Run-Ins

I have several characters in the novels that I write who decide to butt in on normal every day activities. It's especially bad when your friends know about your characters and are writers themselves - they only add to the situation.

An example of this would be my character Rowan Cordone, an FBI Profiler/Agent. She's only a side character, but she's one of those characters that seem to write themselves. There are times when I'll look at something a person or someone on TV did and think "that was a very Rowan thing to do."

Or, have you ever practically run into your characters on the street? Either by looks or personality? I've done that several times.

Novels and Characters

Sometimes, there are characters that take over your writing. They were intended to be side characters that appear once and then exit stage left, never to be seen again.

Like people from life, there are those characters who decide they're sticking around no matter what you try to do to them. I have a character in my current novel - a detective named Theodore Wallace - who was supposed to be so insignifgant that he never truly had a first name.

Like I said, sometimes characters decide they just need to stick around: for either the case of love, of hate, or perhaps they just have a bigger part to play. "Wallace" is now working the kidnapping case as the first detective assigned - he made me realize that there was a whole other story before the novel begins to take place.

Does anybody else have a character like that? Ones who take over?