Today in class we had our second seminar on Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. We discussed the advantage of Albert writing a novel for his daughter instead of telling her the history of philosophy instead. I love novels, and clearly Hilde does too. Using a novel as a tool to learning about philosophy seems perfect to me, but the novel was very inconclusive (at least Hilde's version). Her book ends with Sophie and Alberto escaping the garden party. That's it. We, luckily, get to read about their time in the "real" world.
What if characters live on after we finish reading? Do Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, and Peter Pan stop "living" after the cover closes? What about the characters in my head, the ones I created? When I don't think about them, do they move, breathe, think? I really hope so. For me as a writer, I let my characters find me. I cannot create people; I encounter them. I absolutely adore the process of meeting these new people and slowly, through my interaction with them, discover who they truly are. This is why I love to write, and this is why I enjoyed the last part of Sophie's story. I believe Albert Knag knew that Sophie would escape the bounds of the novel. He knew Sophie was there that night at the bay. He knew because he believed in his characters. He believed that they had a mind of their own. His imagination took on an imagination.
Do not underestimate characters. They live longer than you do.
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