At a writing workshop last week, an attendee asked me, “Do you talk about your characters as if they were real?”

I hesitated only a second and then said. “Yes. Even worse, I talk to them as if they were real. And they talk to me.” I went on to explain that sometimes my husband even talks about them as if they are real.

So far, we haven’t bought any of them Christmas presents or put them in our will.

Novelists, however, carry on an almost real relationship with these completely imaginary people. And, I suspect, therein lies the truth. They are not all that imaginary. L.M. Montgomery once said the character Anne, of Green Gables fame, was so real to her she believed such a girl surely existed somewhere.

I’m not sure if Anne Shirley existed. I only know my characters talk to me, and I talk back. Sometimes I say to one, “We really need to get this scene down today. Would you please walk across the room and answer the phone? Let’s see who is on the other end.”

And she replies, “I’d rather not. I’m going to ignore the phone and write a letter to my sister instead. You may read over my shoulder if you like.”

And so it goes. I can try all day to make a character behave in a certain way. But like a child with it’s own free will, each character tells her own story. I can’t explain the theology of this phenomenon. I can only tell you it is true.

If you would like to see what Catherine, Emily, Elmer, Madge, and the Glory Circle Sisters have been saying to me lately, check out Thirty Days to Glory, which releases in three weeks!