Writers: have you ever felt your characters to be real, breathing people?

Completely. That is what I believe to be the mark of a story with exceptional characters. Every once in a blue moon, when something like that happens, it reminds me why I love to write. Writing brings out the fantasy, created in the ever working cove of your imagination, but at the same time, they are so real. That is why Harry Potter has become such a cultural phenomenon. J.K. Rowling was able to write in such a way that when Sirius Black died, people felt a genuine loss. If you can create a character like that, then you must be an exceptional writer.

Yes. They live in my mind as if they had separate, independent existence. Writing about them is less like inventing than it is like remembering what happened. The places where they live are as vivid in my mind as neighborhoods of my childhood. Killing any of them or even hurting them is really hard.

I haven’t really written that much stuff, and I would love to reach that level. I know what it is to be able to see the characters in my head when I’m reading, though. It’s like I’m a fly on the wall in the scene. What I strive for when I write is that the reader could do that with my characters.

they are real until they try to talk to each other and then they are just duplicates of me rambling about a topic. the reason i never pursued writing. and my inability to properly capitalize correctly at the start of each new sentence.

This has happened for me not only with my characters but characters in certain novels I’ve read. When writing I literally try to step into the character and become them in some ways similar to acting. Living, breathing characters are the most memorable for me and ones I dread having to come to an end.

All the time.