Once you begin a story, you create a whole other world. You create a kingdom, a parallel universe, a city, a world. You create the characters, their personalities, their lives to that point. You create their problems, their hangups. You choose whether to give them the abilities to deal with said problems or not. It is up to the author to dictate the plot.
Or so we think.
you see there are times when an author finds that he has written a character who will not obey. When pen touches paper suddenly the character seems to have a mind of his own. He has come to life and will not follow the actions that the author envisioned. He will not obey. He has a mind of his own. The actions you saw so clearly no longer fit. The character wil not ford the river. He will not battle the dragon. She will not marry the prince. They will simply not obey. The actions you would choose for them, no longer seem appropriate.
The world is not as perfect as you had imagined. There are creatures you did not know about. Villains that you did not create, lurk in dark corners...
This is the nature of fiction. This is the nature of writing, of life itself. Nothing is as it seems. The ordinary is extraordinary. If you stop writing mid story, your world will not remain stationary. Your characters will not remain still. No, you have breathed life into them. You cannot make them stop living.
Pen to paper. It is a very powerful spell. Creation.
You must beware what you write. You must take caution, for once you've given words written form, once the story has been given life, it cannot be taken away. Whether or not you finish, the story will go on. If you leave a story half written, half read, the story will keep living and changing without you. Once pen has been put to paper, the world is real. It exists.
Happy Ever After is not the end.
Your world exists in the realm of blank paper in ink, but it exists just as vividly as your own world, your own reality. Sometimes crossing paths with waking and sleeping dreams. Leave the world alone for too long, ignore your world and characters for too long and you will find that everything has changed.
When you try to begin again, to finish your story, give your characters some kind of ending, you may be too late. In your absence the characters have changed. They have a mind of their own. The world will fill itself to fullness. YOu will have a hard time finding the right thread. So finish your stories.
But remember, even when done, when you have run out of words and you are happy with your endings, your characters are not done living.
Your ending does not snuff out their existence.
They exist, live beyond Happy ever after.
Their stories do not end with your "the end". No. As soon as the ink has dried, they will continue as if you had never been. You will be but a distant God who has disappeared from their midsts, who no longer guides and shifts them on their paths.
They will live and die and continue on their journies from where you left them.
Words, inked o paper are powerful. Once upon a time is the beginning of a whole story, of a whole world, not just of the characters you create and control but of the minor figures who you create as simple tols, filling in empty spaces in your world.
Once written they cannot be unwritten and once you have paused your pen, there is no telling where your characters will go and do, despite your best intentions. You will never know which minor character will suddenly rise and play a starring role. Once the ink is dry, all bets are off. The story will continue with a mind of its own.
They will go on living and breathing within the blank pages that you didn't think to fill.
And I, I will cronicle them. I will keep their journals and pages. I who watch the words form from the first to the last will keep their records and hold their stories. I will observe. I will follow even when you've finished. Even when you think everything is just right, and that there is no more to be told, I am here to watch.
I am at the beginning and ending of each tale, an observer of the changes.
Each once upon a time is the beginning and I watch, I see. I watch you love, develop and neglect each character in kind. I see your created world even when you do not.
Each beginning is a gust of wind with the force of your imagination. I feel the wind stregthen and ebb through the telling and then watch once the characters are left to their own devices. I check on them, root for them, hope that they find the happy endings and good of their worlds. I hope that they will not be left to the evils lurkings in darkness.
I am not supposed to care.
This is what I do.
I am a watcher, not a storyteller, not a weaver of words.
I see the beginnings and endings. I watch the stories and worlds develop from there.
I celebrate triumphs, I despair with the losses. I despise most villains, but rejoice when they redeem themselves, when they prove that a spark of good does exist. I cry when the heroes cannot maintain the good in their souls. I cry when they turn to another way of being.
I am not supposed to.
I am supposed to watch.
But you writers never create perfect worlds.
You create drama and imperfection. You write sadness and misery, jealousy too. There is always something hiding, waiting to be exposed by the unsuspecting. Good cannot always win. Some worlds will inevitably die and become barren. Others willl thrive. But time moves them forward, good and bad come in repetitious waves.
I watch and journal it all.
It is what I do.
I grow tired and old. And I only watch, I do not live these tumoultuos lives.
Whoever wrote my part, did me an injustice. I must watch and wait. I do not interact.
I am an outsider to all of the stories. I watch.
My own story is mindnumbing. My own story has no progression. I watch and wait.
I am one of a kind, I think. I sit at the top of the world and watch the worlds of words as they live and change. All the while wishing... hoping.
Centuries ago, when I began, I did not want anything else. I had no desire, little feeling. I just was. I just existed as a cronicler.
But now, each story brings me a desire to live, to love, to be... Wants and needs that I did not feel before.
I have watched for a milenia and soon, I think soon, I will be done. My spirit longs to be free, to be part of something new. I do not know what my author intended. I do not know if she wanted me to change, to grow. I was born to watch. I was not born with the desire for adventure. But now each story has left me wanting... wanting to be part... wanting something more than the solitude of observation. I want to be part... to be one of the characters.
I am almost there.
It is almost... It is almost time to leave... I will begin a journey of my own writing. My author, won't she be surprised. Because we watchers, once we have seen enough stories, once we have observed enough beginnings and endings come and go on the wind, we can choose.
I will leave this quiet place, probably forever. The previous watcher, she left as well and has yet to come back. I don't think I will either. Or maybe I will. My author has left me alone so I will choose. Soon I will choose.
For now I will keep watching and waiting for the right moment and the right story.
