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Someone on the NaNoWriMo chat group mentioned a technique in which a writer writes a pep talk from his or her characters. She said she had found it helpful.
I hadn’t heard of the technique, but just the thought of it scared the snot out of me.
At the moment she brought it up, for example, I had open a draft which would have resulted in a pep talk very like this:
“Hey, you! Writer! Would you get your butt in a chair already? A little help, please? Because, you know, maybe YOU don’t find lying in a heap with your innards all Hulk-smashed to be an inconvenience, but some of us would like to get over it sometime soon, maybe? Or maybe just DIE to get out of this agony, you know?”
“Listen to the kid! He’s not doing too hot right now, and since you’ve left me in a soul-crushing jam — you know, the only woman I love has just made up with the man of her dreams, who happens to also be her husband, and the same night I lose her I get to watch the son I never had die slowly from injuries sustained saving her life — maybe, just maybe, you could see your way to DOING SOMETHING? Tonight? Right now?”
Yeah, um, let’s just keep this one-way for the time being….
