I always think of the word 'abandonment' when I think of the character.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
They say that abandonment is a wound that never heals. I say only that an abandoned child never forgets.
The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.
Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.
I have always written about characters who fall somewhere in the spectrum between solitary and totally alienated.
The characters I'm most emotionally involved with are like friends you leave behind when you move away. You don't see them regularly anymore, but you still love them and keep in touch.
I guess you could say that no matter what the characters are enduring, I try to make them retain their humanity. Their self-absorbed, grouchy, selfish, aggravating humanity.
I am not so different in my history of abandonment from anyone else after all. We have all been split away from the earth, each other, ourselves.
After a while, the character sort of took over.
I think that you always have something left, that you take something of the character with you.
I never like to think of any character as being over. I'm always thinking of different ways of bringing them back.