Character Voices

[Tensleep]

This is something that has been bothering me for nearly a year now, so bare with me!

Have you noticed that when you write a character they take on a voice, that they are unique within your writing, despite the character belonging to someone else? I've found that happens with each and every one of my characters.

My frustration is: What do you do when you lose that voice, when you've lost touch with that character? Has anyone else experienced this or am I just crazy?

If so, I'd like to know about your experiences. Did you continue on regardless or put the story to bed?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, can you think of any stories where the voice of the character just doesn't fit, like the author has lost touch with the character or never knew them to begin with? This can be due to POV or first person vs third person narration.

Like I said, this has been bothering me since I have lost touch with my favorite character and I can't fix him. Hopefully someone out there has some words of wisdom about this phenomenon. If not, I got babble time! .

[whatcoloristhesky]

I know exactly what you're talking about. All my characters have their own voice, and when I lose touch with that voice, I can't seem to write. I can know what I want to say, but it won't come out right on paper. My solution is taking a break from the character and working on a different story, or reading a good book. Sometimes I can re-familiarize myself with the character's voice quickly, but other times it takes me a while. Either way, I move on and don't dwell. Somebody will say something or something will happen that makes me find the voice again.

[cooroo]

This has actually happened to me recently with a Harry Potter fanfiction. I only have the last chapter to write, but I just can't. I know what's going to happen, I know what needs to happen... but everything I put down on paper just sounds wrong.
If this is a fanfiction you're talking about, Tens, my best advice would be to go read the book (The Outsiders?) of the fanfiction. That usually works for me when it comes to fanfiction. If I've just read The Outsiders, I'll be in the mood for writing an Outsiders fanfiction. If I've just read Harry Potter, I'll probably be in the mood to write a fanfiction for that.
Which means I should probably go read Harry Potter right now, but I've got chemistry to do instead.
Hopefully this helps.

[Two-Bitty]

I absolutely hate it when my character loses his/her voice. For me, it's almost like I lost a friend or like a friend just won't talk to me anymore. I build connections with my characters and try to make them seem real. And when my character stops talking to me, I'll put the story to rest for a while and let him/her rest. But this only happens with my original characters. But for most of my characters, I base them off of my friends or people I've met before, and if I talk to that person, my character will start talking to me again.

For original characters, do they sometimes pop into dreams or talk to you as your conscience? Mine tend to do that. But I get bad advice from them... That's why I'm such a bad person.

[Tensleep]

I apologize right now for any off spellings or missed/and or extra letters and will attempt to edit this before it gets posted. I totally sliced a couple of my fingers up good yesterday and it makes typing difficult.

But enough whining. You guys rock with all these awesome answers just after a day! I am so glad I am not alone on this.

Two-Bitty, you must be crawling around in my head, because it does feel like I lost my best buddy or that he's just mad enough not to talk to me for...about a year next month. Makes me wonder what I did to piss him off so bad.

I'm liking whatcoloristhesky's idea of reading a book though,. I have a couple Jeff Lindsey novels waiting for me, so always a good time. And this other one about Richard Kuklinski, the Ice Man mob contract killer - you tube this guy, he is fascinating to all criminal psychology majors and terrifying to everyone else.

And now I'm thinking about reading the Outsiders again or even Harry Potter. Thanks for that, Cooroo You have chemistry, I have to find gainful employment. should be interesting.

What I can't do is put off writing the chapter any longer, you know? It's been almost a year and I'm starting to think I've lost my most reviewed and criticized character over on ff,net. That being said, I am going to go and read a good book and then I am going to bang my head against the wall for a while until something comes to me.

Thansk for the advice and the support! Any more comments, suggestions and the like are more than welcome.