And now, coming to the stage…

 

 

How do you choose your characters?

 

Long before I ever attempted to write or publish a word, this was the question I heard asked to every writer I’ve ever heard speak. Whether it was an experienced journalist doing a professional interview, or me, timidly raising my hand from a fold-up chair in a room full of aspiring writers like myself. We all want to know the same thing, where do these strange people living in our heads come from?

 

The simple answer is, I don’t know. They simply appear. Sometimes they rush into the creative waiting room in my brain, quietly take a seat, and wait politely for me to build their world giving me little more than a name and a desire to tell their story.

 

Other times, they come charging in, their whole story already intact, refusing to be still until I’ve written down every single word. But whether they slink in as quiet as a ghost or kick in the door. There is nothing more exciting than meeting or finding a new character.

 

I once sat behind a lady with a thick white rope of a braid hanging all the way down the middle of her back. I shuffled her write into my waiting room, where her story is still percolating today. One day I hope to bring her to life on the page. And when someone asks, how did you come up with that wild character, maybe I’ll tell the boring truth, or maybe I’ll have written her a whole new backstory by then.  

 

This is one writer’s way, not the only way. I know this all too well. I’ve heard that some writers actually plan their entire stories before ever writing a word, including their characters. They sketch them out, get to know them, and build their story around the character. Far be it for me to judge, but I’m judging, but not really. Everyone’s process is different. And for that reason, I’ve come to believe that is an impossible question to answer.

 

But we’ll keep trying, because characters are the most important part of the story, right?

 RIP Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Keith Porter Jr.