So I’m reading an excerpt from Mavis Gallant’s diary that was written while she was living in Spain working on her first novel. She comments that her characters are more real to her than the people she sees on the street, and that she’s disappointed that she can’t see them and talk to them. Now Gallant was suffering from near-starvation at the time (and exactly why she was starving in Spain instead of working at home in Canada isn’t entirely clear to me), but the way she felt is strangely familiar. There have been days when I felt that way about my characters too.

One of the great things about writing fiction is that you can create the people you want to spend time with yourself. In fact, that’s one of the things you need to do in order to get into your story. I use a technique that I first learned from the redoubtable Delilah Devlin that requires you to map out your characters before you start writing, talking about their backstories and their favorite pass times. I think it’s similar to what Stanislavski-trained actors do to flesh out the characters they’re playing, only in my case I get to actually create the character too. By the time I’ve finished the first draft of a novel, I know my people pretty well, well enough, in fact, that I find myself wanting to talk about them to other people as if they were real. “Guess what happened to X today?” I start to say. Fortunately, I’m usually able to remind myself that this would constitute lunacy before I get too far into my spiel.

The downside of spending time with these people is the fact that you really don’t want to hurt them. They’re nice. You like them. You don’t want to see them suffer. On the other hand, if they don’t suffer, you’ve got no story, so you usually grit your teeth and bring the pain, perhaps apologizing when you do.

I’ll be frank, though. There have been times that I wish I could have a real conversation with one or two of my characters. I think Docia Toleffson would give good advice. I think Cal Toleffson would provide a sympathetic shoulder. And I think a lot of the people in Konigsburg would be great to have a beer with.

All of which probably means I have at least a whiff of schizophrenia in my psyche since I’d be talking to myself. But if I do, I’m not alone. Like Mavis, I think a lot of us who write fiction create people we’d like to meet. And believe me, there are times when I’d rather spend time in the company of my characters than with a lot of the real people I know.