Meandering & Musing
Sometimes, I’d like to know why an author wrote something the way they wrote it. I wonder, “What was going on in your life or in your head that prompted you to tell the story That way?” As I’ve read some of my own stories, I remember my reasons and it occurred to me that I’ve probably never explained them. I don’t know what creatures lurk in other writer’s heads, but I thought I’d let a few of mine run around for a while.
I create absurd challenges for myself as I write. I’ll create a character that can only speak in rhymes. Another cannot use first person pronouns and frequently recites the most hideous poetry. One regrettable choice led me to create a character that could only communicate in cliches. (Yeah, I know.) I had a creature with a hive mind that spoke in dissenting opinions with itself. A couple of psionic fish argued about theories of Time in a swirl of verb tense spaghetti. I had a swarm of zombie praying mantises who chanted, “Brains” as they were swatted. (I enjoyed those, by the way.)
It amuses me. I suppose I get bored easily, but I find that writing bizarre characters with peculiar limitations (sometimes self-imposed), is intriguing. I also discover characters more through their speech patterns than I do through their actions. I get to know them through their unique way of communicating, so that’s how I write them.
I enjoy “fish-out-of-water” stories, so I will frequently place strange characters in a “normal” setting and ordinary characters in a more bizarre situation. More often, I’ll surround a “Normie” with weirdos. While I usually enjoy writing the odd characters the most, sometimes an ordinary one will amuse me.
I created a character who appeared to be an ordinary little girl until she attempted to see into possible futures and innumerable heads popped out of her skin. On a whim, I decided that her name would be the sound of a scream since that’s what everyone would say when they saw her heads. She ended up becoming one of my favorites.
I had another character who was normal in all respects but who suffered a number of bizarre circumstances. He was raised by wolves for a time until they left him. He was sent to live in the circus for a while until they sent him back home. His entire world decided he was no longer a mammal and hunted him like a freak. What I enjoyed about writing his story was that he accepted these strange circumstances as random events and he never (or rarely) thought of himself as a victim.
One of my favorites, though, is an imaginary friend who didn’t realize he was imaginary. (His dog is imaginary as well.) While he is, by definition, a bizarre character, he actually fills the normal character role compared to those around him. I like that I can play with the idea of imagination in collaboration with reality instead of being in opposition.
More recently, I hearkened back to my youth, sitting around listening to stories and tall tales with exaggerated local color. I created a character named Thunder who is practically formed out of the dust of a remote Texas prairie. Rather than create this story based upon a complicated plot or series of events, I wrote this one about the character. While I sometimes have a character change their point of view after encountering an alien environment, I liked having this character remain largely unchanged. Instead, I wanted to see how he would leverage his experience on the farm in an alien environment.
On a larger scale, I sometimes enjoy writing outside of my comfort zone. I wrote a story about a werewolf even though that’s not a genre I would normally touch. Thunder’s story is a character-focused story that includes alien abduction rather than a sci-fi story that features a redneck. I have some ideas for another short story that dives into a dark dragon/fantasy realm.
I don’t know if others have similar thoughts as they write, but I am embracing the oddness to see just how far those bizarre characters and events will go. I am usually surprised along the way. How about you?
