persistence of characters

[BeechLeaf]

After you've finished a story or series, so that the characters aren't scheduled to appear again, do they fade away, or are they still fully present for you? Do you still have the engagement with them, the close understanding of their personality, a year or more after you last wrote about them?

Of course, some writers have a permanently open world in which characters can re-appear, such as FrancesScott's Community Pool. This is what I'm doing in my own also. But I wonder how many writers end a story, then find their characters living on, perhaps nagging them, arguing they should have more air time . . . haunting their dreams?

 

[Rob_Royale]

Definitely. Some of my earliest stories feature characters based on real women I've known. Those ladies are still in my daydreams and they keep suggesting more chapters.

 

[MrPixel]

Yep. I fall in love with my characters. They're always somewhere close by. Sometimes they might appear with different names, but they and I know who we are.

 

[yowser]

Interesting question. I've never found a good way to count (let alone track) the hundred plus individuals I've created over the last dozen years (maybe forty MCs) but some of them definitely lurk around my consciousness, tugging for attention or at least the chance to be remembered.

A few will definitely reappear, but mostly it depends on the nature of their situated tale whether they are done or not. I have certainly made the mistake of a follow-up story when the MC had already run their course, and further development was not only unnecessary but detrimental.

What I'd really like to do, however, is get a half-dozen of them together in a meet-and-greet session, but all sorts of logical (and other) factors preclude that. There'd be some sparks, maybe even fisticuffs.

 

[NotWise]

A lot of my characters live on for me, but few of them want more attention. One who certainly does want more air time is Dee Dee Durante from No Brand on My Pony.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

A bunch of them have become some of my best friends...

I've got about a dozen characters who have broken out of their original story or series and demanded more. (Laura in the Smoking Hot series got her own Educating Laura series set 20 years earlier, Adrian & Dan from Smoking Hot got 4 sequels, Rachel from Gas Station Guy got to be a minor character in Homesick Halloween and the I Say Ass, You Say Arse series, including being a main character in the fourth story, Richie was meant to be a minor character in the second ISAYSA story, barged into Educating Laura, then his relationship with Emily in ISAYSA got a trilogy where they got together, and a couple other stories...) My profile has out of date links with what stories contain various characters, but there's another dozen stories I may get round to writing.

There's a bunch of minor characters, who in my head are the same person when their names appear in multiple stories, but I don't think anyone else has ever noticed.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

When I story board a project, each character gets built. The amount of construction will depend upon how major a role they are anticipated to play.

Since every story board becomes a separate Excel sheet in a single workbook, I am able to quickly go back and reference every character that I have ever written. If they fit the spot in a new story, I will tend to resurrect them rather than create another character in their image.

Readers seem to respond to the familiarity of characters that they have encountered previously, so why not give them a treat now and then?

 

[Dancefactory]

My hundredth story is pending to be published. I celebrated the event and wrote a story with a couple of characters from completed series, in scenes I have never written.

Those scenes were just options of what could have happened, and they were left there unwritten, haunting me. And that’s the point of the story - if you don’t write and publish those scenes, those poor characters are destined to live them over and over again.

 

[Voboy]

I love all my characters, but I have too many of them to keep them all constantly in my mind.

The other day I got a notification that someone had Liked one of my fairly old stories; I clicked on it and took a little trip down memory lane, and I'd written it long enough ago that I didn't remember all the details. As a reader this time, I found myself really enjoying the character, and then as a writer I just shook my head. "Why haven't I used this one more?"

There are just too many to use and not enough words to tell about them. Like real people.

 

[millamomud]

since I started drawing again I've been revisiting my old stories and even began re-editing them for my blog, so yes, they are very present for me.

 

[bi_cathy]

I finish a story, close it, and I'm done. At least this is what's happened so far with all my stories.

I'm usually done with the characters before the final read before I send it to beta readers, that's how detached I get. I might have a small bout of familiarity with them when I get beta reader feedback, then when the story is published and the first comments start coming in, but not more than that.

The two characters I lived with the most, recently, Freya and Karo from Strings Attached, are just... gone. In the rear-view mirror. Despite 2 years spent writing them, the most insanely intense final 6 weeks of editing ever, and 139K words, I closed their story, I'm done with it.

I don't know why, exactly, but it could be because I get too intensely involved with my characters. I live in their heads. I become them. They live with me in my real life when a story is being written. So I have to dissociate when the story's over because I gave them my dues, and also because I have other characters to live with now.

