetal. ]

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If any of my characters has not been going to bed without stripper, they have neglected to inform me.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Paint? That's over in aisle three.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Characters who refuse to behave themselves should be watched carefully to see where they go next. Odds are they will add complications, and complications, however annoying until you figure them out, are a goodness. Intransigent characters irritate you bugfuck out of zen grandmotherly kindness, you know.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Zen grandmotherly kindness is only an attribute of my very scariest characters.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Give me rum, or give me tickyboxes!

This is the section IMO taht needed the something else mean I will put in comments. meme. I have no comment aside from be careful of your prescription meds intake, just thought you might like my silly opinion.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

See, there's a reason that was radio buttons when the others were tickyboxes: I don't care what else you wanted, pick one of those or nothing.

But I don't have to explain this to you, because you are one of the few people who checked, "She is a mean person," so it ought to be pretty straightforward.

[cammykitty.livejournal.com]

Characters who refuse to do their job should be fired, and it's your job as an author to make their lives miserable. Happy characters are boring!!! My MCs beg me to finish their stories quickly so they can end their fictional existance and go back to their daydream perfect non-lives. ;) Oh, and you know that writing exercise where you interview your characters. Most of mine either refuse to talk to me or just swear once they know what I've got them into.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I never interview my characters. Sometimes they talk in my head, but not to me, and not because they're shunning me, either.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Being asked to choose between rum, tickyboxes, liberty, or death reminded me of a verse we used to chant in college. I can't remember most of it, but the last three lines were

...
Use a noose to suck out his breath
To hell with liberty
WE WANT DEATH!

This has nothing to do with writing; I just thought it might amuse.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It did.

I'm not convinced that it has nothing to do with writing, though.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I can see how the sentiment expressed would be relevant to writing, yeah.

Tangentially, is now a good time to send you Mark of the Sea Serpent critique, or would you rather not hear it right now?

[(Anonymous)]

Now's fine. There really isn't a time when I'm too fragile or frustrated for a crit, and if I'm too busy, I'll just deal with it later.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sigh. That was me. Stupid random logouts.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

I, however am convinced that liberty and tickyboxes may well be the same.

We've never seen them together, have we?

Tiquebox - Egalité - Fraternité... hmm.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They're like Arlo Guthrie and Cosimo de Medici that way!

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

Precisely.

who misbehaves?

[aet.livejournal.com]

Probably one of the many reasons i will never be able to write fiction - I killed the characters (well, in fact created more characters to kill off) when life misbehaved.

Then again, may-be in this journal I would find people who would agree with my past self - if one is threatened with situation when one would be unable to afford to visit a library, then it DOES call for at least 6 (fictional) murdered royal children. And cutting off ears (from dead children and from live adults) and burning of corpses ...

... and now I have freshened my memory about why I should never try write fiction (and may be keep away from memories, also. As now I feel like eating some pelmeni - the ear shaped food from Siberia).

Re: who misbehaves?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Golly, and I thought I was suggestible when it came to food!

[greykev.livejournal.com]

I remain convinced that freezing to death is a mild and pleasant alternative, all things (including bears) considered.

And I will voice support for Maureen's "drowned in catterpillers" as a means of character death.

or a necrotizing bacterial infection: nothing says agonyzing death like watching your body fall apart.