Writers come in lots of varieties, but none of us are entirely unique. So I know there will be more like me out there. Character slaves.

First there’s the blank sheet. So you populate it with something. Perhaps a sketch of a plot, some rough idea of time and space.

Then someone pops up. They have terribly vivid features and start ordering your fingers around the keyboard. Off they go on their own course and hey presto you’ve used up your word count and 50% more and now it’s a sweaty struggle to hack through the tangled undergrowth of jungle vine to get the piece pruned down even to barely legal limits. Meanwhile dialogue’s been jettisoned, storyline compromised, conflict annulled or tossed aside and the whole thing resembles nothing more than the proverbial canine repast.

So helpful people say, well, revise. Change this. Perhaps it can have a different plot. Hey, you could even change the characters. Cut one or two, perhaps.

CUT?? That’s pure genocide. How can one cut? They’re out there. It’s all too late.

There is another way.

Before anything serious happens (like, a word being written), genetically modify the characters. Think out every one of their dialogues, each of the interactions they’re allowed to have before they hit the screen. Double-cross them at every opportunity. Only ever allow them to plant a digital footprint if they’ve got their papers in order and every interaction fulfils at least a dual purpose. Balance out the accounts before you spend, ‘cause no-one’s going to give you any change.

True, it’s a tactic that only works (to my knowledge) with short pieces. 2K words max. Far as I can make out, though, if you’re not homicidally inclined, once you let the buggers out of the hatch there’s never any stopping them.