“As is the case with true friends, time and distance were never an issue.”
From Chapter 25 – Isn’t That Something?
“Don’t let anyone shame you for your love of an imaginary friend. Religions have been founded on a lot less. – Duchess Goldblatt*
Didn’t we all have imaginary friends growing up? For a writer they never really leave (or maybe we just don’t grow up). Some recede but others appear. Sometimes they become characters – and that’s what makes a story.
I suppose it’s because I wrote plays that I find characters interesting. A screenwriter once told me that an interesting character can move a story along even if the plot is weak. Of course, writers strive for both great characters and a great plot. So where do my characters come from? Well, everywhere – from my deepest memories going back decades to last week on the E train. It could be the tough guy across from me on the subway who pulls out a Camus paperback (in French); to someone’s mom who was the epitome of sophistication despite living in a tract house in Levittown; or the cashier at Hy-Vee in Omaha who looks like a movie star but wears a nametag noting “12 years of service.” More often than not characters are a composite: the cashier’s looks, the mom’s wit, and the subway guy’s taste in literature.
Swimming to Jerusalem is a novel and as noted on the front pages: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and places are . . . blah, blah, blah. Of course, there are characteristics from people I know or have observed, but that’s just a starting point before my imagination takes over – big time – and I become an all-powerful, omnificent God. But with that comes an awesome responsibility. The characters must remain true to themselves. They must think, speak, react, and treat each other in ways that are theirs. They do and say things the author may or may not. That is the joy of writing fiction.
With over 100 characters in STJ, a friend suggested it was “Tolstoian,” (adding that while I was “no Tolstoy, it’s a pretty good read.”) Clearly, some characters are more prominent than others, but as Stanislavski remarked, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” While I have spent many hours thinking about my protagonist and his family, even those with limited appearances are important.
As I wrote, rewrote and rewrote again, I grew close to these imaginary friends and frenemies. To paraphrase the writer Natalia Ginzburg, “The characters in this story are imaginary . . . are not alive, nor have ever lived, in any part of the world. I am sorry to say this having loved them as though they were real.” I feel exactly the same. I hope my reader will too.
* Duchess Goldblatt, if you aren’t familiar with her, is a Twitter personality — a “character.” She’s a self-described 81-year-old author of royal blood, who lives in the (fictional) town of Crooked Path, N.Y.
Swimming to Jerusalem 