Thursday, November 7, 2013

Character in search of an author - the author's POV


This woman thinks she’s slipping out of my control. I know it’s generally believed by the gullible public and artsy-farty wannabe writers that characters take on a life of their own and start doing things you don’t want them to. But that’s bullshit. They’re words on paper, figments of my imagination, and they bloody well do what I want them to do. Jesus Christ, they’d better because I made them and I can unmake just as easily. Which way you want to go? Car smash, cancer, a bullet between the eyes, or something really inventive and agonizing like being burned alive as a witch? ‘Cause I can do it, and there’s bugger all you can do to stop me.

     Then again, maybe she is getting a bit uppity and I’ll have to slap her down. I’ll string her along for a couple of chapters and then, wham, out the left field something’ll leave her wide–eyed and gasping and she’ll be bloody sorry she ever screwed with me. I think that calls for a couple of fingers of Scotch. I always write better when I’m half loaded. The words come easier and there are none of those fatuous inhibitions and cringing servility at the altar of political correctness. Fuck political correctness. I write and if you don’t like it, don’t damned well read it. Chuck the book in the fire. Write to the Pope and get it banned – yes, please do that: the free publicity would send sales through the roof.

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