Living the Fictional Dream

I wrote a little flash piece a while back about two ex-lovers having a confrontation. Of course, there is magic and a fantasy world, as well, but the crux of the piece is the painful relationship between the two characters. The woman in the piece, Viola, is the villain, in as much as one can be in that situation. It was her choices that forced the friendship between the two to end after the love affair was no more.

When I first wrote the story, I really hated this character. Viola was total scum in my mind, her only redeeming quality being that she did actually love the guy in her own selfish way. But, since then, Viola has surprised me. She inspired the SED story that I wrote today, which was from her point of view.

There is something about her — some spark, some flash that makes her leap off the page — and that surprises me, because she wasn’t supposed to do that. She was supposed to lose, however ungracefully, and then go away, leaving her ex to his own happy ending. But Viola was not content with that.

One of my graduate school writing profs gave the class a bit of advice that I’ve never forgotten. He said that everyone is the hero of his (or her) own life story. If you approach creating a character from that perspective — the perspective that in the character’s mind, he or she is justified in her actions and deserves to win in the end — it makes the more well rounded, more real. And, apparently, once the character is that real, she’ll take on a life of her own in your imagination and on your pages… like Viola.