Author vs. Character -- Writing Advice

There is a scenario, where a character essentially rages against the heavens, all that good stuff.

But in this case, the heavens is, well, me. Or, the symbol of me, who is in fact, another character.

I know I'm keeping this kind of vague, but...how in the world do you make a character win against yourself, when everything said character does is going to somehow benefit me write a story, when the character is against said idea?

I don't think you can do that unless you are going for a meta fic or featuring a Lemony Narrator as your Author Avatar.

It works very well in context.

They can kill themselves.

Nope. Covered by the Author Symbol. Suicide means a symbolic work of the changing times and the inability of the hero to cope with it. Not an entertaining story for the masses, but instead an artistic story for analyzing by professors. Author Symbol wins. Character is dead.

edited 19th Oct '11 7:23:28 AM by MrAHR

Completely incongruous behaviour at odds with the genre of the story. Render the author unable to plausibly continue with the plot.

But see, the character only knows so much. He doesn't necessarily know the genre of the story (which is basically action fantasy, AKA shonen demographic, slightly revamped). He's not genre savvy, and has had limited exposure to a variety of genres.

The second one is what the character wants to do, but I'm kinda having trouble figuring out how.

edited 19th Oct '11 7:28:36 AM by MrAHR

They lock themselves in a room that's absolutely impossible to enter or leave without the key. Then they destroy the key.

Or they escape to a plane of existence that's implied to be outside of the author's reach.

Neither can be done, because the Author Symbol is way too strong for that. I mean, hell, author = god, it would do said symbol no good to not have appropriate powers. There is a reason I said rage against the heavens.

Also, there are no alternate dimensions in my story.

Even if either of them were possible, Author Symbol would write it as a Self Imposed Exile / Self Imposed Punishment, and then loop in the appropriate themes.

I am not trying to be impossible here, it's just that I had this argument with my self for quite a few hours before realizing I had no way of outsmarting my author symbol. Or...my character of doing it. So as a result, said author symbol's plans are...very all covering.

edited 19th Oct '11 7:32:13 AM by MrAHR

Symbolism overload. Get the character to acquire items and perform tasks that are so preposterously symbolic (in completely different directions, no less) that the author just doesn't know what to think. Something like having the character give himself Stigmata while walking through a field of red spider lilies while eating an apple with snow in the background and super-upbeat violin music playing at the same time. In a mosque.

edited 19th Oct '11 7:39:43 AM by RiotousRascal

Uhh... if the character spends the rest of his life telling a self-referential looping story (or something), would that just fall under "he went mad" theme?

Dealan: Yeah, pretty much.

RR: That would be...mildly hard to pull off in story during a climax.

edited 19th Oct '11 8:04:11 AM by MrAHR

The way you've set things up for yourself, 'mildly hard to pull off' is about as easy as it gets.

How about Talking The Monster To Death, or a variation upon it? The character can begin deconstructing his own story to the author, culminating in speculation on what type of person would compose a story where a character fights the author. Might be good for a Take That Me sort of ending.

I was using an understatement.

There is no way the character could possibly conceptualize symbolism, due to never being taught about it, and if he somehow managed to gather things that don't exist in my world, whilst trying to be killed during the climax, the author would just do what Dealan said — he was going crazy.

It'd be like Harry Potter trying to find an automatic during his fight with voldy. Mildly hard to pull off.

Talking the Monster to Death...hm...I guess that's one option. But I don't really see how he could fully break down someone as cocky and controlling as the author. I guess I'll store that one to ponder on.

edited 19th Oct '11 8:13:46 AM by MrAHR

Is the audience supposed to know that the second character is an Author Symbol? does the first character know it?

Well, I never state it outright, but it's fairly easy to figure out.

I mean, he talks about he's doing this all to make an awesome story to a bunch of people, including the first character.

How do you define "win" in this case? What is the "idea"?

One possibility (if I understand the situation correctly) is to introduce some unreliable narration, i.e. the one telling the story is revising what actually happened or putting his own spin on it. Another is that the "author" in this case is a second narrator, relating what the character (the first narrator) did. Then you, the prime narrator, become something like Fate.

Kill the author. Description cuts off. Blank space. "Story is over."

Actually, better yet, do the same thing described as above, but make it clear the author has killed the character and ontological inertia means they can't bring them back and continue the story.

The character has thus both upset the author's plans and is no longer anyone's tool.

And after that, does he climb the Holy Mountain?!

*cough*

Anyway...

You could go for something really confusing and have your character irritate The Author so much that their only response is, "Fine! You think of something!" Hence, your character is forcibly given the role of God... though not being genre savvy, things start to go wonky.

Or perhaps have the character call the author out for manipulating lives for the sake of entertainment...

Simple. Do nothing (no story, audience becomes bored, author loses), or have the character attempt to invoke Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy by being exceptionally evil.

Or if this is to be in a sequel: Go meta. Take all of the valid Just Bugs Me complaints that can be spotted as Fridge Logic in-story, have the character rant about them in a convincing way, demeaning the avatar until he gets a blue screen.

...One Over Zero?

That's simple — circumvent the author and piss off the reader. Readers are angry, books are thrown at walls half-read, the author is thoroughly emasculated, end of story.

... Though I guess that assumes the character actually knows said symbolic character is an author.

EDIT: Or, actually, he could just work to take control of his own fate. It might not work — heck, whatever he does doesn't even have to be logical — but if he's put in a tight spot and feels completely trapped, he might do literally anything to gain back even symbolic control of his life, up to and including killing himself.

edited 20th Oct '11 12:11:49 AM by Dec