The process of writing- characters

There is a notion often expressed by novelists (and would-be novelists) these days that what they do with characters is to create them and then 'watch what they do.' Ray Bradbury puts it like this: "First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!" There are writers who have suggested even that while they were writing their novel they wanted to write a particular scene but 'the characters wouldn't let me.'

When I came across this notion my first reaction was to dismiss it as something between New Age twaddle and the desperate attempts of writers to convince themselves they are artists (darling!) rather than craftsmen/women. Since a novel's characters have no existence outside the writer's mind (until the novel is read of course, when they acquire an existence in any reader's mind), how can they behave or react in any way except how the author decides they should behave or react? How can they 'lead' the author? Most of all, how can they take independent, autonomous decisions about their actions?

Of course this notion of characters having a life independent of their creator is a long-established one. There is an element of it even I believe in that most level-headed of novelists, Jane Austen. In her famous quotation about Emma:
"I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like"
what is interesting is her choice of the verb "take." It is as if Austen feels that Emma already exists and she is going to choose to put her in her novel. Novelists such as Henry Fielding and Laurence Sterne often write about their creations as if they have an independent life and exist outside their imaginations and surely neither Fielding nor Sterne nor Austen could be declared guilty of New Age twaddle. Also none takes themselves so seriously as to create such a notion for their own aggrandizement.

It is therefore an idea that is worthy of serious consideration. What is interesting about it is of course the notion that the novelist is not entirely in control of what they write. Gustave Flaubert expresses this idea beautifully in the quote:
"C'est comme un homme qui a l'oreille juste et qui joue faux du violon; ses doigts se refusent a reproduire juste le son dont il a conscience"
("It is like a violinist whose ear is true but who plays badly; his fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.")
I find an echo in this of L P Hartley's advice that "it's better to write about things you feel than about things you know about". Both to me suggest that in their writing a novelist should tap into ideas and areas of consciousness over which they do not have complete conscious control, and that frustration arises when they cannot successfully do so.

Of course this reminds me of an idea I have explored in a previous post, that the successful writer can use the incredible power of the unconscious mind in their writing. As I said in that post, Incognito- the Secret Life of the Brain has opened my eyes to the range and power of the abilities of the unconscious brain. We like to think that the higher order mental functions are entirely under the control of our conscious minds, or to put it another way that writers know what they are doing when they write. However it seems clear that the conscious mind is often 'the last to know' when the unconscious parts of the mind have been working away at some complex and subtle problem for a considerable time and have come up with a brilliant and creative answer.

So perhaps this idea of characters who 'tell the author what to write' is simply another way of describing the functioning of the unconscious mind. As I have said in many previous posts human beings seem strongly predisposed to think in symbols. What better symbol is there for an author of the complex functioning of their own unconscious mind than a character they themselves have created. So when their characters 'speak to them' perhaps it is simply their own unconscious mind they are listening to.

The process of writing

At a creative writing masterclass recently I was told that a great novel is not written but edited. Get you first draft down quickly, we were told, but then accept that by the time you have finished editing it probably less than 25% of the original will be left. Someone asked if that was always the case and the workshop leader, a very successful novelist, said perhaps if the first draft had been written extremely slowly and carefully then more of it would survive the editing process.

That got me thinking about the process of writing, and whether speed and fluency or meticulous care is more likely to produce works of genius. The problem is that there are examples on both sides, to the extent that I can see no clear conclusion. In poetry, Wilfred Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth is a shining example of the value of redrafting and editing. I liked to show students images of Owen's various drafts of this poem, complete with Sassoon's suggestions (the 'Doomed' of the title was one). One such draft is below:

and it demonstrates wonderfully the creative mind at work.  On the other hand John Keats' On the Grasshopper and the Cricket was reputedly written in a pub on Green Lanes in a competition with Leigh Hunt to write a sonnet against the clock. 

The world of novels presents similar extremes. James Joyce's Finnegans Wake took seventeen years to write; Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol six weeks. Perhaps neither is the greatest novel ever written, and there is unquestionably a difference in length, but each has been hailed at one time or another as a work of genius.

As to my favourite author, although evidence on the subject is scant I am inclined to think that Shakespeare tended more towards the speedy and fluent than the meticulous and painstaking. He was clearly a very busy man and play-scripts would have to have been produced to a strict schedule with first nights looming. There are also fairly frequent internal inconsistencies, plot holes and loose ends that a more careful editing process would surely have eliminated. I am therefore inclined to think that Shakespeare, like Dickens or Keats, wrote fast.

So how can two such radically different approaches each lead to works of genius? Perhaps the answer lies in ideas explored in Incognito-The Secret Lives of the Brain and elsewhere. It seems that our unconscious mind is capable of greater complexity and creativity of thought than we may sometimes suspect. The advice we were given, that it is editing not writing that creates great literature, is predicated on the idea that it is the conscious mind- the dominant partner in the editing process- that is the key to greatness. Certainly the idea has some merit. In writing Anthem for Doomed Youth Owen, I believe, wrote from the heart (or under the direction of his unconscious mind, which means the same) but then harnessed his conscious mind, and Sassoon's, to look critically at what he had written and to improve it beyond measure. Keats had no time for that, and it was through harnessing the immense creativity of his unconscious mind that he wrote his sonnet. 

Dickens, I am sure, cannot have had complete control from his conscious mind as he wrote. Many of his great novels were written as weekly serials and I am sure that a lot of the time he was flying by the seat of his pants (to use an anachronistic metaphor) in writing them. Kate Perugini said of him that "He had no doubt a strong natural instinct for art" and for me that is simply a description of someone harnessing their unconscious mind to create great literature.

Of course the picture gets muddle when you factor in notions of 'the Great Artist.' On the one hand the idea must be preserved of the creative genius who suffers for his art, so a Stephen King or a Terry Pratchett, who can churn out novels with the efficiency of a production line is derided in comparison with a Vikram Seth, who confirmed in 2009 that his sequel to A Suitable Boy would be published in 2013. On the other hand, some seem to feel, the truly great artist should be above the whole tedious business of editing, so that every stoned-out rambling should be preserved unedited and unspoilt for all eternity.

For me, as so often, it is Shakespeare who provides the model of true genius. A craftsman rather than an 'artist' he worked against the clock, writing quickly to pay the bills. And to do so he called upon the immense wealth and creativity of his unconscious mind. I see him staring blankly out of the window and then bending over the page and scribbling "To be or not to be, that is the question..." the beauty of the words forming naturally and instinctively in his mind and in his hand as he writes.

OK it's a cliché, but it's one I like to think might represent the truth.