P. D. James (post 3) on Characters and Fiction Writing Process: “It feels as if what I am doing is not inventing them but getting in touch with them”

“And however well I think I know my characters, they reveal themselves more clearly during the writing of the book, so that at the end, however carefully and intricately the work is plotted, I never get exactly the novel I planned. It feels, indeed, as if the characters and everything that happens to them exists in some limbo of the imagination, so that what I am doing is not inventing them but getting in touch with them and putting their story down in black and white, a process of revelation, not of creation” (1, pp. 157-158).

What kind of known psychological entity could these imaginary characters be if they feel to writers more like people they get to know than like puppets they had invented? Hint: alternate personalities are imaginary characters that seem more like people you get to know than like puppets you had invented.

1. P. D. James. Talking About Detective Fiction. New York, Vintage/Random House, 2009/2011.