I’d quote your whole thing but it’s succinct. It goes back to I am god part one. I didn’t realize there’d be a followup. Which may make me, in fact, NOT God. 😉

That’s the metaphor that springs to mind whenever I encounter a story in which it becomes obvious that the writer had no idea, starting out, where the whole thing was going to end up (face down in a gutter somewhere).

Similarly, my answer to the claim that characters take on a life of their own (which they do) is to say that, even so, the writer is by no means compelled to tell us everything they do. You could say this gets back to the age-old teleological debate over agency and omniscience.

But at the same time, somehow, we don’t. And somehow, it isn’t.

I guess it depends on the veracity of the person at the keyboard.

I’m reading up on sociopathy for my current work-in-progress, and no matter how many times you’re confronted with people like this, you still can’t really understand it. Is this the part where we distrust the Gods as writers?

We know full well it’s the product of somebody sitting at a word processor (and Avid machine) and pounding on keys. But at the same time, somehow, we don’t. And somehow, it isn’t.