God Complex and Mutiny

Many people assume that, like doctors, all writers have god complexes. And it’s an easy assumption to make. Writers create whole worlds from scratch, filling in every building and political belief, character and motivation.

But there’s one thing people don’t always know about writing – that sometimes, the characters we create have a mind of their own. You want them to be sad, but they’re funny. You mean for them to hate someone, but they wind up liking them. My friend Julie mentioned that she didn't intend to create a love triangle, it just happened. Characters can be greedy and difficult, and like a child to a parent, they don’t always mind their author’s instructions.

And it’s not just the characters that do what they want – one time I found my entire novel mutinying against me, insisting on changing its plot. It’s an odd feeling, realizing you don’t always have control over the world you created. The truth is, despite a writer’s authorial power, occasionally the stories control us. You can yell, and kick and scream, insisting on getting your way . . . or knuckle under and do what your novel wants you to do.

Still, religious philosophy dictates that God created mankind, and then gave us freewill. Perhaps these autonomous characters’ blatant disregard for our authorial intent merely demonstrates their own exertion of freewill. Maybe writers, like all creators, struggle with the strong, decisive nature of their creations. “God complex” might not be such a bad fit after all. 

Death of the Author

In my college literary theory class, we read an article by French theorist Roland Barthes entitled “Death of the Author”. Barthes argues that when analyzing any literary work, critics must separate the text from its author’s identity in order to achieve true interpretation. Basically, the moment the author relinquishes their work to the public eye, he or she dies a symbolic death while the text lives on; this way its analysis is unhampered by the reader’s assumption of the author’s intentions.  

Years later, this concept still haunts me. As a reader I see its value, but as a writer I bristle at the idea of my metaphorical death. And not just any death, but death at the hand of my own work. A classic tale of creation killing its creator, it conjures images of Frankenstein, tormented by his monster until his eventual demise.

Or perhaps it’s the reader who commits murder, rather than a piece of text. I’m positive there’s an Oedipal analogy in there somewhere. The reader, Oedipus, loves his mother, the text, and kills his father, the author. Freud would approve.

Regardless, I find this concept disturbing. Barthes’ work demonstrates the characteristics of a homicidal maniac, let loose on unsuspecting authors world-wide.  I’d question what traumatic events from his childhood influenced this essay, but that would violate his edict to “kill the author”. Either way, I’m keeping my manuscript away from sharp objects.