Oh Behave!

They are the puppets, we are the puppetmasters. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Characters do what the author says. After all, we created ‘em, right? We decide everything from what color hair they’re going to have, to building their entire personality; if they’re kind or clutzy, passionate or pained.

So explain to me how it is that, at some point in every book, they take on a mind of their own? Honestly. No faith that I’ll steer them right. Oh no, they want to decide when to resolve this plot point, or worse, ignore it all together. They want to decide when they can’t stand it another second without ripping each other’s clothes off. Truly annoying and it messes with all my carefully laid plans. Not that this seems to matter to them. I mean, why bother even creating a story idea, a plot line, a resolution? They’re just going to stomp all over it and do whatever they want anyway.

This isn’t anything new to me. It happened in the very first book I wrote for Bantam’s Loveswept line some fourteen years ago. Forty some odd stories later, you think I’d learn not to have expectations of good behavior from my very own characters. You think I’d be more prepared for their sudden flights of fancy. You think I’d trust them more.

And there lies the key. The power struggle between the creator and the created. I dream them up and have certain expectations of how they’re going to handle all the obstacles I’m going to throw at them in the next four hundred some odd pages. Then they come along and have all kinds of new ideas on what should be done, and when. Sometimes they ignore the roadblocks all together, only to detour straight into a whole pile of new ones I never even saw coming. Sort of like children in that way.

My oldest child went off to college this fall. He has to make his own plans now, tackle his own obstacles, figure out how to navigate the detours and the unexpected road blocks. I could only hope that, during his years under my loving care and guidance, I’d given him the tools to handle all those things. I had to trust he’d be okay on his own, this child I’d created, nurtured. Sometimes a bit scary, but ultimately pretty exciting.

And it occurred to me that perhaps I have to have the same trust in the characters I create. I gave them life, built them into solid, well-rounded individuals, unlike any others I’ve created before, and so when they want to have an active say in what’s going to happen to them, maybe I just need to shut up and listen to them. They stumble sometimes, like my son has been known to do, but, also like him, in the end, they do figure it out. And sometimes we’re all the stronger for the stumbling.

Of course, if the two I’m currently wrangling don’t take their hands off each other sometime in the next scene or two, we’ll never find out who torched that damn cabin.

Then again, maybe I should just lighten up and let them have their way with each other. Again. (And again.) Maybe I just need to trust, once and for all, that they’ll figure it all out in the end. Like they always do.

And sure, I complain about these two, but I’m really going to miss them when they ride off into the sunset together. Exhausted, smiling happily, but blessedly together.

What characters have you recently read who surprised you, pulled you in, and made you not want to say good-bye to them at the end of the story?