Alternate realities

When we enter the world of our stories we are in an alternate reality.  We have to see the world of our story through the eyes of our characters.  It's their thoughts and reactions to the events that happen in their world that we're writing about.

We need to inhabit their bodies.  Have you ever come out of of a movie theatre at the end of the film feeling like the main character?  I have.  My car has become a spaceship travelling the galaxy, and I've become some tough heroine who fears nothing and no-one.  We've become totally absorbed in the world of the movie for two hours and our minds are still there.

We need to get lost in our writing the same way. It should be an immersive experience for us where we feel our viewpoint character's heartbeat, smell the flames from the fire nearby, feel their exhaustion after a long trek.  We have to go inside our characters' minds, suffer their fears and despairs.

Part of the pain of finishing a book we love is centred around having to let that alternate reality go.  We're no long adventuring with our heroine, we have to go home and cook dinner, pay the bills, pick up the kids.

But as writers at least we do get to live in worlds of our making for some of the time, places that we control and want to be in.  And often none of these realities apply to the real world.

Alternate worlds can be our refuge as writers, allowing us to work out issues we're troubled by, showing us how things could be if only something changed.  And if we do our work right our alternative worlds are important to our readers do.  They might show them something relevant to their own lives and leave them feeling that they understand themselves and the world better.