There’s nothing quite like falling in love with one of your characters, whether it’s a your leading lady, a rugged male hero, or a family or some child who has overcome the odds. The truth is, I don’t think I would keep coming back to writing – I don’t think I would be a writer at all – if not for my characters and how the push me to let them tell their stories through me.

Much of the time, it’s not the characters from the books I’ve already written, or the stories I have written out in note form from opening scene to the closing of the last page. No, the ones that haunt me so often are the ones that I haven’t tackled yet. The characters who talk to me in my sleep, who keep pushing me on because their truth has yet to be expressed. They want to be heard, and so I keep writing so they can be heard.

A character is for an author much like a child is for a parent. They are the writer’s world. They are the best and worst of them. They reveal those subtle shades of gray we don’t like to admit to, but have to talk about nonetheless. All we can really say is: it’s love.

2466 Words Edited for In the Meadow.