As my sister and I talk about the stories weâre writing and storytelling methods and how itâs goingâIâm learning what she means when she says âthe character didnât want to do that.â
My rigid approach is, the character does what I want it to do. I made the character. I wrote the scene. The characterâs not real, itâs my puppet, I make it move, I change anything about it that I want for whatever reason I want.
And in one sense, thatâs true. That will always be true. Without me, the Author, there is no character. No setting it exists in. No action it takes. No expression it makes. No nothing. No story at all. Without me, there isnât anything on that page.
And I can write like that. But if you have any experience writing, maybe youâre learning like Iâm beginning toâif the character never âbecomes realâ to you in your imaginationâif you never get a sense of what would and would not be in-character for them, to where you stop consciously having to mull over what theyâd do and your imagination just feels like itâs watching what theyâd do, subconsciouslyâ
âif that never happens, and youâre just choosing what the character does based on what you want, and thereâs no solid traits, nothing that canât be bent to your whim-of-the-momentâ
âIf thatâs how it is, you know how that character will turn out. You know what itâll be to audiences, to yourself as you write it. Youâve seen the type in other peopleâs poor products.
The character wonât feel genuine.
Itâs where you get the examples of Mary-Sues. When writers stop knowing âwho the real character is,â and it is just a face-claim puppet for whatever the writer is feeling the momentâwhat the character wanted yesterday when the author sat down to write a breakup scene is forgotten today when the author sits down to write a soccer match.
The characterâs made from the Author. It canât be apart from the Author. Itâs not realâexcept in the sense that it can be genuine.
âŚâŚannnd that, God help me, is how Iâm starting to reconcile the idea of âfreeâ will.
God couldâve made us automatonsâand there is still no sense in which anything that happens is âoutsideâ His sovereigntyâŚand, He didnât do that. We live. We make real choices. We want things. Sometimes things He wouldnât exactly want us to have or do.
We can even not want Him.
Why would He make us? Why would He give us any kind of will, knowing it would stray from Him?
Because we wouldnât be genuine, real, without it. We wouldnât be able to choose Him, either. We wouldnât be able to make choices, either.
He does orchestrate everything toward the culmination of His own will, and the end of the story He wants to tell, and it will all work out exactly as He plans itâand, weâre real.
I know Iâm rambling and I know this isnât theologically airtight. But honestly, I donât expect to be able to defend it to anyone who hasnât tried to figure out this⌠âthe character doesnât âwantâ to do that thing in the scene Iâm trying to writeâ paradox.
I mostly thought about this while I was thinking about people who dislike the idea of Yahweh because He supposedly forces people to live a life where evil and pain are a givenâeven if thereâs âgloryâ on the other sideâwhen He could have made it easier, if Heâs so powerful, or kept us from choosing evil. The problem of evil.
And thatâs the whole thing. He appears to have not done that because if He had, we wouldnât have had the ability to choose. When we choose, and the evil is a consequence, He weaves it into good in the big picture.
Like a storyteller whoâs taking a Character from Point A in the storyâI just canât wait to be king and have everything my wayâto Point B in the storyâI donât get to decide Iâm a lazy self-indulgent waste out in the woods when Iâm made to be a self-sacrificial, responsible King who protects others. There has to be a dead father and broken childhood and the betrayal of loved ones to get from point A to point Bâbut this way, the character was real and the pain had a point. Without genuine, true charactersâwhich inevitably lead to conflictâthereâs no story. Storytellers can hold both.
