Finding freedom in fiction

When I wrote my eighty thousand word draft, I was in a job I no longer enjoyed. My days had very little space in them, and very little freedom. I felt stuck, and I felt it every day.

Looking back, I can see that some of that frustration found its way onto the page. My character was stuck in a job too, and I spent months working out what she wanted, what she was afraid of, and what it would take for her to get free. By the end of the book, she does.

What I didn't expect was what happened next. Since finishing the draft, I have left that job myself. Things I gave my character to work through, I seem to have moved through in my own life too. Some of the heavy feelings I was carrying at the time no longer sit with me the way they did.

I can't say the writing caused any of this. Life is never that tidy. But I do think fiction gave me something I couldn't easily find anywhere else, which was distance. When a feeling belongs to a character, you can look at it more calmly. You can ask what it wants and where it might go next, in a way that is much harder when the feeling is only yours.

It reminds me of something I often say to writers. You already carry the emotional understanding your story needs. Sometimes the story then hands a little of it back.

So I'm curious. Has a character you have written, or one you love reading, ever gone somewhere you were still working up to yourself?