I received the nicest letter the other day from a reader. In it, she mentioned Moncrief from Till Next We Meet. I started thinking about Adam, wondering what happened with him.
I realized I hadn’t the slightest idea.
Nor do I know what happened to Margaret in So in Love. Or a dozen other characters.
You see, there comes a time in a book when I feel like the characters are looking at me. As if they’ve finally realized someone is peering into their lives. I’m stared at and made to feel like an intruder.
“It’s time,” they’ll say. “You have to leave now.”
“Really?”
They shake their heads. “Really. You’ve been here much too long.”
I nod and prepare to close the door on my imagination and my relationship with them. The door is heavy, studded with iron, and nearly immovable.
I opened the door when I wrote My True Love so soon after finishing My Beloved. I went four hundred years into the future from the time period of My Beloved, but I still hated knowing the characters were gone. I opened the door again in The Lass Wore Black, but maybe it’s better to say it never really closed. I knew I was going to write Catriona’s story before I finished A Scandalous Scot.
When it was time to say goodbye after the Highland Lords series, I did so without a qualm. I’ve never revisited any of the family members because they’re behind the door. Readers ask me if Brendan will ever get his own book and I say no, because I couldn’t open the door.
Every once in a while, however, I do wonder what happened to certain people like Moncrief. He was such a strong character that it’s a temptation to wander back into his world. But if I did so, I wouldn’t have time for Macrath Sinclair (The Devil of Clan Sinclair), an absolutely fascinating man who has occupied me lately. Or Logan McDaniel (The Witch of Clan Sinclair) who makes me sigh.
I love how you express the way your characters talk to you and interact with you. People look at me strangely sometimes when I say that I’m waiting for my character to tell me something – like I’m waiting for my heroine to give me title for my current WIP – but unless someone creates such things, they don’t understand that in our imaginations, our characters are real. They speak to us, they direct us and sometimes, they lock us out.
You never when some of those who you’ve left behind might unlock that door and let you in again. I hope they do someday. : )
Maybe some characters just need to go thru some more in their lives before their story is ready to be written and then they will open that door at the back of your mind.
You visit or re-visit whoever you want, and we will gladly follow….
Helen in Ark.