I wrote a flash fiction a little while ago called Puppet Master, and it got me to thinking about the characters I write. In a sense, I imagine them into being, but as they grow I can’t help but wonder if they were all my imagination. Perhaps they were always there, and I simply uncovered them.

When I ‘create’ a character, I take a single aspect of their personality. I then add a few details of their past, mix in a number of ‘what ifs’, and shove them into a cooker to see how they’ll handle it, suddenly I’m left with a complete person who evokes feelings of empathy, love, hatred, or what have you. The point is, they become real to me, and, I hope, my readers. After all, what we care about becomes real to us, does it not? Attachment to characters in a well written story can cause us to mourn when the story is over.

Going back to the Puppet Master story, I don’t feel that this is what I am. I may have the ultimate control over where my characters end up, but it is their own strengths and limitations which determines whether they will succeed or fail, live or die, as long as I remain true to them. Not to stay truthful when I write is, for me, a sin.  That again is another argument in favour of the fact that they exist.

I have read many times about authors who feel that they are ‘God’ over their characters. Personally, if I felt that way I don’t think I’d be doing it right. My role is to simply make my characters known to as many people as I’m able. And if they came out of the oven delicious enough, people might even keep them alive through fan fiction. 😉