Scriptor in Laboris

A story for all writers about the love of imaginary worlds, the life of characters, and the fear of putting ourselves out there for the world to read.

She wants to move the pen. More than anything, she does, but at the moment, it’s impossible.

She can see her finished work perfectly in her mind’s eye: Pages filled with grand stories of witches and castles and deep forests and talking horses and frightening villains and the heroine who will blossom with unknown power by the end. She imagines the satisfaction of turning the completed pages one by one, packed so full of potent words in poisonous ink that the oil from her hand barely has room to seep in there and make the pages crinkle like any well-loved book should. When she turns each future page with her future hand, the words are earthy greens, glowing browns, powerful blues, heavenly yellows, ocean-deep reds, and seductive purples. The words twist into trees, bleed into skies, and trickle into people so that now when she looks at her story, it is a picture book; each page woven from a thousand words.

Her fairies wear dresses sewn with spider’s silk and threaded with starlight. Her pirates are women, infamous for their beauty, viciousness, and their scorn of men. Her princes are wild, reckless, arrogant, and utterly lovable. Her world swims with magic, with trees that babble and brooks that whisper; with valleys that throw her protagonists to the ground and mountains that lift them back up. Her elves eat berries rinsed with dew, and her goblins eat mushroom stew spiced with crushed rubies. Her wizards read from centuries-old parchment scrolls, and her animals read the bark of trees.

She visits this world nightly. Before her dreams sweep her away, she wanders the wooded paths, exploring, tasting, smelling; curiosity driving her to ask the squirrels how their families are, to dive as far as she can into a lake to see what the bottom looks like, and to knock at a stranger’s cottage simply to see who lives there. The rules of her world are clearer to her than the laws of the real world, the geography more familiar than her own town, the people closer to her than her own friends.

The time has come, she knows, to release this world from her mind and let it manifest through the words her hand will draw for it. She wept the night the Wizard Wynton told her they deserved to see her world because she has seen so much of theirs. She sits now in her chair, hand hovering over the paper and knowing that it is true, but her mind clenches on the control she has over her world. She is dangling six feet off the ground and unsure of how much the fall will hurt.

The thought of her story filtering through the minds of thousands of readers�"sifting out the subtleties and inundating her story with the impurities of foreign thought�"almost terrifies her into denial of the wise wizard’s words. But that night he knew her thoughts and as she wept, he told her the story of the artist who painted invisible paintings. People would come to admire them, and he would describe to them what the painting looked like. And his visitors would congratulate the artist on a job well done and continue on their way. The paintings were famous because of the artist’s talent for describing their beauty and meaning. But when the artist died, the paintings died also, because people could no longer see them, and no memory remained of them in the history of the town.

That was the story that convinced her to pick up her pen.

Her pen nearly moves, vibrating from the world’s desire that so intensely grip the pen in her hand as though its very life depends on it. Because of course, it does.

But she still does not want to write it. To write this story means bringing conflict and fear and worry to her beloved world. It means pushing her characters�"her children�"into the darkness, and seeing if they can find the light again. She fears the invasion on her creation. She fears the new perceptions and dimensions that will come forth when she lights the match of hardship and trial and sets fire to her story. And she fears not being able to sweep away the ashes to find the baby phoenix at the end of it all.

The novel writer’s responsibility is great. It is easy to describe the setting, the actions, the dialogue, the plot. Too easy. So easy that some are drawn to pick up the pen when they should have left it for more capable hands. Her own hand twitches, wondering if it is the one to write this story, yet knowing it’s the only one that can.

She would know around page thirteen if her characters took on the life she gave them in the physical world as much as the imaginary. By then, always by then, her characters gave her suggestions on what they should say, what their mannerisms are, and if they absolutely would not do what she needed them to do. Are her characters strong enough for that?

She would know around page sixty if her plot was sound. She would know if she had gone too far too fast, or not far enough. As she drew the map of her plot, it would twist of its own accord, surprising her like an overnight snowfall. Sometimes it would break, but sixty is still young enough to fix it.

