When Characters Take Over: Writing and Internal Family Systems

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Welcome to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast, the weekly discussion of craft and technique for writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. And now, here's your host, writer and educator, Brad Reed. Episode 43, today we get weird. What exactly is happening when our characters seem to start taking control of the story we're writing, doing and saying things we didn't expect?

Understanding Character Control

Let's dive in. Almost every writer has had the experience of a character who keeps doing things you didn't plan for, or maybe they say something that makes you kind of blink and ask, wait, where did that come from? It's a strange moment for sure.

But what exactly is happening? You're not alone in this. Today we're talking about what might be happening when those characters start surprising us and what that might have to do with a therapeutic model of the mind called internal family systems.

So we're really living up to the name Inside Creative Writing today because we're going deep inside the creative writing mind. So the episode might get a little weird, but in the best way. So we've all heard the stories, right? If they haven't happened to us ourselves, an author says their characters took over the story or they didn't intend for a plot twist, but a character insisted that it happened. Maybe you're writing along and suddenly a side character starts just dominating the story or your protagonist refuses to follow your outline. What is going on here?

Now I've been curious about this for years. And for years I chalked it up to cliche, like maybe the words come easy because we've just heard them before, not because they're especially meaningful. But lately I've been exploring something new, a different way of understanding how the human mind works. And it's shed a whole new light on what I think might actually be going on in those moments and how we can use them to our story's benefit.

Introduction to Internal Family Systems

So today I want to suggest that the experience of characters developing their own voices might be less mystical than it seems and also way more personal. I'm going to introduce you to an idea from psychology called internal family systems, often shortened just to IFS, and show you how this model might explain exactly why your characters seem so alive and what to do with them once they come alive in that way. So let's start with a short definition here. Internal family systems is a therapy model developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz back in the 1980s. And it's based on a simple but pretty radical idea that the mind isn't one unified voice.

It's a system of parts. At first, this might sound a little bit out there, but before we jump to dismissing it, think about how we talk about our minds. When you faced a big decision, have you ever caught yourself saying things like, you know, part of me wants to do X, but I really want to do Y. You know, in moments like that, we're revealing that we do, at least sometimes, treat our own minds as if they are made up of separate parts.

Now when I started looking into this phenomenon of the human mind having separate parts, it reminded me of when I was studying meditation and Buddhist thinking. In those traditions, the mind isn't seen as a single unified self either, right? Instead, it's understood as having different modes or mental states that are constantly shifting, modes that sometimes are in conflict, sometimes they cooperate, and they're always vying for attention, right? They always want to have their thought become the one that you're aware of, that you think about.

Now you might have a part of yourself that wants to write a novel, another part that just wants to binge Netflix, right? I think we could probably all admit to having those kind of parts, right? We have this desire, we have this part of us that really wants to sit down and write, but we have the other part that wants to do anything but write, that wants to keep us from writing. We have that part that criticizes everything we do. Sometimes we hear it almost like a voice in our head telling us what we're writing is garbage, and it's never going to amount to anything, but we also have that part that encourages us, right, and is thrilled about what we got on paper or gets excited about the story idea that we came up with, even at the same time, that other part is trying to criticize it, right? We have a part of us that panics, and we have a part of us that plays.

So that's kind of what we're talking about with this idea of internal family systems, that we have these various parts of us that work independently and often underneath the surface of our consciousness. Now, according to IFS, they say none of these parts are bad. They all have jobs that they are doing to try to help us in some way, often to try to keep us safe, even if their methods for doing so are a little bit off.

So stranger still, not only do these parts exist and have their own thoughts, but they have their own personalities, their own fears, their own motivations. And get this, we can actually have conversations with them. Now, I told you we're going to get weird, right? I know that sounds strange, maybe even a little scary, like we're going to split into split personalities or something if we explore this. I'm currently exploring this myself, and I've got my own hesitations about it.

But even what I'm seeing so far, I find it really, really insightful in the writing process. Whether the mind actually works this way or if we just think about it working in this way, doesn't really matter. So when we start thinking about these parts, it kind of starts to sound familiar, right? Maybe like they're characters in a novel, right? Characters in our own life's story.

So my question for you today is, what if, and I know this is a big what if, but what if your characters are at least sometimes separate parts of you that are trying to speak to you, right? I mentioned that they're almost always under our level of consciousness, but they want, they have messages for us. They have things that they want to tell us, things that they want to protect us from. What if we could actually have a conversation with them, get to know how they feel, get to know how they see the world, how they make different decisions than you might be making? What if we could do that kind of conversation through the characters you've created?

