I think the analogy I operate under involves surfing… it’s toughest to get going, and takes some force and effort on your part, but once the plot and characters take over, it’s a matter of allowing the wave to take you, and directing your board through the wave to hit the places that you had planned on. I guess you could say I let my characters boss me sometimes (whenever I see that the plot could possibly go another way). It really is a tough balance, as you’ve so aptly described. And in the end, it takes a few manscripts to really feel comfortable with the feel and force of the current that a plot and characters will bring to your process.

Ultimately, I’m appreciative of the superego, no matter how intervening it is. As long as it’s hushed enough to let me authenticate the story, it betters my writing, if only through anxiety.

I have to admit that my characters don’t actually “speak” to me either. What happens instead is that I’ll write something, then something will nag at the back of my mind saying, “He would never say *that*!” And then I have to poke around until I figure out what’s wrong, and/or generate something that feels like it fits better.

(But then, I actually do hear voices speaking when I’m writing. I’m an auditory reader, and an auditory writer as well, apparently. When I write and type words, I hear them being voiced in my head. So I guess in that sense I *do* hear my characters speaking to me.)

I agree that in the end, many of these apparent differences lie probably in how we (and/or our Fred) choose to view the writing process – the masks and models we utilize in order to make it work for us. User interface, in other words. The cake is a lie.

Science fiction grand master Fred Pohl had a very detailed theory on the subconscious’ role in writing on wrote a very good how to write book on it. At least one sf writer I know who more or less subscribes to his theory has named her subconscious “Fred” in tribute and can go on at length about the tussles she has with her “Fred” while writing. I’m always at a lost at how to react to these conversations as my reality doesn’t act the way hers seeems to.

Nor do my characters ever talk to me — any more than my toaster does. “Oh my, Lee! You’re putting in the slice of bread the wrong way again. Turn it 90 degress or it won’t fit in the slot.” My subconscious doesn’t anthropomorphise my mistakes with household appliances; I just can’t see it suddenly doing so over fictional characters. They’re just characters for Pete’s sake.

I guess I’m more along the lines of of that “fullblown from Zeus’ brow” type of writer. My subconscious’ tuckered out after doing the conceptional plotting. All that writing and plot mechanic stuff is the conscious mind’s job, thank you very much. My subconscious is going back to bed. (There’s a reason it’s called subconscious!)

– Lee Allred

I haven’t attempted anything as complex as a novel yet, but I have returned to stories after 2-3 years away and been surprised to discover that it wasn’t at all what I had thought I had done and that apparently there was a newer version of the story in my head even though I hadn’t been actively working on it.