"Unlike life, you've got more or less complete control over what's going on in your stories. That's not to say you can make characters do whatever you want them to - they usually have a life of their own if you've done your job properly"
About this Quote
Kane is selling the seductive lie and the humbling truth of fiction in the same breath. On paper, stories look like a sovereignty project: you pick the weather, the wounds, the ending. “Unlike life” sets up that fantasy of mastery, the writer as minor god, finally free of the messiness and randomness that make real experience feel rigged. It’s an appealing pitch because it names what draws many people to writing in the first place: control as comfort, structure as antidote to chaos.
Then he undercuts it. The second sentence is a quiet flex of craft ethics: if you can “make characters do whatever you want,” you’re not writing people, you’re moving mannequins. The subtext is that good fiction isn’t authoritarian; it’s negotiated. A character “with a life of their own” is really the writer’s internal logic becoming so coherent that it starts issuing demands. Once you’ve built a psyche with consistent desires, fears, and contradictions, certain actions stop being available, even if they’d be convenient for the plot.
Kane’s intent is also corrective. Newer writers often treat narrative as pure wish fulfillment, bending personalities to reach a preset twist or theme. He’s pointing to a higher standard: control isn’t domination, it’s stewardship. You control the conditions, the pressures, the consequences; the character controls the choice that feels inevitable inside those conditions. That’s why the line lands: it reframes “losing control” not as failure, but as evidence you’ve done the job properly.
Then he undercuts it. The second sentence is a quiet flex of craft ethics: if you can “make characters do whatever you want,” you’re not writing people, you’re moving mannequins. The subtext is that good fiction isn’t authoritarian; it’s negotiated. A character “with a life of their own” is really the writer’s internal logic becoming so coherent that it starts issuing demands. Once you’ve built a psyche with consistent desires, fears, and contradictions, certain actions stop being available, even if they’d be convenient for the plot.
Kane’s intent is also corrective. Newer writers often treat narrative as pure wish fulfillment, bending personalities to reach a preset twist or theme. He’s pointing to a higher standard: control isn’t domination, it’s stewardship. You control the conditions, the pressures, the consequences; the character controls the choice that feels inevitable inside those conditions. That’s why the line lands: it reframes “losing control” not as failure, but as evidence you’ve done the job properly.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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