 

[Writer61]

After you've finished a story or series, so that the characters aren't scheduled to appear again, do they fade away, or are they still fully present for you? Do you still have the engagement with them, the close understanding of their personality, a year or more after you last wrote about them?

Of course, some writers have a permanently open world in which characters can re-appear, such as FrancesScott's Community Pool. This is what I'm doing in my own also. But I wonder how many writers end a story, then find their characters living on, perhaps nagging them, arguing they should have more air time . . . haunting their dreams?

Adam, my first MC, has another series planned for him, but is in no hurry. Two others (Ben and Laura) might have another story in them, but aren't shouting for attention. Another (Tom) will be happy that his race has run once his final story gets approved. The only one demanding attention (Marie) has one completed (but unpublished) story, and perhaps five more to tell, so she is never far from my thoughts.

Broadly speaking, I write within a single universe, so it is always a pleasure when a character from another story/series can be reused. Both of my entries in Nude Day 2026 used characters from other series.

 

[MelissaBaby]

While writing, my characters are on my mind constantly. I try to get into their heads as much as I can, so I will try to think like them in everyday situations. A song comes on the radio, and I decide if they would like it or not. What would they order for dinner? Who would they vote for?

All my characters feel like real people I have known. But a few, particularly those I have written about more than once- Mary and Alvin, Ranger Ramona, Kitty Boyd, the Gold Dollar Girls, are frequently still in my thoughts, and I often find myself looking at the world as I believe they would.

 

[CalBishForNow]

I never did talk to or imagine hearing from my characters as if they were people while I was writing about them, so that didn't stop when I stopped writing about them either.

I'm going to finish my current series with several story ideas unwritten. I like the ideas but I'm bored of the series and want to give it and the characters closure rather than dragging it out even longer. Maybe I'll write those stories later and just call them standalone stories that happen to star those characters, maybe I'll adapt them to new characters or settings, maybe they'll never become interesting enough to start and finish. If I do get around to writing those stories, those could be what you're talking about. I also have a couple ideas like that about my previous series. Nothing that's risen to the top of my work-in-progress folder so far, but maybe it will by the end of the year; there's a relevant Challenge or two.

Having follow-up ideas seems to be the default for me. I've done four holiday stories, which are supposed to be standalone, had follow-ups to three of them, and the fourth was a pure joke, an April Fools Day story inspired by a comic strip. But actually taking a follow-up idea from start to finish to publication isn't always any easier than a fresh idea.

 

[BeechLeaf]

The two characters I lived with the most, recently, Freya and Karo from Strings Attached, are just... gone. In the rear-view mirror. Despite 2 years spent writing them, the most insanely intense final 6 weeks of editing ever, and 139K words, I closed their story, I'm done with it.

I'm surprised by that in particular, Cathy, because those two are so detailed and individuated. With the older works in your oeuvre, you were generalizing, not giving names or external situations, but with Karo and Freya you had very definite individuals that we know a lot about. I can't imagine myself writing that level of detail without hanging onto them very closely. So it's really interesting that you don't do that.

 

[FrancesScott]

Of course, some writers have a permanently open world in which characters can re-appear, such as FrancesScott's Community Pool.

Thank you for the mention.

 

[StillStunned]

For me, the story idea is more interesting than any character. I write my characters to fit the plot.

When the story is finished, I might use the same characters for a new story, but it's always because I have a story to tell, not because I can't let go.

That said, I don't put nearly as much effort as many other writers into bringing characters to life. They only get as much depth and development as the story requires.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I'm like @bi_cathy, in that once a character is done and I have no more plans, that's kinda just it. But as has been noted in previous threads, I struggle with empathy, so even though I am literally doing my best to live inside someone's head and understand them down to the subatomic level, I'm rarely, like... super emotionally invested as them. I don't really know how to explain it, because I care deeply and really enjoy my characters, but they are, at the end of the day, tools (which is something that massively conflicts with my living character theory, I'm aware of the cognitive dissonance, thank you).

Hell, even when I do have plans for the character, I usually don't bother to think too hard about them because I'm too busy with someone else I'm currently working on, and that requires my full attention, so I have neither the time nor luxury to engage in that kind of daydreaming.

Now, there are some exceptions, but they kinda get more fleeting perseverations (with one very large except that constantly lives in my head, but more as an idea than as characters). I almost never talk to the characters, I let them talk for themselves and as they do, I figure out more about them and ways to work that into the wider narrative. They are for the most part interesting problems to solve.

