Saturday, November 17, 2007

Muse got into my novel

Last year I discovered a very strange and rather frightening muse. It was a greying elvish sort of creature, whose movements resembled those of a monkey and whose thoughts resembled those of something somewhat evil. I wanted an elven character for a novel and discovered it--him. Needless to say I was rather afraid to write about him, but agreed that he could be my muse. At that point I was intending to take the creative writing course at my university and he agreed to help me in exchange, but he wanted to eat any characters I wrote about in the class. Since I had now gone beyond talking to things in my head and into the realm of things in my head eating other things in my head I was rather worried, but agreed. I didn't have the class, which saved me I guess.

So my muse sat, and I didn't speak to him much. Generally I converse with my characters one on one, and my need of him was created by the need for some sort of help and protection when writing literary fiction. I hate literary fiction and I haven't a clue how to write it, as might be guessed from the fact that I needed a monkey-elf to protect me from it. I also doubted that the sort of characters one wrote about in literary fiction were the sort that you talked to one on one, fantasy is much better in that. The characters are far more eccentric and often very talkative. I have no way to guarantee that isn't the way with literary fiction, but it seems fantasy writers (maybe because they are the least sane sorts) talk to their characters more often then people writing in other genres. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Anyway...looking at the cast of my novel I realised something. I have a large, frightening, shadowy sort of monster (whose name is Monster) who tends to eat characters or destroy their souls--he particularly likes to eat elves. Muse says it isn't him, but it is surprisingly similiar and leaves me wondering if they are in this together or maybe they are just the same kinds of creature.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is not a comment on this post but on your profile:
Why do you like rants?
If you go to my URL and read the post you might change your mind.
Regards

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