loud characters

I was dreaming last night about my WIP, which woke me, which made me think about my dream, which had my characters in it talking about something that had nothing to do with my manuscript. But then that got me thinking about a scene and anyone who has insomnia from time to time knows that once you start thinking in that way sleep is not coming back.

I blame it on the characters.

Our creations can be quite vocal sometimes. You can hear them grumbling and moaning and laughing. I’m just glad they can’t talk to us directly, or I would get no sleep at all. I can imagine many conversations:

“Dude, are you going to leave me there with this guy talking about Forest Gump? Just kill me.”

Or someone else would complain about how they’re not getting enough page time. Or someone else would complain about how I’d made him or her less kind, more kind, weaker, less intelligent, mean, not mean enough.

Characters are demanding. A writer has a hard time getting them out of his mind when they start making noise. They’re the life of the story. I suppose they have the right.