When a tree joined us for lunch

The winter sun blasted itself through the restaurant window warming us even more than the miso soup.

My writer friend turned to me. “Can a character really change?”

We launched into a discussion that took us through the sushi, the brochettes, and the complimentary saki served in paper thin porcelain cups that when the saki was added a naked man was revealed on the bottom of the cup.

We racked our brains for how we had changed, or how we had observed change in others. We discussed how events might change people such as an Iraqi veteran suffering post traumatic stress syndrome and other events far less dramatic than a war.

We acknowledged that in fiction the character has to change or evolve. In fact, we need to put our characters into situations where they rise or don’t to the problem.

But…but…does that mean the basic character changes?

We still didn’t have an answer.

Outside the window was a huge tree. We came up with an analogy. (I have a friend who choses friends if they speak analogy because she knows they will be able to communicate well.)
That tree started out as a seed.

How a seed grows depends on where it is planted. The seed that created the large tree in the parking lot flourished because it had plenty of sunlight and water, but had it been covered in earth in a dense forest it might be stunted. If it had been carried on the wind to a desert it might never have grown at all. Had a tornado or an extra strong bise blown it might have been uprooted.

Then again it had undergone changes, seasons of being in bloom then losing its leaves, branches pruned. If one major branch had been cut would the nutrients that flowed from its roots make the other branches stronger?

Yet…that tree would never be a zebra, bird, fish or any other living creature. It would always be a tree. And neither my friend nor I were good enough botanists to determine which kind of tree it was, especially in its leafless state.

We knew it would never be a pine or spruce. It was destined to be whatever kind of tree its genetic make up decreed.

So then maybe the answer is characters can adapt to their life situation to make our writing interesting, but the base is always there. And maybe that is as true in real life as it is in our writing.