A Place to Hide

I know it is a place to hide.

It may not be the happiest, or the shiniest of places to be at times, but it is mine to go to whenever I am in genuine need of escape from this world.

For years I made up different places, other worlds, casting them with characters from the world around me, people I know and people I don’t, those I imagine from pictures I have seen, and stories felt from songs I have heard.

With myself as the central character.

Obviously.

Whatever happened would revolve around me, particularly in the early days, when life was a lot more simple and I could bring the characters from my favourite television shows into my world, then have them act out roles I chose for them.

The likes of Dick Turpin mixing with the likes of Starbuck, and yes, I am talking about the original series.

I’ll let you work out the maths for yourself.

Regular characters came and went as teenage years, and the plots that evolved within my world became more complex and confusing, much like the real world, so confusing that I sought the realms of other writers to transport me completely out of my too-rapidly changing body and mind.

Entering the dark worlds of Koontz and King gave me so many more places to explore, where the blackest of dreams were not just allowed, but encouraged.

When eventually I found their worlds too frightening to stay inside for long, I sought refuge in my own, where those I had ignored still waited for me.

But my world had changed.

Their frightening worlds were so vivid and so real that I struggled to remain locked inside my own without theirs pushing on the boundaries, trying to get in

 I hid further and deeper inside, but still they would not go, so I began to create guardians that would keep them out.

Fuelled by the worlds of other writers, particularly Whedon and his quest for strong characters to take on the night and win, a new breed of character emerged within my own world, one that could face the dark ones but could even take them on.

As the boundaries became more secure, my world expanded again to include characters with greater depths, acting out their roles and allowing their dramas, both big and small, to be brought forth.

Without me.

I saw them play their scenes out, an observer now of the characters and their lives, sometimes taking part in the action, sometimes content to sit on the sidelines and watch from a distance, always engrossed with their events.

I have visited this ever changing and constantly evolving world for so many years now, with the characters who live and die there, who sometimes just want to dance or sing, and other times want to conquer the mountains or slay the monsters, that it takes little for me to return there.

Yet I am still surprised.

In the middle of writing a chapter, knowing that I need to bring in a necessary character to create tension, to bring intelligence and the sharpness of mind required for the part I need him to play, while understanding that I have done nothing by way of preparation for his character, in he comes.

He walks confidently into the scene, bringing every quality I need him to have, and a few more for good measure, fully-formed, as if he has been there all along, standing in the wings, waiting to be called.

It surprised me.

So much so, that it made me wonder where on earth he could have come from, without any preparation or decision-making on my part, other than selecting his name from a list.

Perhaps once his name was on that list, it was enough to spark a seed in the subconscious and create him from scratch so I would know how he looked, walked, talked, and took his coffee.

Black, if you’re wondering, with two spoons of Demerara sugar.

In fact, he came through so strong that I wondered after I had written him in, whether I should write him out and give him his own series of books.

Can’t have him stealing the spotlight, after all.

But my point, if in fact I have one, is this.

I have never truly understood before how necessary the world I have created is to me, not just in terms of having a place to hide, but also in being a place of making characters and understanding their stories.

Where characters are waiting to be called.

And no-one has to hide.