Character Perception of Time
Imagine being a baby and knowing already how your life is going to turn out at the end? Life would be about building a logical sequence to get to that point. Mmm, probably not worth learning to sit up, never mind walk.
I remember a writing workshop I attended many years ago, albeit focussed on screenplays, where the take-home method was to firstly visualise the climax, then construct your inciting incident and everything in between to reach it. It’s another tool for the kit and perhaps for every writer at some stage. As a main strategy, I just don’ think it would have got me out of nappies. It also straight jacketed my first attempt at a novel which could have gone anywhere and probably should have gone somewhere else.
Putting aside concepts of circular Time and scientific theories that it’s an illusion anyway, we generally perceive Time as moving forwards. That can mean anything from ruminating on what we should do next year to regretting the dirty dishes after a nice dinner.
What it means in my current draft of my new novel, is that I don’t always know what is going to happen next in my story. That gives a certain equality between my protagonist and I. For example, I am in touch with their anxiety about what might happen next perhaps to a level I wouldn’t if I already knew the outcome in their next scene. Because life is going forwards for them, and I am joining them on the uncertainty of that journey. Rather than being the guy waiting up ahead to ambush them.
I’m not suggesting that a writer can’t put themselves in their character’s shoes otherwise, but for me it can create more space for nuances around what they’re feeling and thinking, how that transfers into dialogue and how that may spring or delay their body into action. If I’m so focussed on making sure my protagonist gets insulted badly enough that they rush over to the wall and grab Pavlov’s gun, I might miss a tiny voice in them that wants to make a different decision; maybe them noticing a detail in their antagonist that causes them to soften. Or plan a worse, drawn-out revenge.
It could be argued that if we know our characters well enough, we will know what they would do in each situation beforehand anyway. But in real life, are we ourselves always that consistent? Hence the saying, behaving out of character. No one knows for sure how they will react until a moment arrives. Maybe there’s a freshness in the writing if the author doesn’t know either.
On the counter argument, if writers left decisions entirely up to their character’s whims, chances are there would be an awful lot of novels ending up with protagonists relaxing on the beach when they were supposed to be solving a murder.
In truth, I’m both a Plotter and a Pantser. Sometimes I take the circular approach of working on beginnings, endings and some points in between at the same time, feeling them resonate with and change each other.
But I do relish the opportunity, if that toddler has learnt to stand up and walk, to let go of their hand sometimes and see where they run.
On the subject of Time, a friend said this to me years ago as a quip (of which there are many variations):
‘Time was invented so that everything doesn’t happen at once.’
I will add, ‘and so we can have stories.’