We've had a request from a nice TV person- anyone interested, give her a call or email.

Do your fictional characters often seem real to you?

Television company, Cicada Films, is doing some research for a documentary about adults with imaginary friends. Within this programme we want to include writers who often find that their characters seem real and have minds of their own, an experience which we have found to be quite common amongst fictional writers. If you can relate to this and are interested in talking to us about it, email: sarahg@cicadafilms.com or call her on 0207 266 4646.

I cannot envisage any other answer except a resounding 'Yes!' As my characters appear on the monitor they become 'real' - very real to me. Surely this is so with other writers? I see one of my jobs as a Writer is to persuade readers to share this 'reality'.

I think what this company is looking for are people (writers or not) who still have the 'imaginary friends' of childhood or perhaps the 6ft white rabbits of Harvey fame.

To that, my answer is 'No.'

I do have a small toy gorilla (called George) who sits by my bed and listens to me when I complain about Life and all that. George would not take kindly to appearing on TV.

Len

"an experience which we have found to be quite common amongst fictional writers"

I can't speak for fictional writers, as I really do exist, but as a writer of fiction my answer would be yes

Andrea

I've only been here a couple of days, but I've noticed that for a site dedicated to words, they do a good job of picking the wrong ones in places

As to the original question, my answer is "absolutely." I wholly agree with Len: our job is to make the readers care about our characters, and share a common goal, but how can we do that if the stars of our work aren't real?

Do my characters seem real to me?

Yes.

Do I want to be known locally as that woman who was on the programme about people with imaginary friends?

Er...no.

I'd love to be involved in a public discussion on this subject; it's fascinating, but having on occasion become over-enthusaistic and made injudicious remarks aboutthe reality of my characters to non-writer friends, and seen the depth of panic in their eyes as they suspect previously undiagnosed schizophrenia, I wouldn't spit on this from ten feet away. A couple of inappropriately edited comments and an odd camera angle and suddently you're Scary-Mary who stands on the corner talking to her spirit-guide. Bloody hell, I sound like IB. Time for a coffee.

Sharon

B

Sharon, I had the same reaction! I'm not sure this would get you noticed by agents - at least not in the way you wanted to be...
Elspeth

<Added>

Anj - fictional writers - LOL! But then maybe none of us exist, we are just a big group of Anna and David's imaginary friends...

My characters seem very real to me. It's almost as if they're real people I've once known well but just haven't seen physically in a long time.

Eyeball

Do I want to be known locally as that woman who was on the programme about people with imaginary friends?

Well...rather that than the woman who is known locally as having murdered her invisble lovers.

I think the question is rather naive myself. For a character to truly work, the author surely must regard them as 'real'? Sometimes, one wonders if they actually aren't. Maybe we are all gods in some multi dimensional matrix, whose every word determines the actions of a being in another section of this matrix. Maybe all our characters are more real than we are ourselves.

Or maybe I'm completely crazy. I wouldn't be at all surprised.

JB

I agree JB - if the characters aren't real to you, then they won't be real to any reader. Personally, I've got the hots for my current male lead real bad ...

Take care
Andrea

My lead is my best mate - we go out and drink Stellas together.People look at us as if we're odd.

Dave

Dave, sounds like you're the man for the programme.
Elspeth

Nudgy,
You ARE odd!

Sharon, Again very nicely put... it may well be that in the name of 'entertainment' a prime objective of the programme makers is to feature oddballs and nutcases.
Len

Thanx guys, I already e-mailed.

D

Thank you, Len.

The characters I wirte about are real, if they weren't they wouldn't work, they are of course an amalgam of myself and people I have met with a consdierable amount of creative extension, or not, as the situation demands. Equally having invited my characters to participate I allow them to take me where they wish to, after all would it not be rude to invite soembody in only then to try and control their every move ?