How to get in a flow state of immersion with your characters when writing?

[ueonts]

How do you guys personally get into that flow state where you seriously feel the heads of your characters? It seems like at a certain point this bubble emerges in which you can really feel the characters and world while throwing everything else out the window. Do you guys have any tips for getting to this state more?

[darthmongoose]

First, I have to make sure all my bodily needs are taken care of so I'm not uncomfortable. Get hydrated, eat something with some protein, have a good stretch.

Then I need something to get into just the right mood for the scene I'm writing, like the right music.

And also it needs to be a time where I have no looming deadlines or chores that need doing and don't need to give other people attention so I can just completely zone out and not get distracted or anxious.

[Lensing]

By writing a detailed backstory. The more details, the easier it gets into the flow

[azurehayalet]

Good question For me, sprints really help. I tend to drag my feet when it comes to actually writing so sprints help get it started. After one or two sprints, I usually find that I don't want to stop anymore

[moontokkym]

I'm not entirely sure how I do it but I get what you mean... I sort of get to know my characters by asking them questions about their life and make them answer what I already know about them. After a while, they start answering for themselves, in their tone and their vocabulary. Once they start doing that I just chat with them a bit before starting a scene they're in.

When I'm writing a scene it helps me to get into the mind of being a camera. I use blender and visualising myself as the little camera icon on blender that moves around can help. Then I sort of let the characters improvise over a loose throughline, like I'm watching a film. If it flows well, I rewind and play the scene over while writing it down this time, if not, I rewind and prod at it a bit to go in a different direction. I've got to the point where I can play and pause at will without getting out of the zone.

Generally this process is tiring so I have to have energy and usually in silence when I'm alone and my rabbit is sleeping. No distractions or parasite noise. Surprisingly I've gotten a lot of scenes to play out while doing light repetitive manual labour as part of my job (basically putting things in the right place when it's already in order for you, so you turn your brain off and muscle memory does the task for you). I find that being active like that while also having my brain free to imagine helps a lot.

Final tip is that if you're writing a scene later in the story, it helps to reread the scene directly preceding it (or the last one the characters were in) because it can remind you what they're feeling and how they talk. You're basically doing the job of a writer on a film set, reminding the actors where their head's at, what they've just been through, so rereading that can be the thin end of the wedge to get you fully immersed.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

It seems like at a certain point this bubble emerges in which you can really feel the characters and world while throwing everything else out the window.

For me, this usually happens when I'm writing a conversation. Doesn't necessarily have to be an important one, but it DOES need to be one where the characters are purely interacting; sharing their thoughts on things and on each other (as opposed to rough exposition/worldbuilding). Esentially, it needs to be driven by emotion.

When I write from a place like that, I can't help but be immersed in the characters' mindsets and worldviews, because that's the information you depend on to write those kinds of scenes. For a little while, I basically live in the characters' brains while I work out each line of dialogue, and I usually get my best ideas for the rest of the story after writing a good convo.

[powerplantanimations]

I boil down my characters into one characteristic or trope to give me a starting point. I remember Redlettermedia doing this test thingy with Star Wars where they describe each character from the original trilogy and then they do the same with the ones from the prequel. (Han Solo is a charismatic sleazebag rogue, Leia is a brave plucky quippy princess, C3PO is a prissy robot, etc, etc)

That's why I'm so against people being like "MY CHARACTER'S SHOULDN'T FALL UNDER CERTAIN TROPES" (although I'm still not a fan of TV Tropes). I also take the Araki route where I just make detailed backgrounds for each of my character.

I also feel like you need to understand how real people conversate in the real world. I like to study how people talk and have characters conversate about random stuff when I'm bored. :v

[morganicfoods]

Practice Improv. Trust me. Join a DnD group, take an improv class, roleplay online. It gets easier to slip into and between character's heads when you practice.
Know everything about your characters. Think like them. Become them. And then just write. Then when you reread, you can look at it critically. Would that character really say that?
Don't be too critical on the first write. Just write. Even if it turns out bad, you can always rewrite it.

[Saint01]

Thinking up the characters' traits as I draw them out (usually helps me with visualizing their personality traits, emotions, and expressions since I have a visual to go off of), being in a distraction-free zone as I am writing, playing music helps fit the tone/mood of a scene/ section and/ or character.

And projecting a bit of myself or desired aspects into my characters to better connect and identify with them.

[panpanwuvmgau]

This is a really interesting question. I didn't realize I was "feeling" my characters until I experienced an instance where I knew they were supposed to die in a story I was writing, but I couldn't type the words to describe it. It was the first time I felt like they were alive enough to struggle against my will as a writer.

I guess one thing that I've always done when writing is to see my characters as individual people. Like an average person, they need to be round with flaws and redeeming qualities. I don't necessarily have to love them. I just need to see them as people who can do things I may not personally do. They have reasons for the actions they take, motivations for the decisions they make, and influences that lead them to develop certain personality traits. Even if they share parts of me in some way, they should still be completely separate entities from me. I should see them not as a version of myself but as people whose stories need to be told.

Once you've built a fairly complete persona of your character, you'll realize which behaviors, events, or scenes in the plot will make more sense for them.

One good exercise you can try to practice this is writing fanfiction. Choose a character and get to know them. When you write your story, don't just rely heavily on what you want that character to demonstrate or accomplish in the plot. Consider their likes and dislikes, especially their tendencies and personalities. If you can make a fanfiction that feels like it's an installment to the original story that the character belongs to, then you've developed the skill you need to create a "live" character.

[TheLemmaLlama]

If you're just asking how I personally do it ... basically, I don't XD There's two types of writing I tend to do:

• When I'm already in a flow state of immersion (and therefore don't need to deliberately get into that state) so I decide to write in order to get the scene out of my head before it fades away, or
• When I just need to sit down and write the next scene so I can draw it, in which case it's usually a 'structurally necessary' scene that's only there for pragmatic/sense-making/coherency reasons and can afford to be a little stiff, so I don't bother trying to be in flow for that

So if you're asking for actual tips, I probably don't have any

[ueonts]

What helps me is thinking about each characters strength they use to get a thing in a story and the weakness that their conflict tries to defeat them with. It can be as simple as a child defeating a father in an attempt to eat from a cookie jar by exploiting his cluelessness.