The Ones That Stick With You

There are characters who never seem to come alive. No matter how you smooth out their dialogue or tighten their motivation, they never ascend from the boundaries of the page. Never crackle with the spark of life.

          There are characters who live to rebel. Headstrong and obstinate, they fight the very pen with which they’re written. Never saying what you intend them to say, never doing what you intend them to do, these anarchists scoff at your plot and snarl at outlines. Try your patience as they might, you can shake your head and take some solace in the simple fact that they are at least alive.

          And then there are other characters.

          The one’s you think about when drifting off to sleep or driving down the road.

          The one’s still there when the pen is laid down and the laptop is closed.

          The one’s that stick with you.

          You don’t remember creating them. It seems rather that you met them long, long ago. That you turned a corner in your mind and there they were, beaming in all their elaborate simplicity.

          And as you write their stories, you find a strange bond forming. That you smile a bit when they achieve their goals and wince a little when they suffer loss.

          And when you write the final sentence that brings their story to an end, you find your fingers hovering over the keys, unable to type the last period, that solemn gatekeeper your characters cannot pass.

          But they’re never really gone.

          The place where they live is a timeless place, instantly accessible with the crack of a book spine. And even when the pages of that book one day yellow and crinkle with age, the characters within will be as fresh and familiar as the day they came to be. Those characters never fade.

          The one’s that stick with you.