“The Illusion of Independent Agency” by Taylor, Hodges, Kohanyi: The best article ever published by psychologists on the psychology of creative writing

I first cited the article in my post of August 18, 2013:

The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do adult fiction writers experience their

characters as having minds of their own?

Marjorie Taylor, Sara D. Hodges, Adele Kohanyi

Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol 22(4) 361-380, 2002-2003

Yes, ninety-two percent of the fifty fiction writers did experience that. They interacted with, and heard the voices of, their characters. They provided dramatic examples of characters who not only composed their own life histories, but also attempted to take control of the plot away from the writer. Some of the characters were even experienced by the writers as “leaving the pages of the writers’ stories to inhabit the writers’ everyday worlds (e.g., wandering around the house).”

Of course, the article itself is much richer than the above blurb. And so here are two links to the complete, original article:

http://imaginarycompanions.uoregon.edu/files/2014/07/TaylorHodgesKohanyi-130mpe0.pdf

http://socialcognitionlab.uoregon.edu/files/2013/03/Taylor-Hodges-Kohanyi_2003-2b6wdel.pdf

This classic article, like this blog, is not just for psychologists, but for anyone interested in how fiction is actually written.