The intimacy of novel writing

While looking deeper into the childhood of my witch, I wonder how close I am supposed to feel towards any character I‘m writing about.

Well,of course I have as close to me as stealing my cupcakes and wearing my dead grandmothers night dress can be, but here I am having more general thoughts.

Thinking of my witch, I can picture her as a child, already being prepared for the fine life of a wealthy citizen in a late medieval city. I can picture her being furious about having to comb her curly hair, and her skeptical view into a fine mirror framed in copper, when comparing her curls to her sister’s straight her shimmering in candle light. And I can also picture the first drop of blood to stain her night dress one morning, once she had grown up suddenly so fast.

It was during my time at the theater that one of their writers stated during a coffee and a deep discussion about their new play that looking into a character‘s bedroom was not cool and everyone around agreed while I was very quiet.
Keeping the curtains closed seemed so meaningless in my understanding of art. I was yearning for all of these real moments!

And still, sometimes I feel torn towards my habit of imagining it all. Imagining them growing up, only to send them down a journey that, as long as I‘m the writer in charge, is pretty dark.

After picturing her growing up, I see her body being ripped apart by just another miscarriage. I see her screaming for her life between blood sheets. I see her waking up on one of those days just too dull to even be remembered. And I see her falling down onto her kitchen floor once the really bad news hit. She is wearing a blue gown on top of her white night dress, and while falling down is taking a blue plate with her. I hear her gasp for air, and can almost feel the sweaty hair sticking to her forehead. And I feel the memory of and yearning for a love running through that same body and setting it on fire.

Is this the right way to go?
Or are there things that are just too much?
I feel as if I need to know about their first period, their first love, and even their first orgasm when having their firs crush, probably going terribly wrong! Almost as if I need to sense their emotions as true as stains of blood between the pages.
It may be because I tend to tell whole biographies. Almost never have I been satisfied with just a short adventure. I like to understand the life of a person.
And all of these things make a life real.

My connection to my main characters seems to be of this same nature in each case. With my witch, it has been the most intense and most meaningful so far, but in those tales I worked on before her, I also had at least one character like her. One person, I knew everything about. One person so close to me, I could picture and feel their whole life. I could recall how their whole life would feel, could identify its rhythm. And each of them always has something unique I am lacking of. A certain kind of humor, a special kind of bravery … Or in the case of my witch, the ability of having lived a life in a world that was set to deny just that.

My relationship to my main characters is a very intimate one. Inventing them is almost like summoning a best friend who shares all their deepest secrets with me, and I look up to them for surviving their tale for as long as they can.

How do you feel towards your main characters?