symbolic 15: the reality of character
I love the word "fictionsuit." I don't know if Grant Morrison invented it, but I discovered it while reading The Invisibles and have been fascinated ever since as he toys with the limits of reality and text. Neal Stephenson gave us "avatar" with Snow Crash and that word only took a decade to become part of the accepted Internet-savvy vernacular. Now that the Internet allows us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves daily, both words have become necessary parts of online interaction. Online role-playing games even warrant their own acronym -- MMPORPG -- as the gaming industry tries to facilitate the fantasy of living in another's skin.
This is old news to writers. We put on fictionsuits every day. Some are more auto-biographical than others, but the process of putting words on the page requires the fabrication of that other persona -- the character which inhabits the story. In first person narrative especially, we become what we write. We have to in order to make it believable.
One of my characters for the Book of Lies is Jacob Maratre and, as a fictionsuit, he doesn't fit that well. I've been struggling with the cut of his cloth -- he pinches in the crotch and just isn't wide enough through the shoulders and chest for my liking -- as I try to get the suit to hang well on me. He may never fit properly which will be a small catastrophe since he is the main character of the narrative. I've been tempted to force myself into him, to seal the suit tight by dropping into first person, but the trouble with that solution is that you can't take the suit off. You introduce other problems by trying to wear more than one suit when you've committed to a first person model.
The book I was working on last year stuttered to a halt when I realized the best fit was the suit belonging to a secondary character. She was the one with the story to tell. The main character was a stuntman who really preferred to not be involved (sometimes you mistake character traits for signals they are trying to give you) and I never felt comfortable in his skin. I've still got her in the closet and I know the trick to working the buttons up the back. I'll get to her eventually. A good fictionsuit never rots.
NaNoWriMo finished up over the weekend and I had been pushing so hard to get the word count up (which I did, clearing the goal by a few thousand) that I remained oblivious to the struggle with which I was putting words on the page. 50,000 words into a book and I hadn't gotten to any of the material which really interested me. I can only imagine how bored the reader was going to be; how obvious it would be that I was talking through a mouth which didn't fit. Everyone would see through my disguise and know that I was Orlando.
I took Jacob off on Sunday and I'm putting him aside for a few days. He's hanging out in the garage, looking like a pair of shriveled nylons hanging from the nail in the ceiling. I've put a couple of heavy stones in the bottom of his feet to try to stretch him out. I pulled an older 'suit out of the closet (I hang them right next to the bunny outfit) and tried to squeeze back into it. I've put on a few pounds since the last time I wore this 'suit, but that didn't seem to matter. It fits just fine.
writing
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.
THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.
SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.
LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.