What Authors Do to Our Characters

2nd of 2

I was more politically conscious on this reading of the hip urban Marxism of several of the main characters - talking about overthrowing The Man while living the life of the bourgeoisie - the kind of folks who, as commenters here say, would be so surprised to find themselves first on the firing line, or in the work camps, come the Revolution. I know some Chicagoans like that; they were well-depicted in the book.

Which brings me to: what authors do to our characters.

I know when I was writing my humble short story, Invulnerable (link in nic - see how I slipped this week's plug in there?), that my main character's troubles at the end seemed to be inherent to the story and his personality and the changes he'd been put through - inevitable, "wrote itself," rather than anything I intended at the outset.

Similarly, the harsh things Henry has to go through in TTTW seem inherent to the emotional impetus (fears) that direct his time travels, and are likewise inevitable to the story.

I'm reminded also of Rowling talking about killing off certain characters in the Potter series, specifically the house-elf, somewhat to her own surprise and consternation.

But we choose to do this to our characters, nonetheless. Don't we? However seemingly necessary for the dramatic telling, it's our own choice to follow where the story must go to be the better story, however much our dear characters suffer.

Gives one a certain sympathy with the Supreme Being's choice to create a universe of time-space free-will mortals, with all the magnificent and terrible consequences thereof - witness Jesus' prayer in the Garden to "let this cup pass," and its answer, tragic, then glorious. To be the better story.

♦

TTTW sort-of jumped into my hands before I'd finished Wells' First Men in the Moon. As I write this up on Saturday morning, I'm wondering, now what to read? (Looks around at small mountain of books in our home.)

My thanks to the book thread host and participants for the inspiration to get back into "real" reading. Took a while, but it finally seems to be working. Have to sacrifice some AoS thread-following time, but there's so much redundant political argument nowadays, it's not that hard.