Dr. Forsteader analyzed each person that entered the room as if they were characters. And they were in a way. He’d made a life out of telling stories, but in reality, he considered himself a master of deception. He had never created a character a day in his life, simply observed a person long enough to boil down their DNA. From there, he just transposed them into words and let them wear a costume in his work; sometimes of an artist, or a knight, and sometimes a hero.

This new crop of creative writers that wandered, wide eyed, into his room seemed wholly uninteresting. Too many scarves, and leather bags, not to mention the barrage of wire rim glasses. He wasn’t mad at the look. In fact, it was a look he himself employed to distinguish himself as this semi-elusive breed—writer.

But he’d learned long ago that writers made for poor characters. They, at their core, were heroes all too aware that they were heroes. Narratives were quite plain to them, sprawled like a road map. A character conscious of the puppet strings governing their actions was no puppet at all. And a puppet without stings was just a person—and people were the worst characters of all.

And yet here he was, surrounded by his own kind.

No wonder he was such a terrible writer.