(Note: This post first appeared on Sherri Wilson Johnson’s blog, on March 22, 2012. It was my part of a blog exchange. You can read her post here.)
AS A READER YOU KNOW THEM—
Emma Woodhouse
Jane Eyre
Robin Hood
Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy
Atticus Finch
Frodo
Romeo and Juliet
Sherlock Holmes
You’ve shared their adventures. Shared their pain. And even though in your heart of hearts you know they’re not real, they feel like friends.
Every year Margaret Mitchell gets the highest compliment an author can receive when Atlanta tourists walk into the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and ask for directions to the graves of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.
How do authors do it, clothe fictional characters in flesh and blood?
Creating characters is an act of inspiration. The word inspire means, “to breathe life into.” So how does an author do that? He follows the same recipe the Creator used when He fashioned man—
“And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)
An author begins with dust of the ground attributes:
Physical description,
Clothing,
Hard-wiring his character with a personality type.
Then, the author breathes life into his creation with motivation and intangibles:
Giving him hopes and dreams,
Setting obstacles and opposing characters in his path,
Placing doubts in his mind,
Forcing him to change,
Making him face his greatest fear.
To make a hero, the author adds:
Courage,
Cleverness and resourcefulness,
A special talent or insight,
And a wound to make him human.
Finally, the author places the character in a scene with other characters and sets them in motion. It’s an anxious moment, even for the author, to see how the hero will handle himself. Bestselling author Terri Blackstock expressed this anxiety at a writers’ conference when she asked the other authors, “Do you pray for your characters?”
How do authors know if their creation has truly come to life?
They know they’ve succeeded if at the end of the book the reader suffers mild depression upon realizing they will no longer be spending time with the characters of the story.
As magical as this seems, it gets better.
If authors do their jobs well, there comes a moment when the reader is no longer reading the story, but living it; a dramatic moment of realization when the truth of the story crystallizes and — with a sharp intake of breath — the reader discovers something about himself. His life is changed. His sights are elevated. His resolve strengthens. He is a better person for having read the story.
Not only has the author breathed life into his characters, he’s breathed new life into his reader.
This is inspirational fiction at its finest.
STRENGTH FOR THE QUEST
Because Life Is More Than A Journey
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