In other words, what if some of your characters are actually parts of you and that the process of writing gives them a voice to be able to speak to us? Okay, a little bit strange, I know. So think about this. You're working on a scene and suddenly a character says something brilliant or maybe dark or emotional, and you didn't know it was coming. That moment might actually be a part of your internal system speaking, one that finally found a safe place to talk, right? A safe place to get their voice out into the world where you and other people would notice it.

So in IFS, internal family systems, they call these parts exiles, right? Parts of us that carry wounds or truths that we've buried. But these parts can also be other things like protectors or rebels or caretakers.

So when you're writing, you might be giving them space to live outside of your body and become someone else. I know it's wild, but it's also really practical when it comes to the creative and imaginative process of writing. So whether we subscribe to this or not, and like I said, I'm still on the fence and just kind of exploring this, but how could we use this kind of, I was going to say worldview, but it's really more of a self-view or a mind view. How could we use this in our writing?

So first, when a character surprises you, I know that my first inclination is I want to shut it down, right? I've got my story planned out. I don't know where this thought is coming from or this idea is coming from. It's not what I had planned, so shut up, right? And let me write my book. Instead of doing that, get curious about it.

Think about who might this voice really belong to inside of you? What is it trying to get you to understand? What is it trying to get you to say?

So like I said, I used to shut it down. I assumed it was just a reflection of some past book I'd read or some movie I'd watched that I was making, mistaking cliche and predictability for creativity. When things came too easy for me in writing, I feared it, right? I steered the story in another direction. And I still think that can be true, right? I still think that sometimes cliches and the obvious choice pops into our heads and it can feel like inspiration if we don't really examine it and see where it's coming from.

Interviewing Your Characters

But is it always that way, right? So secondly in IFS, you can actually interview your characters using IFS-style questions. So in IFS, internal family systems, part of the process is actually getting to know these characters and asking them questions, just getting really curious about who they are, what their worldview is, all of that.

So asking them questions like, what are you afraid of? What job are you trying to do for me? You know, are you trying to protect me? Are you trying to destroy me? Which none of them actually are when you get down to what they're doing. Often they're misfiring in the way they're trying to protect you.

What would happen if you stopped doing the job that you're doing? That is such a powerful one to ask because what it reveals is really the fear that that part is encompassing or is taking on for you. So you will be shocked at the depth that comes out when you stop trying to control the story and start listening to it and the characters that you've created to work around in this story.

So there's a couple of different ways to kind of access these parts, or we may want to think of them more as these characters that kind of live talking to that piece of me. So that's one way. It's kind of that quiet meditative reflection and just ask them questions. You know, what do you want to say? Let your mind stay open to whatever answers come. The weird thing about this is that you don't want to think, you don't want to think your way into an answer.

You just kind of want to be patient and see if an answer comes up out of that place. It often does, not always, but it often does. The other way to kind of approach these parts or these characters is the one that I prefer, which is to write a dialogue scene between me and the character. Sometimes it's between two different characters and I'll have them talk to each other, but often it's between me as the writer and this character or this part that is trying to reach out in some way.

So you can treat it like a script, right, or a conversation in a novel. Just ask them questions, right? What are you afraid of? What job are you trying to do in this story or in me or in the other characters? What would happen if you stopped doing that job? And just wait for those responses to come and see if this character, see if this part begins to reveal itself to you.

Now, this writing is very quick and dirty, right? I'm not worried about spelling and paragraph form and everything, right? I'm just trying to capture these thoughts and these questions as quickly as I can on paper.

So don't worry about making it sound polished. You just kind of want to let it flow. And you might be surprised how much clarity and emotion comes out when you give these parts of yourself permission to speak freely. Again, it sounds weird. How many times am I gonna say that in this episode? It sounds weird, but often these parts of yourself have been ignored or pushed down or exiled for years and years, if not decades and decades, and they've been crying out to tell you what they know or tell you what they feel.

Emotional Insights and Healing

So be prepared for some strange things to happen. Now, this process can unlock incredible internal insights. It can also be emotionally intense, and that's okay, right? Give yourself some grace in this process if you try it. You're not just creating characters. You might actually be healing parts of yourself along the way.

Now, I am not a professional counselor. None of this is meant as therapy advice, but I do want you to know there are licensed therapists out there who specialize in internal family systems work. If you try this and you find it particularly fascinating or maybe especially emotional, you might consider seeking one of them out. That's what I'm in the process of doing right now. In fact, I have my first appointment tomorrow to kind of just explore this internal family systems dynamic and how it may be working in me and how I can use that as a way to write better, more complete, more realistic characters into my work.

So what do you do when a character takes over, right? It doesn't really matter where this is coming from, whether you're on board this train or not. It still happens sometimes.

