A sincere question about the novelist’s characters: What could explain the novelist’s experience of characters who have minds of their own?

Imagination?

But novelists say that characters have their own ideas and imagination, different from the novelist’s, which is what is meant by a character’s having a mind of its own.

The unconscious?

But the character and novelist are conscious of each other.

Artistic Inspiration?

But what explains characters having their own inspirations?

Metaphor or Joke?

But many novelists truly experience some of their characters as having minds of their own.

I don’t want to continue with my theory—that novelists have a normal version of multiple personality—if you have another, equally good or better, theory.

So, please, click the word “comments” in the gray area at the end of this post, and give your explanation for characters who have minds of their own.