illusion of independent agency

"When discussing the writing process, many fiction authors describe developing personal relationships with their characters and having imagined conversations with them (Watkins, 1990), very much like the relationships children describe with their imaginary companions (Taylor, 1999). One of the insights gained from examining such anecdotal reports of adult authors is that fictional characters can be experienced by their creators as having their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. In fact, some authors report that at times, writing fiction is not as much an act of creation as it is documentation of a life completely independent of their own invention. The experience of this sort of autonomy in fictional characters is referred to as the illusion of independent agency."