in which my characters run amok

[gwynnega]

Me: You're not having sex in this chapter of the novel.

Novel Characters: What.

Me: You had sex five times in the last three chapters, which was five more times than I'd originally planned.

Novel Characters: Your original plan sucked. You must admit, our way is much better.

Me: I'll admit it, but you're still not having sex in this chapter.

Novel Characters: Can we make out, at least?

Me: You can have one paragraph.

Novel Characters: We're taking four.

Me: Fine, but that's it for awhile.

Novel Characters: You just keep telling yourself that.

Protagonist: Oh, by the way, I'm not nearly as heterosexual as I originally thought.

Me: That shouldn't surprise me. Almost none of my novel protagonists turn out to be as heterosexual as they think.

Protagonist: Yay!

Comments

[sartorias]

*snicker*

[gwynnega]

It's fun when they're so bossy.

[sovay]

Protagonist: Oh, by the way, I'm not nearly as heterosexual as I originally thought.

Sounds healthy to me.

[gwynnega]

Her partner is a shapeshifter, so it only made sense.

[usedtobeljs]

Heee!

[gwynnega]

These characters are entertaining me. :-)

[larryhammer]

Curiously enough, I've had similar conversations with the protagonists of my past three novellas, though I admit I was a bit more open to them having sex as it was generally helpful for moving the story along.

(In these cases, it happened to easy to get them to get their pants back on by throwing some plot at them, but that doesn't work all the time -- you usually need to have plot elements already over the mantlepiece for that. Current story, which is pure romance with story driven by relationship-derived character development, I can't do that. Not without backing up and redecorating.)

[gwynnega]

My novel is fantasy, not pure romance, but my characters decided to fall in love (though that wasn't in my original plan either). The sex has been useful to show the progression of their relationship, but there's a lot of plot stuff that needs to happen now. I'm like, "You only just got out of bed!"

[kore]

Novel Characters: Your original plan sucked. You must admit, our way is much better.

They just LOVE saying this, don't they.

[gwynnega]

In this case, my characters were totally right to overrule me!