A few days ago I wrote some letters to characters. Today they write back.
Dear Writer Person,
I always knew the snake was in my bedroom. And it would have stayed there if Gran hadn’t gone all gran-splosive and chased it with the broom. And she wouldn’t have even known it was there if she hadn’t gone in my bedroom looking for the dirty laundry. Besides. I got the snake to do her a favor and she didn’t even bother saying thank you. She’d have rapped my knuckles good if I forgot to say thank you. Grownups don’t make a whole lot of sense to me at all.
Signed,
Plant Kid
Dear Author in hiding,
First off, you need to remember that the thing with my sister and the thing with Max are not the same thing. What happened with Max WASN’T my fault. What happened with my sister was.
Second off, if that person thinks they are keeping Max or keeping me from Max, they’re in for a big surprise.
Third off, I know I told you I didn’t want to talk about it but I think if I’m going to fix things with Max, you’re going to have to tell about what happened with my sister.
Signed,
Max’s boy
Hey you there, yeah, the one writing this story. One thing you have to remember about me is that I might let J think it’s all his idea but we never, ever do anything I didn’t decide I wanted to do first. There’s no way some guy is pulling all of my strings and leading me around. I never asked you to like me. I don’t need you or anyone else to like me. J likes me. Hell, he probably loves me with a big, fat capital L. He loves what I do and how I make him feel and I love how he makes me forget.
Signed,
Sister #1
So you decided to pop into my life, with no invitation, and start writing my story, huh? Got that much extra time on your hands? Can’t think of something better to do? Don’t go kissing up to me with compliments because they don’t count for crap in the real world. Sweet-talking might work on my mom but not on me. And stay the hell away from my journals. Just because they have pictures in them doesn’t make them public. They’re private. Just like my life. So stay the frack away.
Signed,
Sister #2
I love that your characters write back. 🙂
They never would have started talking back to me if I hadn’t copied your idea of writing to them in the first place. So thanks for that.
Same here!
Wow! These are always so awesome. What characters, literally.
Thanks, Kate!
Awesome!
This is a great idea! One I plan on employing to get into one of my secondary character’s head. Thanks for sharing!
Re: Awesome!
Carmen, I hope you give it a try. I learn a lot when they write back to me.
Ever notice how defensive your characters are? Like they’re afraid if the writer notices them or finds out things about them, they’ll be inspected, detected, neglected, and rejected?
I wonder where that comes from.