Characters having a mind of their own

Do anyone else's characters act like they have a mind of their own? I have one character who insists on being called Dietrich Fischer for absolutely no reason (I'm probably going to have to compromise with him and call him Theodoric Fisher so my average reader isn't like "how do you pronounce that" but I don't have to completely deny him what he wants to be called) and other characters that just do things that I didn't consciously plan on making them do. I've heard other people do have their characters act of their own volition but it's still weird.

I think it's great if your characters are so strong that they seem to act independent of you. Less work for you! And if your guy thinks his name should be Dietrich, I think you should listen to him....It's his story, after all. I would look up the origins of that name, that could give you further clues about his story. Sounds German, obvs.
The surname could be German, Polish, and/or Jewish

To put my two cents in, I find "Dietrich" to be a relatively easy-to-pronounce name. (It's a fairly common surname in my area, so perhaps that plays into it.) If that's what fits your character best, then I'd say go for it; plenty of people mispronounce plenty of characters' names all the time, so it's hardly a big deal.

As for characters having a mind of their own, this happens to me a lot, where I'll be thinking through a scenario that I had planned out and all of a sudden it goes in a different direction because the characters act differently.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't -- sometimes I have to remind my characters of their previous characterization, and I have to work the scene around that. In general, I find that characters having a mind of their own can be good or it can be bad for the writer. But some are very, very strong-willed indeed.

I agree with Ark @Lareine on autonomous characters being either very positive or really negative for the writer and the plot.
I can recall an instance years ago, while writing a battle scene for a novel of mine. I was writing from the PoV of a characteristically unpredictable character, but obviously (as a big fan of strategy and battle tactics) I had some form of planning.
However, when I entered my zoned out mindset and started writing, my character discarded all my well thought out plans and completely changed the scene, forcing me to edit and finally rewrite an entire six pages. That instance, autonomy of a character is counterproductive (one could argue that autonomy of a character is merely one's subconscious trying to communicate with the conscious mind)
Another instance (positive) is when one of characters "decided" to take a different route to a town, leading to some much more development in plot and tension.

Sorry if this comes across as the ranting and raving of a loony wizard, but I thought I'd just like to say- allow characters to be "autonomous", but remember to show restraint with serious, crucial situations.

My characters tend to grow in a way that I didn't intend. But they don't tend to have a mind of their own in the sense where they'll be like "Hey, um, Holy? I don't think this scene is true to me... I'm kind of a bit too shy for that." But I suppose you could say that in a round about way they might do that, when my story stops feeling right!

Personally, I never pronounce names right when I'm reading people's books. I just don't ever actually stop to sound out the name- I go off of how they look. Like this one dragon in one of my most favourite books (Dragon Slippers) I pronounced "Sar-dus" when his name was actually Shardas. And there's better examples that I can't think of right now.

A secondary character of mine decided it was his destiny to become the main character instead. I'm subject to the whims of these idiots.

@Pompadour That happens to me more than it should! I also spoil my characters.

I also relate with a character claiming a name, @Wunderbar. I have a character named Obi, and he will not accept another name! I really need to change it though because every other person brings up Obi Wan >.> Curse my Star Wars-less childhood.

@megsug, I knew someone named Obi once. You could probably have it as something your character finds annoying- that everyone brings up Obi wan to him, perhaps?

@Holysocks
Sadly, the setting is not Earth ;n; Otherwise, that idea is brilliant~

Ohhh, I see.

Satira wrote:I think it's great if your characters are so strong that they seem to act independent of you. Less work for you! And if your guy thinks his name should be Dietrich, I think you should listen to him....It's his story, after all. I would look up the origins of that name, that could give you further clues about his story. Sounds German, obvs.
The surname could be German, Polish, and/or Jewish

I'm pretty sure the name is just me subconsciously thinking of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau but I'm really not sure why as this story has nothing to do with opera singing whatsoever. I admit sometimes my characters get totally random names that I have absolutely no chance of letting them have in a finalized story like Romeo, Julius and Brünnhilde, but unlike those having a character named Dietrich (albeit for no apparent reason) won't make people burst out laughing.

@megsug That's got to be annoying.