When Fictional Characters Become Real People: What My Readers Taught Me

How first-person POV helped me write real people, not plot devices

“Is the hollandaise as good as Brandon's?"

My husband, Mike, asked me this question over breakfast while on vacation last month, and I was initially confused. Brandon? Which Brandon? I mentally scrolled through our friends and family, trying to place who he was talking about. Then it hit me—he was referring to a scene in my novel Next Time where one of my characters makes hollandaise sauce. He was talking about Brandon as if he were a real person whose cooking we could actually compare.

I paused mid-bite, fork halfway to my mouth, struck by how naturally Mike had referenced a fictional character as a real person.

I thought Mike was unique in this regard. He is my biggest fan, after all, and as he's my husband, I discount his praises because he loves me in spite of all my less-than-perfect attributes. When he talks about my characters like they're real people, I figured it was just loving spousal bias.

But then I read this review of Out of Time from Brandee of the #bookloungereviewteam:

"What really appealed to me as a reader were the little details that were shared instead of told. Whimsical details such as Maddie and Nate discovering they both have a love of Monty Python quotes are important additions that many authors leave out in favor of constant action. Murray has a unique talent of letting us unabashedly and unobtrusively peek into the lives of the characters as they live their lives, learn from past mistakes, and swear to not make same mistakes in the present."

Reading that, I got an inkling that Mike might be onto something.

The reviewer's phrase about "unabashedly and unobtrusively peeking into lives" made me think about my writing process. I don't feel like I'm creating characters so much as I'm living inside their heads. And maybe that's because I write in first person POV.

Here's the thing about first person – you can't fake it. When I'm writing as Maddie, I'm not watching her from the outside, plotting what she should do next. I'm literally thinking her thoughts, experiencing her reactions to the people and events unfolding, and feeling her connecting with Nate when she discovers they both quote Monty Python. The same is true when I switch to Nate's chapters. I have to become him - think like a lawyer who's lost his wife, or a young man torn between obligation and attraction. It's like having multiple personalities, except they're all characters I'm responsible for making real. Those details don't come from me deciding "I should add a quirky detail here." They emerge because I'm inhabiting their minds, and that's what they notice.

It's like method acting, but for writers. And just like actors who stay in character between takes, sometimes I find myself still thinking like my characters even when I'm not writing. Which explains why I can predict what Nate would order at a restaurant, or how I know exactly how Maddie would react to a particular situation.

Mike noticed this firsthand during that same vacation. He told me he'd been watching me while I wrote longhand in my notebook by the resort pool, and that I was smiling and frowning as if I was experiencing the story as I wrote it. The truth is – I was. When Nate makes Maddie laugh, I can't help but smile. When she's frustrated or hurt, it shows on my face. I'm not just writing about emotions; I'm feeling them alongside my characters.

Writing in first person means I can't hide behind narrative distance. I can't just tell you that Maddie is feeling nervous – I have to experience her nervousness from the inside, which means showing it through her internal monologue, her scattered thoughts, the way she notices details she'd normally ignore. The mundane stuff that makes people real.

This has been especially challenging with the Maddie and Nate series because I've had to inhabit both Maddie and Nate at different ages across the timeline variations. Writing 78-year-old Maddie in Out of Time required me to think with the accumulated wisdom and impatience of someone who's lived through decades of experience. But then I'd switch to Nate's perspective - his grief, his careful kindness, his way of seeing possibility in small moments. Middle-aged Maddie in Next Time has different concerns, different internal filters, while middle-aged Nate wrestles with duty versus desire in entirely different ways than his older self. Young Maddie in the upcoming Our Time sees the world through entirely different eyes - and so will young Nate. But they're all authentically themselves because I'm experiencing each version from the inside.

The funny thing is, characters sometimes won't cooperate when you're writing first person. I'll have a scene plotted out, knowing exactly what should happen, but then I'm in Maddie's head and she just... wouldn't do that. Or she'd react differently than I planned. It's like having an argument with yourself, except the other person is also you, and they're usually right.

Maybe that's why readers feel like they're "peeking into lives" rather than being told a story. When you're writing from inside a character's consciousness, all those little authentic details just spill out naturally. You don't plan to mention that someone quotes Monty Python – it just comes up in their mental conversation because that's how real people think, in tangents and connections and random associations.

As I work on Our Time, the third book in the series, I'm still amazed by this process. I'm still that same person who had no confidence that she knew what she was doing when she started writing. But I think I stumbled onto something with first person POV that works, even if I didn't understand why in the beginning.

And the next time Mike asks if my cooking measures up to one of my fictional characters, I'll know immediately which Brandon he means. When readers start treating your characters as real people with real opinions about hollandaise sauce, you must be doing something right.

Even if you're still not entirely sure what that something is.

Thank you to Brandee of the #bookloungereviewteam for her thoughtful review. If anyone is interested in reading her full review, she's posted it on both Goodreads and Amazon.