 

[BeechLeaf]

I should give some indication of my own inclinations. In the small, new world of BeechLeaf, I have a number of characters I really like and will probably still live with and interact with even if I never post another story here. But in my main writing, outside this site, my beloved characters are a huge part of my life, and I have grown up and grown older knowing them for many years now. as they also grow up and grow older. Our lives are intertwined as much as they could be with any flesh and blood partner. I wondered whether other people felt this: real people becoming permanent parts of their life.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm surprised by that in particular, Cathy, because those two are so detailed and individuated. With the older works in your oeuvre, you were generalizing, not giving names or external situations, but with Karo and Freya you had very definite individuals that we know a lot about. I can't imagine myself writing that level of detail without hanging onto them very closely. So it's really interesting that you don't do that.

I'm like you, favourite characters remain forever nestled away in my mind, never forgotten. On occasion they come out and say, write me again, please write me. So I do.

 

[bi_cathy]

I'm surprised by that in particular, Cathy, because those two are so detailed and individuated. With the older works in your oeuvre, you were generalizing, not giving names or external situations, but with Karo and Freya you had very definite individuals that we know a lot about. I can't imagine myself writing that level of detail without hanging onto them very closely. So it's really interesting that you don't do that.

Those two were definitely special, but they exhausted me . By the time I wrote the end, I was very happy and very relieved to let them go, let them be, live their life. It wasn't my story to tell anymore.

I think I was already writing Black Leather in my mind while doing the final edits of Strings. That's how my brain works. And now that Black Leather is done, I'm living with whatever 60 Seconds has decided to do to me, while a small part of me has invited the characters from that long Lebanon story I keep hinting about. These are the characters I'm interested in, who are weaving moments and feelings in my brain all day long.

I did remember a semi-exception, though. Kate and "I" in I'd Go Gay For You. That's the only time I came back to characters after I was done with them. I guess it's because their story didn't feel finished, and they had more to say. But I wouldn't say they were "permanent" with me, they just resurfaced every now and then, briefly, didn't say much, then once in a while, they'd come back for a couple of days, make me hammer down 3-5K words, and leave. And now, I'm happily done with them too.

 

[Bazzle]

Some characters don't leave you? You can keep dreaming up situations or plots that they can be involved in?

Other times the character is done. There is no more to tell?

 

[JohnBJohn]

I've always enjoyed it when an author brings back an older character for a curtain call or even makes them the MC in their own story. You get to see them grow a little more and I like that.

After I wrote a few stories, several of which were set in the same general area, I realized that I could start doing the same thing. In my series, High School Friends, I worked in two characters from another short series, No Such Thing As Love at First Sight, aged them a couple of years so that they were legal, then worked them in. They were a little more mature and quite a bit saucier in the new series and I liked how that worked. Now, the two main characters from NSTLFS, their story has been told and while they may cameo here or there, it'll be minor stuff only.

I've done this with a couple of other series and have been happy with the way they turned out.

 

[Stanfield2025]

The two protagonists in my erotica series live with me damned near every day. I daydream about them often.

Outside of erotica, on AO3 I'm operating within a cinematic universe in which characters can appear in multiple stories. By the time it's done (which may not be for a long time) it's going to be an expansive set of stories with characters having solo stories and crossovers.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

Of the six stories I've actually finished, one was the only interesting piece of an expansive, but not very good, multicharacter saga I invented in my head as part of 'me time' long before starting to write here, so those characters (and the as-yet unwritten ones) are still bouncing around my head, waiting to settle into a story similar to the one from back then but, you know, better.

One is a parody about a woman and her stepladder, which... no. Those aren't characters so much as caricatures.

Oddly, Ben and Sophia from my story Sibling Therapy seem to have run their course. They've gotten involved, and left off somewhere where they're comfortable with their lives and what they're doing together, and any more about them would probably be too much. Interestingly, I still think about the therapist from that story.

As for the other three... yes, I think about them a lot, and have some vague sequel ideas for one, a partial sequel synopsis for another, and a full sequel synopsis along with several paragraphs of draft written for the third.

I imagine it will be like this for most of my stories. I tend to end up thinking up "where can they go from here"s for the characters as I'm writing, even before I'm done with the first draft of their first story. A few seem like the one story will be enough but most seem like they have so much more to tell me, teach me, show me.