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Q&A Characters that take on a life of their own

That's a thing I read often about on Twitter from colleagues. The most common approach is: Let your character do what he wants. There is a reason that your character developed this way and make way...

posted 6y ago by Pawana‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:54:18Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36359
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Pawana‭ · 2019-12-08T08:54:18Z (almost 5 years ago)
That's a thing I read often about on Twitter from colleagues. The most common approach is: **Let your character do what he wants**. There is a reason that your character developed this way and make way for a very interessting approach on your story. Maybe the way your character takes on situations is way more statisfying than your approach.

The other approach is to **force the characters in your story**. The major problem in that approach is: The characters tend to seem out of character. The reader can't relate to the made decision, cause it seems off. Like an actor, who plays a role and starts to smirk a bit.

You see: There are 2 approaches, but the first one is my personal favourite, cause a story lives with it's characters and it is better to fit the story around them. But what you do is totally your decision in the end

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-05-23T12:45:11Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 7