She would know in the last chapter if she successfully guided her characters through their darkest moments. If she did, they would shine new like polished silver, more beautiful than she remembered, and would astonish her with new reflections of herself. She would know if her world, with her perspective shifted through the eyes of trial, would still be as much fun to visit, now that she knew the horror that was possible there.

Now the Wizard Wynton tells her the story of the young knight who saved his city from a fierce dragon. The knight had trained his whole life to protect his kingdom; he sparred daily with his fellow knights, studied the Knight’s Code religiously, and never failed to follow the orders of his superiors; and when word spread of a dragon settling in the mountain that towered over the knight’s city, he knew he must slay it. His comrades argued against his climbing the mountain to the dragon’s cave at the top, saying, “It is too far, and too high. It would be too much work to go to the dragon; better to wait until it comes down to us so we may save our strength.” But the young knight insisted on going at once, and he set out alone.

On his way up the mountain, the knight tripped and fell many times over sharp rocks; and wolves tried to attack him at night when the cold of the thin air froze his joints and sucked the air from his lungs. When he finally reached the dragon’s lair, he fought with it long and hard. The balls of fire from the dragon’s breath exploded like fireworks over the city, and the people watched and waited for the knight in terror. And finally, after many hours, the dragon fell from the mountain, gushing rivers of blood behind it, and the knight descended victorious. Turning before he reached the city gates, he bowed to the mountain and thanked it for preparing him for his mission, knowing he would not have known his own courage and strength without the tests the mountain had provided.

That was the story that convinced her to touch the pen to the paper.

But what would her readers say; when they found out she enjoyed the romance of fantasy more than the honesty of reality? Would she be able to hide her true self behind the mask of imagination? Would people recognize that Savira’s sharp tongue was an exaggeration of her own most privately-prized trait? Would they realize that every time brave Prince Shayne encountered another foe, it was really her battling her worst fears? Would they know that she desperately wanted Kamaria’s sexual confidence?

To write this story means presenting the world with her deepest secrets and most passionate desires, scantily clad only in a thin veil of fantasy. If someone were to discover how to lift that veil away…could she live the rest of her life with the world knowing her so intimately? She lifts the pen off the paper.

And now the Wizard Wynton tells one last story.

He tells the story of her world.

He tells of how their world came into existence, out of the heart of one passionate young woman. He tells of how their world started as a picture�"just a sketch of pencils�"and how, as she learned the texture of their skin, the thickness of their hair (or fur), and the colors of their eyes, their world became a watercolor.

When the people and the animals told her their names, and when she knew the map of their lands, then the watercolor became an oil painting. And then the oil painting gradually became a photograph as she began to understand the emotions that governed their hearts and the beliefs that guided their actions. Like a stained glass window, the photograph depicted action and stories with shining, rich depth; but they all knew it was a clever illusion made of thin, immovable fragments that could only bring life where life was carefully assembled.

True vitality finally came when she knew the Pilgrim’s life story, even though he refused to tell it to anyone else, and when she knew the real reason why fireworks frightened Dr. Wolf. Before they could have soul, stoic Tara needed to melt down and cry into her lap, and Lily Lizard needed to confide her real name and why she kept it secret. Not until she knew details more intimate than a lover’s did her characters truly breathe life and cease to be a mere photograph.

“How would our lives be possible if we didn’t share them with you?” Wizard Wynton asks. “Just as our world would be isolated, bleak, and colorless without our confessions to you…how likewise is your life without confessions to others?”

She stares at him, words too stunned to form, and she feels as though Prince Shayne’s sword has been pushed through her gut as the utter truth of the question slowly crushes her under its weight of stone. The Wizard smiles gently, trying to soothe the hurt.

“Quality of a person is not determined by her flaws, but by how she handles her flaws. Your readers will not hate you for seeing you through the richness of us�"they will love you because of it.”

Breathing in trembles, a tear falls onto the page. She bites her lip and slowly, she nods.

The Wizard Wynton smiles, and she begins to write.