A Character in Reality

by Nicholas Bridgman

What would you do if a character in a novel you wrote actually came to life? What if the character learned his whole reality was just a construct created by you, the story’s narrator? In A Character in Reality, Detective Gladstone, a fictional character from the narrator’s Flaming Locket series, gains consciousness and steps out of a novel into reality. He adjusts to the real world with the narrator’s help, picking up insights along the way about what it means to be human. He eventually becomes too real to exist in the narrator’s fiction and is stranded in reality, taking up acting as a profession. He likes this work because he can be fully directed and have pre-written lines to say, just like in fiction. But when he becomes too famous, people catch on that he was originally a character from a novel, and an extremist anti-illegal immigrant group does not want him living in reality. The group believes that characters from a book belong in a book, not in the real world. Gladstone must face down the group’s leader and in so doing fully self-actualize, becoming a much loved American hero in the process.

ebook

Published September 5, 2016

About the author

Nicholas holds a B.A. in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley.  He has written numerous essays for the major, as well as for scientific research for his Ecology degree.  After graduating, he took up writing fiction, and he has written over 50 short stories and a novel.

Reviews

[Sandra Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Gladstone is a detective trying to infiltrate a drug and Trojan horse conspiracy. Actually, he’s a fictional character from a crime thriller novel, and, lately, he hasn’t liked what’s been written for him. So, you see him, literally, battling with the author A.K.A. “the narrator” right from the start.

“Robert was the only one who had found out—the only one astute enough to see that the narrator did not always make him speak and think as he really spoke and thought. He was observant, he really listened to his own words, he could tell something was controlling him, directing him, some supernatural force beyond his world.” (7)

“Was there really such a person as a creator, a writer, who made everything?” (11)

Having had enough of the fictional world, Robert soon finds himself in the real world, controlling his own dialogue and movements, feeling what it’s like to be real.

I liked the idea of a fictional character coming to life. Yes, we writers like to think that our characters take a life of their own, but that’s in the world of fiction. What happens when you take these characters out of their world and bring them here? How would they react? What would they feel? What would they say? What would they do?

“There is a whole new potential for me out there, in your world. Things us characters could never even have dreamed of: free will, consciousness, independence, opportunity— the opportunity to be anyone, to become anyone, that I could ever want to be.” (11)

Throughout the book, the narrator tries to teach the character how to acclimate in the real world through breathing, exercise, and standard living. Let’s face it, to exist out here, you need to learn how to survive. It was fun seeing Robert trying to adjust to our way of life. Still, he was a character in a book and had to go back to finish the story. So he was living two stories at once.

But, then the character realizes that life in reality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For one thing, working a real job can be boring and uneventful. True dat! At that point, he decides he would rather go back into the novel instead of living an insipid, soulless life in reality. Until he realizes that he can’t go back, so, instead he seeks acting as a way to fill the void of fiction. It’s a classic tale of “the grass ain’t always greener on the other side.”

Story is a well-written and enjoyable account of a character lost in reality! One that made him question which was more real—playing a fictional character in reality or playing a real character in fiction?

Things become grislier when the violence and crime sprees he experienced in novels transcend into the real world. Suddenly, it’s an issue of immigration and it results in acts of terrorism. Life turns to fiction and fiction turns to life. It’s a cross-over gone wrong. The only thing that didn’t captivate me as much was the political aspect, but, luckily, it doesn’t take much precedence.

A CHARACTER IN REALITY is such a simple and intriguing story.

[Ashley Tomlinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good story about tolerance of Illegal Immigration and I think a lot of people should read this. It's the opposite of how most people would think, why would a fictional character want to live in reality? Everyone else thinks the other way because there are a few fictional worlds I would live in if I could. *cough cough Harry Potter cough cough*

Robert Gladstone breaks out of his fictional world to live in reality. Away from his narrator and all on his own. In the real world, he becomes a celebrity until people figure out where he's really from. Things get tough then as people fight to send him back where he came from.

It's a quick read that I think a lot of people need to read.