So what do we do when we start to feel a character start grabbing hold of the reins of our story and taking it in a different direction? So, you know, do we force them back into line? Hey, Mr. Character, Mr. Part, I've got this planned out. I've got it outlined.

You are going to stick to it. Or do you say, okay, you got a story to tell. I'm going to step back and I'm going to let you tell it.

So here's what I've found. And this is just my personal experience. It's not meant as, you know, advice, even. It's just my personal experience.

But here's what I've found. There's no danger in following a character's lead for a little while. So let them, you know, go on down the path that you're taking you on for a little while. We all have delete keys on our computers or we have erasers on the ends of our pencils, right? If it doesn't go somewhere interesting, then we just, you know, we've had a little more time writing and we can delete that and go in a different direction.

So I always like to let it speak for a while and see where it goes. Follow it with a pen, right? Or follow it with your keyboard and see what story it wants to tell. Sometimes it leads you somewhere far more interesting and far more true than what you had planned.

But not always, right? Sometimes it just has something it wants to express and then once it gets it off its chest, it feels better and you feel better and you're ready to move forward. So that moment can feel kind of mysterious and magical when you start having your characters come alive and take actions on their own. Just because it feels magical doesn't mean it's right. It doesn't mean it's the right direction to go.

So what you're hearing, when we think of them as these various jumble of parts that we have working in us, what you're hearing is just one perspective. It's one voice. It's one possible truth, right? The experience of hearing from it might be powerful, but it's not the whole story, right? A character or a part is just that. It's a piece, right?

It's a part of the whole. It's not your entire self. It's not the entire cast of your novel, right?

So it's important to take a moment to kind of honor that character or honor that part. You can even thank them for showing you something honest about themselves. Let them know they were heard. And then if you don't want to take the story in that direction, just invite them to become part of the larger story that you're telling, not the one they want to hijack and take in a different direction, right? It's, I'm going to say it at least one more time. I know this seems weird, right?

To be in conversation with these. But until you try it and open your mind to see if it works, I hope that you won't just, you know, kind of condemn it and think, Oh, Brad has lost his mind in this episode. I don't talk about things unless I think not many other people are saying or talking about them, or I've got some unique take on it. This one, I'm not sure I've ever heard anybody talk about in this frame of writing for this frame of this perspective for writing.

So I wanted to get it out there. All right. Am I alone in this, right? We're going to slip into our wise words section here. And I, I always want to check my own instincts and thoughts against other, especially accomplished and recognized writers, just to see if I have indeed lost my mind. And here's some other writers that I think are hinting at what I'm talking about here.

So George RR Martin once said, I have a character who's a priest and he started preaching. I don't know where that came from, right? I've had characters like that too, where I've created them and they don't feel anything like me, but yet they come to life in my head in a way that surprises me that, that, and that has talents and abilities and perspectives that I didn't know that were inside me. Right.

So he said, I have a character who's a priest and he started preaching. I don't know where that came from. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in big magic. I've had characters begin talking to me in my dreams. They'll argue with me, offer suggestions, refuse to cooperate. It's unnerving and also amazing.

Right. That, that really feels like it captures what we're talking about here today. I don't have that experience in my dreams, at least not that I remember, but I've definitely had that experience while drafting stories for sure. And then finally, we'll get another Stephen King quote in here. He's been showing up a lot in our wise words. This is from on writing and he says, stories are found things like fossils in the ground.

The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible. I love this because it has that feeling of digging, right? For the truth, for the things underground that we don't realize are there and bringing them up to the surface, um, to get them into, uh, into our stories. Right. And that's what this process feels like of exploring this internal family or all these kind of internal personalities that are bubbling within me, trying to get their stories told.

Welcoming Rogue Characters

So whether it's intuition, creativity, or something more internal writers across genres have long acknowledged that characters sometimes speak first and I'd encourage us just to listen and also not to take them speaking as some kind of divine direction for our story, but just as one person's one character, one part's take on it, like an option that we have to consider. So next time a character goes rogue, try welcoming, welcoming them instead of resisting them. Ask who they might represent and let them speak. Don't be surprised if they have something profound to say, not just about the story, but maybe even about you.

So that leads us into our challenge this week. Write a short monologue from one of your characters as if they were a real voice in your head. And again, this can feel strange. This can feel like, uh, you know, I, I hope I don't end up as a split personality here, right? It's not going to happen. Um, but let them tell you what they want.

You might learn something important, both from a writing and a personal growth perspective. Now, like I said, we got a little weird here today and I'm sure that we lost some of you along the way. Uh, but I truly hope you're able to take something useful from this that can inform your writing practice.