fahye | day one of multi-character simming

Behind a cut, because I'm finding this interesting but most of you probably don't.

I've been running five characters in the background and letting them talk when I'm on the bus/walking to meet someone for lunch, and so far it's been excellent in terms of finding out more about their backgrounds and habits and even a bit about their motivations (surprisingly informative: working out what the hell they were wearing, and why) but five is maybe a bit much, especially when they know each other; basically, Lancelot is utterly useless if I run him at the same time as Gwen.

(Me: Hey, guys, these pink flowers I'm walking past. Like them?
Gwen: Yes!
Morgana: Yes.
Merlin: They're...nice flowers?
Arthur: *blank look*
Lancelot: Gwen would like pink flowers!)

Morgana and Arthur are also problematic because they can get uselessly out of hand: they wasted five minutes bickering about (ironically enough) which of them started an argument that they had at a party when they were fourteen.

I also got distracted convincing Gwen that she should invest in a pair of heels higher than two inches.

THIS IS WHY I DON'T USUALLY SIM. My imagination is excellent but it is very, very difficult to keep focused, and I also know that if I do it for too long then they'll become intrusive. I couldn't do it at all on a normal med school day.

I'm going to give it a bit longer and then maybe try it strictly one voice at a time, in the name of actually getting the fic done faster.

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*giggles* Lancelot would. I really wish I could actually sim, because it just sounds like so much fun. Particularly if you had any or all of Merlin's younger set in your head.

The problem with simming is that it does take a lot of concentration -- especially with new characters, because you have to have the patience to dig stuff out of them, and you don't yet know which questions to ask.

Also Lancelot is just not a talkative guy.

Me: What are you wearing?
Him: A coat.
Me: And...
Him: A scarf?

Whereas Arthur will tell you the brand names of everything he's wearing, and then pretend that he doesn't care about brands, he just likes quality.

I LOVE IT. i want to do it all the time just because it would be infinitely amusing.

I seriously, seriously wish I could do this with more than one person! But you just make me want to squish Lancelot's little cheeks.

Interestingly, when I have breakthrough voices of the non-character variety (just random words/conversations happening behind my conscious thoughts) they usually involve more than one person. I keep hoping it will manifest itself as genius dialogue.

You should know that since yesterday I have been having fun fights in my head with two characters I've been struggling with for a long while. So this is working! In the sense of "fuck you, Lazarus, stop yelling insults at me from behind the kitchen door."

I'm somehow not surprised that this is true for you; a lot of your fics are -- er -- *hand motions* about relationships in the not chick-lit way but in the central-to-the-action way. Which I love.

I'm glad it's working for you! I've been too busy to sim properly, but on the other hand I actually managed to get a bit more work done on the fic, so something must be going well.

I WISH I UNDERSTOOD HOW PEOPLE DO THIS. I have tried this writing method before, the whole letting a character ride around in your head for a day, but it just doesn't . . . go. :( YOU ARE AMAZING.

It comes amazingly naturally to me, but I think this may be because of my years of experience with narrative RP -- I'm used to setting up a character in my brainspace and then, basically, paying attention to what they say.

i'm not really a narrative writer—as a poet, one doesn't have to be—so i don't have much experience with characters per se, let alone the feeling that they're chattering independently from oneself; but clearly you're not the first to have reported the experience, and it's one both totally foreign & totally fascinating to me.

*chinhands*

It's less an experience than a deliberate technique for strengthening and facilitating character-driven writing, and it's one I like but usually can't spare the time and concentration to do. I've never actually done it for fandom before (but then, I don't usually write AUs, so I don't have as much need to find out about their backgrounds and experiences) -- I've used it a couple of times for original RP characters.

And yeah, it's weird how independent the voices can be, even new ones.

I don't know, I think of it like tarot -- it's a handy system for clarifying things which have their origin in your own mind, but require some kind of prompting structure in order to be properly realised. If that makes sense.

You are really, really tempting me to do this for a day. And on a school day it might even be helpful, because specifically I would want to sim Fraser and the Rays, and I bet [a] I would be a lot more confident about participating in class discussion if I had Fraser making insights about, say, Shakespeare, and [b] it might be a lot easier to get through the painful parts of the screening of Pan's Labyrinth I have tonight if I had the Rays running Intelligent Film Commentary. But do I have the time or sanity for this? I do not know!

DO IT, I would be really interested in discussing it with you.

I will read this AU without knowing a darned thing about canon if you promise there will really be scarves!

MERLIN WEARS BEAUTIFUL SCARVES!

...Um. I may be suffering canon-withdrawal.

There WILL. Lots of them!

Ohhhhh, I seee! When you said simming in the last post, I had a vision of making Sims characters out of them on the actual video game. Okay.

Fascinating! Hey what do these characters think of you doing this?

You should read the post I linked to, it's a very interesting description/how-to.

You know, I haven't dared ask them yet, I'm still on the clothes-and-food-preferences level, with a few more interviewy type questions about their pasts. But I'll get back to you!

Well, that was an interesting one.

Merlin and Gwen are both a bit too literal/used to doing things with their hands for them to really understand why I am finding it helpful, but Merlin is laidback enough and Gwen is sweet enough that they don't really care if I do it or not. Merlin also added that he had enough annoying voices in his life already, and then Arthur kicked him.

Actually, Arthur was the most in favour, being of the opinion that anything that improves my writing is worthwhile.

Morgana hummed and hahed a bit but eventually told me she thought I was just procrastinating and I should get on with the writing. OUCH. But I consider it a good sign that she's being that honest.

Lancelot is very very difficult to get anything more than a shrug and a smile out of when you press him for personal opinion (damn one-episode characters!) but I did manage to get him to say that perhaps talking to real people would be more helpful than getting everything out of my own head.

So. Yeah. Dammit, Morgana.

Arthur: *blank look*

rofl.

I have never heard it called simming..
or called anything for that matter.

I've had a myriad of people swimming around in my head ever since I can remember.
Never thought to turn them into a story, though.

They just amuse me.

Maybe I shall try writing again.

Simming is a lot more deliberate and interview-like -- you should try it with the people in your head, it's a good way to flesh them out.

day one of multi-character simming

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