You'd think it'd be easier to ignore people who don't exist.

[mrissa]

Dear character:

I have put you in a novel. I am putting you in a short story right now. Yes, this very minute. I recognize that you are not the main character in either. But I think that getting to do interesting things in multiple works of fiction ought to satisfy you, and I would really appreciate it if you could keep your mouth shut if you happen to have an interesting life story. Particularly if it involves astronomy. Lalala I can't hear you. I particularly cannot hear you about the astronomy. Lala. La.

Crud.

Love,
mrissa

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Characters that don't behave can be killed off . . .

[columbina.livejournal.com]

You'd think that, but my experience is that then they float around your brain forever and annoy you.

I am forever in mind of Dorothy Sayers, who admitted she couldn't get rid of Lord Peter long after she stopped writing about him; she described him as "a permanent resident in the house of her mind," and said she "brought all her actions and opinions to the bar of his silent criticism."

[tournevis.livejournal.com]

So true. So true.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Characters who are killed off in their late 40s are not much use that way: still leaves lots of space for interesting stuff to have happened to them. Especially to those of us who are non-linear writers.

[moiread]

You'd think, but no. At least the real people can be hung up on, walked away from, or have doors slammed in their faces.

[brooksmoses]

That is the most eloquent "Crud" I think I have ever seen in text.

[moiread]

She's very good at that.

[kizmet-42.livejournal.com]

I dunno... we have a book around here called The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived. Fictionality doesn't limit their abilities to ruin our lives.

[ken-schneyer.livejournal.com]

Aw, but when I was a kid I discovered a comet by accident (just fiddling with my telescope at sunset because my mom had yelled at me), an' when I was nineteen I fell head over heels for a girl who'd come up with a plausible alternative to cosmic expansion, an' I know all these reeeeeealy neato things about pulsars, an'...