Well, Of Course She Did That .That's Who She Is. -- Garbo

Ernestine the Telephone Operator has a crush on a guy anmed Vito. Her best friend's name is Felicia. Ernestine is a proud high school graduate with a job she really likes, and she snorts when she laughs. I bet you knew all that. 

When he was a boy, Severus Snape developed an all-consuming crush on a girl named Lily Evans. Severus was a dweeby kid, sent to the school in the wrong clothes, and an older stronger boy once flipped Severus upside-down and let all his classmates observe Severus' dismal gray underwear. This jerk is the guy Lily falls for. Severus, hurt and disgusted by the pain in his life, finds solace in dark witchcraft in the same way a muggle teen might be radicalized by extremist YouTube videos. Again, this is information you have.

Jane Marple has never been married. She lives frugally and sensibly on a fixed income in the small town of St. Mary Mead, and travels infrequently to visit friends or her nephew Raymond West and his wife Joan. She's had some trouble keeping a regular gardener whose work comes up to snuff. As a hobby, Jane helps a gruff police inspector solve murders. But I didn't need to tell you any of that, did I?

None of these "people" are actually people. They're fictional characters. Right? Right?? Yet most of the world knows more about them than anybody know about me, that's for sure. If you mention any of these invented beings, almost anybody, unprompted, can give you many specific details of not only their living circumstances, but also about their personalities, values, and integrity. Which of them would tell a secret they promised to keep? Which would flirt with a stranger? Which would go back for a third helping of ice cream?

And I know these people aren't real -- how? Because I've never seen them? Is that a good test? I've never seen Sir Paul McCartney, but I'm pretty sure he's real. 

I know a limited amount about this famous musician's life, about the same amount as I know about fictional Severus Snape's. How about television's Robin Roberts? I know about as many details of her life as I know about that of the character Ernestine's. And I'm pretty sure Robin Roberts is as real as Paul McCartney is.

The public at large will sometimes disagree (vehemently, at times) about the exact physical nature of a fictional character. Look at all the portrayals of Sherlock Holmes, each one so different. In my youth, Basil Rathbone was Holmes and had been for decades. But these days, almost anybody fits the bill. Put a deerstalker cap on a cartoon squirrel and it's Sherlock Squirrel. But in terms of who the character is, at heart, there's more agreement than debate. Sherlock is temperamental. He's quirky. He's highly-skilled. He's an awful tenant. His heart was broken mazny years ago and he's afraid to love again.

Thus I worry not about how real the characters I create seem to me. I speak of them as I do real people. "Hanson's mother left when he was a baby," I say, or "Kay's sister got her that job." I don't know how I could make a character real to others if they are not real to me. This sense of realness seems like a good thing for a writer. 

I do enjoy playing the role of a whimsical Creator: "This person needs a hobby. Shall they scuba dive? Collect coins? Whittle figurines of all the characters from Lord of the Rings? Do I need a small eccentricity? If so, what should it be? Socks never match? Always has corn flakes for breakfast on Monday and toaster waffles on Tuesday?"

And yet, this imagined person has to be anchored in my own experience or the bloat like an overblown soap bubble and a tiny pinprick of contrast with the experience of real life will pop these fictional creations and take them out of existence. So, for example, if I need the character to be hospitalized for an injury, I'm going to have them break an arm, an elbow, or a wrist because I broke my elbow in 1995 and I still remember everything about that.

In part, that's because I want the character to seem conguent. If they are true to themselves, they'll seem like a whole being. And in part, I ground my characters in some kind of reality because they express parts of me that can't be expressed in other ways. When I broke my arm, I was by myself and it was some time before I found someone to drive me to the hospital. I experienced thoughts and feelings and sensations that just spin around in my head now and then. Fiction gives me a place for them. This, I hope, makes the creation of characters which seem real a win-win situation for me and for the reader. 

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