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unspeakablehorrorI will never say that my characters have a mind of their own because I feel this elides an important truth about characters in stories. And that is this: while a character can certainly act outside of the narrow scope of a writer's personal experiences, a character cannot act outside of the writer's worldview.
Your limitations and prejudices will be incorporated in your writing. If your model of what kinds of people can exist is limited, your characters will be limited to existing and acting within those contraints, and will not be capable of acting outside them, which they could if they truly did 'have a mind of their own'. In fact, every author has such limitations because none of us have a perfect understanding of what is possible for other people in this world. All of us lack an understanding of certain cultural contexts that exist outside our scope, and all of us lack a perfect understanding of the minds of others. In some cases, these limitations are not so noticeable to the reader, and in other cases they may be glaring. But in all cases, they surely exist.
And more than that, even when an understanding exists within our worldview, we may not wish to depict that dynamic in our writing. There are many things I avoid writing either for practical or preferential reasons. For example, while I am quite cognizant of the existence of sexual assault, I tend to avoid depicting it in my writing for preferential reasons. I have read/watched and appreciated a number of stories that depict sexual assault, for example The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, though I've intentionally avoided others. But when I write my stories, even the worst villains are almost never depicted sexually assaulting another character. So this is not something my characters are generally capable of doing, precisely because they don't 'have a mind of their own'. They are my puppets, and they dance where I want them to dance. Conversely, if depicting this topic was important to a writer, the opposite may be true: certain characters will almost certainly sexually assault others. Because they will dance where the author wants them to dance.
So this is why I do not say that a character 'has a mind of their own' or that the character 'wrote themself'. I see no reason not to take the credit for doing things I have in fact done, or in other cases, to take the blame for a poor narrative choice. It's not the character's fault. It never was.
Your limitations and prejudices will be incorporated in your writing. If your model of what kinds of people can exist is limited, your characters will be limited to existing and acting within those contraints, and will not be capable of acting outside them, which they could if they truly did 'have a mind of their own'. In fact, every author has such limitations because none of us have a perfect understanding of what is possible for other people in this world. All of us lack an understanding of certain cultural contexts that exist outside our scope, and all of us lack a perfect understanding of the minds of others. In some cases, these limitations are not so noticeable to the reader, and in other cases they may be glaring. But in all cases, they surely exist.
And more than that, even when an understanding exists within our worldview, we may not wish to depict that dynamic in our writing. There are many things I avoid writing either for practical or preferential reasons. For example, while I am quite cognizant of the existence of sexual assault, I tend to avoid depicting it in my writing for preferential reasons. I have read/watched and appreciated a number of stories that depict sexual assault, for example The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, though I've intentionally avoided others. But when I write my stories, even the worst villains are almost never depicted sexually assaulting another character. So this is not something my characters are generally capable of doing, precisely because they don't 'have a mind of their own'. They are my puppets, and they dance where I want them to dance. Conversely, if depicting this topic was important to a writer, the opposite may be true: certain characters will almost certainly sexually assault others. Because they will dance where the author wants them to dance.
So this is why I do not say that a character 'has a mind of their own' or that the character 'wrote themself'. I see no reason not to take the credit for doing things I have in fact done, or in other cases, to take the blame for a poor narrative choice. It's not the character's fault. It never was.