I purchase many new books. I know, it’s an addiction, but with a Kindle I don’t even have to get out of my jammies to shop. However, I blame a magazine review for one recent purchase. Once I read their published review, I needed to find out what a little boy knew about a murder. As is the way with addictions, I was helpless and out of control.
Reading has been a part of my life since my first memories and, if a story is well written, I’m soon experiencing the emotions and feelings of the characters. During my childhood, my mother read to me almost every night and one of my favorite stories was Peter Rabbit. As Mom read to me, I experienced the emotions of Peter, an adventuresome bunny, who just couldn’t seem to be good like his sisters. Even though I had heard the story many times, each time Peter had a close call with the angry farmer, my heart beat faster and I felt anxious about his safety.
I have to believe that Beatrix Potter, as she wrote, felt what that little bunny felt each time he was discovered by, and then slipped away from, the farmer. I believe that’s what made her such a great author.
A while back I read Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and, as I read, I experienced the emotions of being in Hank Morgan’s life-threatening situations. It would be unimaginable that Twain remained distant from his characters. I think he had to “become” the people he wrote about in order to make them and their situations real to me.
I’ve heard writers say they can’t understand why they get questions from readers, such as: “Did you pattern the main character after your life?” or “Were things that happened in the story your experiences?” I think those questions can be answered with both “yes” and “no.” No, in that, in general, a character does not reflect the author’s personality nor are the experiences the author’s reality. Yes, because the author managed to crawl inside the skin of the protagonist and live as one with that character: thinking the thoughts, experiencing the emotions, and feeling the pain and joy as each scene unfolds on the pages of the book.
I have concluded that when the heartbeat of the author and the heartbeat of the protagonist become one, the emotions and actions of the story become real and the reader of this “real” account is transported through time and circumstances to live inside the story.
While writing Child of Desire, only a select group of people was allowed to read my story. Reviewers received the manuscript along with instructions to be honest. My first readers were family. You would have to know our family and the security we have within the ranks in order to understand the brutal honesty from my nearest and dearest.
Following circulation to kin, I expanded my readership to include trusted friends, critiques by members of my writing group, and, finally, I ventured out into the world of writing contests.
From each of my readers, I received helpful comments and beneficial evaluations, but there is one comment that I especially cherish. Via a phone call, the reader simply said, “I laughed and I cried.” It was then that I knew I had become one with my protagonist and the feelings she had were the feelings shared by my reader.
Link to Book Group Discussion Guide
~ Image: Royal Mint Peter Rabbit coin
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