Secret heroes

A writer can get attached to characters, and it tends to sneak up on one (speaking for myself) meaning they are not necessarily the characters you expect to affect you.

 

All writers, who get past the ego phase, will tell you the characters feel like they exist separately to them. By the ego phase, I mean you’ve learned how to keep yourself out of the story, though you may suffer lapses – the best fiction is definitely not about you.

 

People will tell you that you use your own experience on which to base characters and events, and otherwise will base characters on people you know. I expect some writers might do that and I’ve even seen advice, if writing a screenplay, to imagine an actor you’ve seen playing the role. If I find myself doing that then I know I’ve lost the plot, literally rather than figuratively. 

 

I borrow names from people I’ve known, but the characters don’t resemble them at all, except in ethnicity. For example, if I have an Indian character, I will use an Indian name of someone I knew. We know that a name is not unique, so we know more than one John, for example, and we also know they have nothing in common.

 

I worked with someone once, who had a very unusual name, Essayas Alfa, and I used both his names in the same story. Neither character was anything like the guy I knew, except the character called Essayas was African and so was my co-worker, but one was a sociopath and the other was a really nice bloke. A lot of names I make up, including all the Kiri names, and even Elvene. I was surprised to learn it was a real name; at least, I got the gender right.

 

The first female character I ever created, when I was learning my craft, was based on someone I knew, though they had little in common, except their age. It was like I was using her as an actor for the role. I’ve never done that since. A lot of my main characters are female, which is a bit of a gamble, I admit. Creating Elvene was liberating and I’ve never looked back.

 

If you have dreams occupied by strangers, then characters in fiction are no different. One can’t explain it if you haven’t experienced it. So how can you get attached to a character who is a figment of your mind? Well, not necessarily in the way you think – it’s not an infatuation. I can’t imagine falling in love with a character I created, though I can imagine falling in love with an actor playing that character, because she’s no longer mine (assuming the character is female).

 

And I’ve got attached to male characters as well. These are the characters who have surprised me. They’ve risen above themselves, achieved something that I never expected them to. They weren’t meant to be the hero of the story, yet they excel themselves, often by making a sacrifice. They go outside their comfort zone, as we like to say, and become courageous, not by overcoming an adversary but by overcoming a fear. And then I feel like I owe them, as illogical as that sounds, because of what I put them through. They are my secret hero of the story.