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jeph does your inability to control your story disturb you?

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Carl-E:
We'll start this with the usual disclaimer:  I am not  a writer of fiction. 

However, I've heard many, many interviews with those who are, and many (especially those who write series with recurring characters) express the fact opinion that there are times when the characters seem to take over, and the story "writes itself", or "the characters write it". 

I'd be very  hard pressed to find it, but Jeph has said some similar things over the years, in interviews and commentary on the indivdual comics. 

Yes, of course, technically the author has complete control.  But in the mind of a good author, the characters live, and often seem to have ideas of their own! 

Zwiebel:
Well, speaking as a writer, a good character can write its own story. It can develop to the point that the writer need only let what naturally happen, happen. Most of the time you need to guide the characters down the paths you need them to go, but if you do it with too heavy a hand, it will make for a story that only reflects what the author wants (*cough*StephenieMeyer*cough*) and the story will suffer heavily for it. Sometimes you have to utterly relinquish control to see where the characters take it, and it's a rare thing that a writer can just let the story go like that. In Jeph's case, he has that opportunity and even that necessity since it is a character-driven strip and there is no one character's viewpoint we see from. Had we only seen the breakup, for example, from Dora or Marten's point of view, it would be different. Had we only seen this incident from Hanners' point of view, the same. Creating an environment where one can let the characters do their own thing, and therefore let us the readers see a variety of emotions and options regarding events, is great for a story- and Jeph luckily has the chance to do it here.

cyro:

--- Quote from: snubnose on 11 Apr 2011, 13:04 ---Err, Jeph does write much like I write ... if I write.

Not that my stories would be even remotely as good as Jephs stuff, but still.

But I also dont like knowing the end of the story when I start it. I rather see it developed naturally from the characters themselves.

--- End quote ---

See I like having the begining and ending of a story completed to start with then letting the characters make their way from A to B, if that makes sense. Sometimes they'll end up at C and I'll decide that's actually a better destination than B was, but I like to have B in mind.
Other times the car just breaks down and they have to try pushing it uphill... and I've gone way off track with this metaphor.

Thiefree:
My friend is a writer. He's a postmodern thinker and sometimes worries that he is writing his character into existence and that one day they will become sentient and get pissed off at their creator and kill him.

Jeph is a much more grounded person than that. He sees a clear difference between reality and fiction. I foresee no existential crises in his future. Good for him.

jwhouk:

--- Quote from: Carl-E on 20 Apr 2011, 01:38 ---However, I've heard many, many interviews with those who are, and many (especially those who write series with recurring characters) express the fact opinion that there are times when the characters seem to take over, and the story "writes itself", or "the characters write it".  

I'd be very  hard pressed to find it, but Jeph has said some similar things over the years, in interviews and commentary on the indivdual comics.  

Yes, of course, technically the author has complete control.  But in the mind of a good author, the characters live, and often seem to have ideas of their own!  

--- End quote ---

Consider Faye's reaction to Marty and Dora getting together.


--- Quote from: Jeph's Newspost ---This strip is a good example of a conversation I was writing veering off in a completely different direction than I initally expected. Along with most of the rest of you guys, I was expecting Faye's initial reaction to be shock, or anger, or grief, or some other really negative emotion. But resignation? I never would have guessed it until I started writing her dialogue in panel 2 and it just appeared on screen. Then it was like a switch flipped in my head- "of course she's been expecting this to happen! She's known this was a potential consequence ever since they had The Talk!" I dunno, it makes good sense to me. Hopefully it makes sense to you too.

I feel really pretentious writing about my work like this. I don't think I'm some kind of Great Artiste or whatever, I'm just some dude who draws a comic strip on the intar wubs, you know? But sometimes when I'm writing dialogue it really does feel like it's out of my hands, that the things Marten &co. say and do are just appearing as if I weren't involved in the process at all. It's weird. I hope it makes for interesting writing, anyway.

I used to have a really clear idea of what was going to happen next in the comic. Nowadays I'm almost as much of a spectator as the rest of you. It's pretty exciting!
--- End quote ---

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