On Dumbledore

Significant in the “Dumbledore” story is exactly the way Rowling put it. “I’ve always seen Dumbledore as gay.” While many books about craft talk about “scripting characters” giving them entire bios, resumes, lists of hobbies, etc., I think that we as writers have to let our characters reveal themselves to us. When I start writing, I don’t know everything about my characters, just as I don’t know everything about people I meet, when I first meet them, but as I create stronger relationships, when I dig deep enough, my characters begin to reveal more of themselves to me.

As writers, we need to take those risks–with our characters, and with ourselves. Scripting can be helpful, but only if it allows us to go beyond the surface detail of the group introduction. I personally can’t even develop much of a script until I see my characters in action, and even then the script keeps changing; that’s what keeps my characters alive and human. And readers also help to create characters. They bring themselves and their own experience into our characters, interpreting them or the events in which they participate, in ways that may have been different from how we originally intended, and yet are just as valid as our own interpretations. I know that Rowling is a different type of writer than I am, and might have had Dumbledore’s sexuality figured out from Book 1. But if I had created Dumbledore, I might not have even known his sexual orientation until I’d written my way through Book 7, and even then, it might have been something as vague as a hint that could be interpreted in a number of ways that would satisfy the outcome of the story.

Sometimes people ask me what happens to Halina in Escaping Into the Night. All I can say is that the book stops where it stops. Readers are welcome to take what they know about Halina and create their own musings as to what might have happened to her after World War II. In my mind, she lives and grows from her bravery. But that’s just how I “see” her. It’s only a piece of the experience.