The true test of talent for a
fiction writer is the ability to imagine pain, angst, despair, discouragement,
frustration as well as joy, ecstasy, elation and pleasure. This is the power
that runs the machine of character creation that lies at the very heart of
storytelling.
As we fiction practitioners
understand, craft can be learned, but without the innate power of the
imagination the characters that power stories become merely stick figures in a
charade bereft of emotional content, a pallid portrayal of clichés that offer
the reader no window into the search for truth that is the bedrock motivation
of the serious fiction writer.
