An Author's Multiple Personality Disorder

It's four o'clock in the morning, usually my best time for writing, but it seems all my characters are still sleeping in those back rooms of my head where they go is between adventures.

I read somewhere a long time ago that four A.M. is the best time to launch an attack on someone. That's the time that most people's circadian rhythms are the lowest, and they are most vulnerable. At the time I read it, I wondered about the ones launching the attack; shouldn't their energy levels also be ebbing?

"Ah," I say to myself, (and myself listens eagerly, always excited to hear a revelation) "not all of us march to the same drummer." Some of us clearly pulse to a different rhythm, and four in the morning is when we peak. It seems then, that we insomniacs could take over the world... but unfortunately most of us seem to prefer to spend our time at serious introspection.

Or writing. Which some might consider an introspection of another sort. All those characters, after all, do come from within my own mind: Rainie, Jack, Thelma, Nate and Phenny, George and Katrin... I suppose in some way they are all aspects of me. Does that make me Sybil, suffering from multiple personality disorder?

Some might think so, when I explain how it can be when I'm writing. How sometimes I am shocked by the way my characters behave.

"How is that possible?" I'm asked. "You are doing the writing, the characters do what you tell them to do."

Well, not so much. I start a character with a very basic personality and no more than an outline so far as looks go. For instance, maybe it is a woman with a sense of humor and high intelligence, medium build, brown hair.

Imagine you are meeting someone at a party for the first time, and this is all the description you are given of her. You might form a few opinions of what she will be like, but then you meet her and spend an evening with her.

You are surprised to discover that her brown hair is actually a stunning shade of auburn, and she has nearly golden colored eyes that keep you almost mesmerized. You hear her discussing string theory with someone as if she has studied it since birth, but the next minute she turns and guffaws at a fart joke with a laugh so contagious the whole room cracks up.

Suddenly a fire breaks out at the party, and this woman heroically throws a man over her shoulder when he is overcome by smoke and carries him outside before returning to the burning room to rescue a couple more...

Now, if asked the next day about this woman, would you repeat the description you were originally given? Probably not, because you know so much more about her beyond brown hair and a sense of humor.

That's how it is with my characters. And as I get to know them, I get to understand how they will behave in certain circumstances, and if I try to write them behaving in a way that is counterintuitive, they will balk. They simply will not do it.

Now, don't get me wrong; they often surprise me. Just like my friends in the "real world," they can do unexpected things that make me laugh, or cry, or simply shake my head. That's because human beings are unpredictable... which is why I like them so much.

And that includes the human beings that are currently napping in the deep recesses of my head, waiting for the next adventure.