No, this is not a blog about retiring. It is about saying goodbye, however - at least, in a sense. In every story, we as the storyteller are tasked with the responsibility of describing everything within the stories that we write. Unlike movies, where the viewer can see the visuals for themselves, the writer must use words to form that picture in the reader's mind.
Some writers choose to describe everything in great detail. Some authors choose to describe the surroundings with a fair amount of detail, but leave some things up to the reader, allowing the reader to fill in the little details for themselves. Personally, I choose to do a bit of both - very descriptive in some places, and in others a bit less. To me, it gives the reader a sense that it's not just my work that they are reading, but in a sense it is also theirs.
The one thing every story needs however, is characters. It's the characters of the story that bring it to life, through their trials and success, their defeats and their obstacles to overcome. One thing I am always fond of saying is that as a writer I can bring these characters to life, but it is the readers who give them their souls.
Bringing characters to life is more than just describing their appearance and sending them on their journey. They need emotions, a history, interests and fears. Perhaps these things come into play through the story (or stories, if they appear throughout multiple books.) A story can be the most detailed world one could imagine, but if the characters within them are nothing more than a few quick descriptive lines on a page, the most detailed world imagined means nothing.
It seems like common sense, but sometimes one can get so involved in describing the world their characters live in, that they neglect the characters themselves. As a reader, a strong character is someone who you feel as if you've known throughout their journey. You've walked beside them through those trials, you've cheered for their successes, and perhaps cried through their defeats.
As a writer, the task is to build those characters with words that will stir those emotions within the reader. The question arises then, how do you know when you've accomplished that task? The answer lies in the title of this blog.
Recently, I finished and published the last novel in my Exiled trilogy
, The Exiled: Infinity. When I began the novel, I was excited - I looked forward to finishing the story. I thought it would give me that sense of completion. When the last page was written, for a few moments, that sense of completion was there. And then another feeling took over.
To be honest, I felt sad, and maybe a little bit of a sense of loss. I had written about the characters in the books, and come to know them myself. Certainly, I had my favorites, as I think every author does. But in the end, I felt like I was saying goodbye to good friends that I had travelled with and written about.
I believe that as a writer, if you finish a story and can simply toss it aside and move on to the next one, perhaps you haven't given those characters enough focus. If you feel nothing toward the characters you're bringing to life, why should the reader?
And yes, perhaps this does all seem like common sense, but it doesn't hurt to mention it. Take the time to really get to know the characters in your world. Breathe life into them, and the readers will give them their souls. When it's all said and done, and you bid farewell with a bit of sadness to those characters, it's a good sign that you've done more than just conjure up a character from your imagination.
After all, we're storytellers. Magicians who can create anything from the tips of our fingers. Our job is to delight, entertain, and perhaps even frighten. Our fingers are the tools of our trade, and stirring emotions within our readers is our profession. It all begins by bringing those characters within the stories to life. Common sense or not, a great story begins with great characters within it.
