Once, a long, long time ago I was sitting in a school assembly, listening to a hack author talk about a crappy book that my school was making everybody in the grade read. I never actually got around to reading the book but that's not the point of this little ramble. The point is that the author mentioned how, as she finished the book, she knew that the character she hadn't meant to kill off was going to die and so she had to go back and rewrite the entire thing to make this character's death consistent with the plot and so forth. How did she know that this character was going to die? Because to her the character was real, and the situation was such that his death was the only way to remain consistent to this character's personality. At the time, I treated all of this with a grain of salt (largely because her rational was presented in such a way that to not mock what she was saying would be inconsistent with my character). After all, this was only a fictional being, somebody that she created and thus somebody who had to do what she wrote; the character wasn't a real person who could refuse his role and just not die.

This only goes to show how little I knew about fictional characters.

As loath as I am to admit this, the hack author was correct. I find more and more that fictional characters are just as real as anybody else. To make them do or say something that isn't consistent with their character as it has been set forth is next to impossible -- not because the character would refuse, but because I, as the author, and you, as the reader, would know that that line/action just wouldn't ring true and it would sour the rest of the fic. For example (and I hate to use this, because I hate being self-referential but it's the best common ground I can think of), at the end of Broken Wings, Keith has to die. Not only because I couldn't possibly think of anything to do with him after the trial (though this is a reason I killed him off) but because his character is such that he couldn't ignore the justice of the Ki'ir-ar. There is, of course, the 'out' of refusing to acknowledge his crimes as a'Shteru (and Allura would let him ignore those crimes, because her character is such that the rules of the Ki'ir-ar are secondary to the well-being of Keith) but Keith's character is such that he could no more ignore his crimes than he could ignore his attraction to Lance. His character wouldn't let me do it, and I couldn't take such a cheap route with you, dear reader.

But there is more to a fictional character than the personality of one story. I am finding that all of my well used characters (that is, the VF) have evolved into complete individuals irrespective of the situations I place them in. I find that traits I gave Keith in one fic tend to bleed into the next fic; how I see Keith shapes all of what I write. This is especially true of Keith and Lance and their relationship. Just as I've become used to them as a couple, so too have they. I'm less likely to write them a 'just-starting' fic now because they have so much history together. They're older and wiser and calmer and thinking about starting a family and getting on in life. They aren't the firebrands of their youth anymore and I think that this change in their 'relationship-personality' is something that is as tangible to you, the reader, as it is to me, the slave driver.

I find that writing fanfiction is a unique experience in watching character evolution, one that every writer should see and touch and explore. I mean, what better way to get to know human psychology than to see how a template becomes a real person. Well, no, that's a lie. I don't understand human motivation in any greater depth now than when I started Broken Wings four years ago. I just know that sometimes it fells right to have a character do something and that this 'rightness' carries over and over and over. It's like seeing an actor get into character, from first-read-through to final performance. Some things work, some things don't. But every day there's more depth to work with, and more substance to shape until, one day you realize that what you've got is no longer the 2-D collection of pixels from a T.V show of your youth, but a full rendered individual ready to be plugged into your Sims game and fucked with.

And that's just beautiful.

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