After receiving a comment about my "
Hearing Voices" post in the Writing/Writers Quotes thread I thought it might be worth opening a thread on the subject.
I do, sort of, hear voices when the writing is going well. Not an audible whispering in the ear, but in the sense that I'm writing down what I remember the character saying. Sometimes it is the memory of some piece of dialogue (first "remembered" earlier in the day) that will hurry me back to the keyboard.
I'm not trying to pretend anything mystic or strange, or even unusual, here. It seems to me that this is simply a natural consequence of investing yourself heavily in your characters. It is a lot like getting deeply involved in reading a good book. After a while you are not reading "he said", "she said", rather, it becomes a matter of having heard the characters speak, even if you can't actually say that you could hear their voices.
This effect is largely why I write. For me, writing is a lot like reading, just more intense and greatly extended. If I have to force the characters to speak the result is often unsatisfying, but when I remember what they said it all flows much better.