by Glory Lennon

Created on: July 16, 2009

The prolific song writer Billy Joel once said he considered each and every one of his songs like one of his kids. Some made him extremely proud going to the top of the charts while others were bums, lazy, languishing, uninspired songs that never made anything of themselves. He, of course, took all the blame for how his songs made it in the world much like a father whose kids either go to Yale or to jail.

Such is the case with writers of fiction. Our characters take on a life of their own and we feel responsible for them as we should. After all, we gave them life. We writers in essence give birth to our fictional characters. That makes all of us mothers in a way even the males among us.

Fancy trick that, writers, both male and female, giving birth to characters. Yet that is what it feels like. No, you aren't likely to feel the labor pains nor end up with stretch marks and thank you very much for that! Real kids give enough heartache and headaches. But is it as easy as saying "Poof! You are alive" and your characters are fully formed? Not if they have any depth to them. Fictional characters have to grow, change and make something of themselves. This shouldn't cause the writer -or should we say the creator?- any sleepless nights and yet it does. We may have an idea of what we want our characters to be when they "grow up" but who is to say they will meet our expectations?

Just like kids, our fictional characters make us crazy. As the "parent" of our fictional characters we will struggle along with our "kids" and cross our fingers hoping they take the right road. We keep our mouths shut when they won't listen to advice and go astray. Most important of all we must allow them to fail so they can pick themselves back up and be the heros we always knew they could be. Is it easy? Well, if it were we'd all have best-sellers to our credit, wouldn't we?

We know our characters must go through hardships in order to grow and yet we want to protect them from all ill. We simply get too attached to them. But it that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, yes and no. We have to care but we have to know when to let go, too.

This is why we have to know a limit. All parents must and so should fiction writers. Some simply don't allow their characters space in which to grow and that can stifle the character to make him uninteresting and bland and the story stagnates. Nobody wants that!

So, what do we do with these characters to whom we've given birth? The writer if he is any sort of compassionate creature himself does feel for his characters. He must. If the writer doesn't feel his character is a real being with honest feelings, if he doesn't hurt when his character hurts, cry when his character cries, laughs when his character laughs then why should the reader? This is crucial for a good story, for interesting characters and for the writer's creativity.

Yes, we must create our fictional characters, give birth to them, if you will but we also have to learn to let them live their own lives. Easier said than done, to be sure, but still we must try. Giving birth, even to fictional characters, can be a right pain in the you-know-what but we wouldn't have it any other way.

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