Frankenstein and his monster: becoming trapped in the narrative
If you’ve been interacting with me online, you’ve been talking to a character. At first his voice sounded a lot like mine but as the writer noticed what got the best audience reaction the character’s voice started to change. He started to get more controversial, more aggressive and more flippant.
Have you ever made a decision because it would make a good story? At this point I’m making decisions because it would make a good twitter post. The writer is starting to live as his character would and this has interesting consequences to say the least.
Pity me for I am being taken over by my story. His voice has been coming out of the writer’s throat, his motivations are guiding my actions. He has more friends than I do. It’s ALIVE! stomping it’s way through my life creating entertaining havok.
I’m not ruining the joke by telling you this. I’m not coming clean or showing you the man behind the curtain, you see…
This isn’t me, it’s my character.
lol.
~ by Edward on February 19, 2010.
Posted in metatheory, Narratology, Perspectives, Systems
Glad to meet you. I like characters. I too am a character. I have no pity for you and ask for none. I take full responsibility for writing myself into this mess and have found great enjoyment in it. Make sure you pick a fun character, or not fun if that’s more your style and enjoy it either way, as I suspect you already are.
I like your writing. Write more!
How does that saying go? “LARP it until you make it”?
Nice, Ed. I’ve been observing myself from the outside trying to determine who I am and then I realized I’m whatever someone observes me as…there are as many me’s as there are people on this planet.
“Chapel Perilous, like the mysterious entity called “I”, cannot be located in the time-space continuum: it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. Indeed like the Ego, once you’re inside it there doesn’t seem to be any way to ever get out, again, until you suddenly discover that it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought.” – Robert Anton Wilson