The Voices in Your Head

I had a conversation this morning with a man named Augustus. He was born in the 1850s and spent some time in an asylum after having a violent nervous breakdown. He lives on Oxford Street in London and attended a University that doesn't exist while he studies physics and mineralogy. Oh, and he sees ghosts. I enjoyed the conversation we had until he started calling me names, like a naive git... So, the conversation ended abruptly when I decided to stop thinking about it.

If you're a writer, especially of fiction, then having imaginary discussions with imaginary people isn't so unusual. In fact, I do it everyday. It should be clarified that I don't stalk around my room talking to the walls. The voices are all in my overly active head. Does that make me crazy? I don't think so. "Speaking" to my characters has proved to be the best method of finding their voice so that I can better portray them in a story. It's through this method that I better establish the characterization of my creations.

I once had someone ask me if they were weird because they imagined an entire conversation between two characters, and I told them no. To the non-writer, such a practice might seem questionable but, hey, they're not writers so what do they know? So long as you know the difference between fact and fiction, you're not too crazy.

Acknowledging those "voices in your head" can often help you delve into ideas you never would have explored before. When you mentally step into the shoes of a fictional character, they are capable of carrying you into knew perspectives and different worlds. This way, your text may be brought to life in a whole knew way as you find the perfect characterization that can make your characters, and your story as a whole, unique and memorable.

I've written for a lot of characters that live in the Victorian Era. Now, the 19th century is not like the 20th, believe me. Aside from carriages versus cars, or oil lamps versus light bulbs, there are inverse mentalities, ethics, and formalities. You can research all you like for a time era in which your story takes place, but nothing draws in the reader more than a character who seems plucked right out of time.

The voices of my Victorian characters, as they blather on between the walls of my skull, have allowed me ease in period conversation. The more I allow them to talk, the more their individual characterizations develop to make them as unique as an individual in real life. When my inner voice asks them a simple, even stupid question, I receive a frightening amount of diverse answers from all my different characters.

If I were to ask, "It's a lovely day, isn't it?"

My characters may reply the following:

"Indeed it is! Why, I saw gaggle of pigeons flying about and they reminded me of my Auntie Floe because she wears a dead pigeon in her hat!"

"A gaggle of pigeons? Hmph. It's brainless conglomerations of words such as that from equally brainless dolts that prevent any day, sunny or dreary, from being 'lovely'. Perhaps you should stop dwelling on the 'loveliness' of the day and turn to something more productive."

"I thought the day was lovely... Until someone picked my pocket and left me in the alleyway with a knot on my forehead... Now the day is seeming quite hopeless..."

Believe me, there are more voices rattling around in my head. It's out of courtesy for you, my reader, that keeps me from putting them all down. The responses very from being completely agreeable, to self pitying, to flat out rude and contradicting. Because of the various answers, mental conversations make for a very helpful brain exercise.

Yes, okay, you're talking to yourself and voices in your head. I'm not going to say you aren't. What I will say, however, is that you aren't alone! It's my belief that many a writer has voices in their head because, let's face it, every character you create is an extension of yourself. Even if by all appearances the character is nothing like you, there is at least one key trait, one certain perspective, that is completely and undeniably you. It may just be exaggerated or made more subtle.

My point is this: If you know what I am talking about, if you have done the "one person conversation" yourself, then don't think it's weird or pointless. In fact, whether or not they realize it, non-writers do it all the time when they debate with themselves to find a solution. There is a whole population of people inside all of us, all you have to do is tap into that inner genius (lunacy?) and write a masterpiece!