Paul Whybrow
Full Member
By entering the minds of the fictional characters that I create, I sometimes find them intruding into what I previously considered to be my private thought processes.
When I'm writing a novel in my Cornish Detective series, I become more aware than usual of how people I'm talking to respond to things I've said, looking for evasiveness, half-truths and deliberate lies. One of the villains that my detective protagonist hunted down, was a serial killer who'd been turned into an emotionless murderer through being forced to be a boy soldier at the age of 10. He hadn't developed any social interaction skills, other than operating as part of a war machine with his comrades, and taking lives had become a game to him—literally, for in peacetime he was playing an online role-play game in which real people were killed. Inhabiting his way of thinking was creepy, for I began to observe strangers as targets, working out how to eliminate them.
Just now, I'm in the mindset of a shell-shocked cavalry officer, making his way through a lawless terrain, anxious about ambush and keeping an eye on his food supplies. His wariness has crept into my life—the other day, I looked at the food tins in my store cupboard, working out how long they'd last me before I had to risk entering town to replenish my supplies.
Being other people, seeing them come to life on the computer screen, can take an author to strange places. I wrote about the thought processes of a five-year-old boy, who'd be abandoned in the countryside by his elderly kidnappers, who thought he'd be found quickly as it was close to a busy village. Instead, he made it through the streets unnoticed, planning to walk home, which he thought was just up the lane, though it was actually eight miles away. In writing this chapter, I revisited my own infant self, recalling a time when I got lost. In this way, I haunted myself!
I find myself emailing friends about my work in progress, talking about my characters as if they're real...I have very patient friends.
Do any of you find your thoughts drifting towards the fictional world you've created, wondering how your character would tackle the tiresome housework that you should really be getting on with in the real world?
When I'm writing a novel in my Cornish Detective series, I become more aware than usual of how people I'm talking to respond to things I've said, looking for evasiveness, half-truths and deliberate lies. One of the villains that my detective protagonist hunted down, was a serial killer who'd been turned into an emotionless murderer through being forced to be a boy soldier at the age of 10. He hadn't developed any social interaction skills, other than operating as part of a war machine with his comrades, and taking lives had become a game to him—literally, for in peacetime he was playing an online role-play game in which real people were killed. Inhabiting his way of thinking was creepy, for I began to observe strangers as targets, working out how to eliminate them.
Just now, I'm in the mindset of a shell-shocked cavalry officer, making his way through a lawless terrain, anxious about ambush and keeping an eye on his food supplies. His wariness has crept into my life—the other day, I looked at the food tins in my store cupboard, working out how long they'd last me before I had to risk entering town to replenish my supplies.
Being other people, seeing them come to life on the computer screen, can take an author to strange places. I wrote about the thought processes of a five-year-old boy, who'd be abandoned in the countryside by his elderly kidnappers, who thought he'd be found quickly as it was close to a busy village. Instead, he made it through the streets unnoticed, planning to walk home, which he thought was just up the lane, though it was actually eight miles away. In writing this chapter, I revisited my own infant self, recalling a time when I got lost. In this way, I haunted myself!
I find myself emailing friends about my work in progress, talking about my characters as if they're real...I have very patient friends.
Do any of you find your thoughts drifting towards the fictional world you've created, wondering how your character would tackle the tiresome housework that you should really be getting on with in the real world?
And the answer is... YES! LOL!! I live inside my characters' heads. They are as real to me as human beings I can see, hear, and touch. 
