Saturday, March 30, 2019

Living in the Readers’ Imagination

      A friend once said of my drive to write, “It must be something to be in your head.” Yes, in my head there are many worlds filled with vibrant characters and their consuming stories that beg to be told. I love creating characters and watching them come alive on the movie screen of my mind. But what I love most is when my characters make themselves at home in the readers’ imagination. It would be amazing to see my characters through the eyes of readers. A writer can be very descriptive about a character’s likeness, dress, mannerisms, and soul, but to me, it is the reader that fully fleshes out the characters in their mind. Each respective reader has a unique vision of the character and their world. That fascinates me. I love the birthing of my characters, but it is the characters’ gift of entertaining, and hopefully enriching, a reader’s life that is the greatest gift to me. Having the drive to write may be enough to some, but to me, the drive to entertain is just as strong as my drive to write. Imagination is our passage to other worlds where we can escape our reality and live safely in a world of our choosing.

     Our imagination is the door for those with a desire to expand their horizon. When I was a child I believed that writers tapped into other lifetimes to find inspiration for their characters and tales. We may not have the gift of many lives to enrich our imaginations, but the true gift is that an imagination is something that we all share. A book is a vessel to travel into other times in history, visit other cultures, become intimate with some one’s love story or explore a mystery, dive into the fantastical, and entertain ourselves in the privacy of our minds. And it is in that spirit that we all can pick up a book and escape. I am captivated to think that my characters not only come alive in the imaginations of readers but evoke in them personal feelings. I am as equally captivated when I hear that my character solicited the same emotions from readers in different cultures and junctures in life. My characters and their stories are my creations, but the readers who welcome them into their imagination bestow to them the magic of a thousand lives.

     The imagination is a magical ground where invention, inspiration, spirit, and individuality grow and expand their roots into reality. The imagination is also a place to escape to other worlds that will not collide with ours, where we can safely explore the unbelievable, impossible and feel outside of our respective reality. A book is like a great key that opens up the imagination. I am grateful for readers that welcome my characters into their imaginations.



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