Anyone ever fall in love with one of their characters?

[Swilly]

I've recently written and submitted the first installment of a story, and I'm working on the second installment. I swear I think I've fallen in love with one of the characters. I suppose this isn't so unusual, because ideas for characters and events often come from out minds and hearts and past experiences. But still. Crazy.

 

[Acktion]

I don't think it's all that crazy. Or even that unusual.

Think for just a moment about how much you know about the supporting characters in the story of your life. Especially think about the ones that are, or have been, your romantic interests. How much do you truly know about them? Odds are not as much as a character you created.

No matter how much you pay attention, no matter how much you want to know, there is always some aspect of that which we call real life that we are not present for and can not know.

When we create a character, that isn't true. We are there for every moment that exists for them. Nothing can happen to them that we have not thought of it and do not know. Even if things happen to them that the reader is never made aware of, we as the writer know them.

Now, ask yourself where the character comes from. We may claim that it comes from someone we know. But, does it really? Or does it just come from our idealized notion of that person?

If we want another character (and readers) to like the character that we create, then we must first like the character we create. And so, we create them to be liked by us. And even loved.

No, I don't think it's that strange at all.

On the other hand, if you ever find yourself alone with a print out of your own story, not a stitch of clothing on, and a half a pound of butter. Yeah, that might be considered strange by most.

 

[lovecraft68]

Megan from my swb series is based on someone that was dear to me in my late teens.

The reason Megan became sober and ultimately received a happy ending was because the real Megan died at 24 of an overdose

So my lit Megan does have a place in my heart because she became the Megan that should have been

 

[StrangeLife]

It's even happens to the pros.

For instance you clearly sense an infatuation that transcends the fourth wall by Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey), Laurell K. Hamiton (Micah and Nathaniel... mmm... actually most of her male cast), P. D. James (Adam Dalgliesh), Maria Lang (Christer Wijk) and Patricia Cornwell (Benton Wesley) .

It seems to be most pronounced in female writers. I can't really think of any male examples...

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I've become attached to characters. I liked Yesenia from Desperate Measures: The Baller so much that I wrote a sequel giving her a HEA. The original story left her in a rather compromised position, and I felt that she deserved better.

In another story the female lead was supposed to kill the male lead in her escape from confinement. But I liked the two of them together so much that I changed the ending--twice--in order to leave the possibility of a reunion someday. In that case it wasn't either one of them, but the two together that I found so compelling.

 

[A_Little_Show]

[deleted]

 

[sr71plt]

Sure, I've fallen in love with a few of mine.

 

[Hypoxia]

Many of my submissions are based on my late uncle's journal accounts, with real people (thinly disguised), and yes, I have fallen in love with some of them, some of whom I have personally known (but not fucked), and others I only know from the journals.

Of my totally fictional stories, many characters are based on real people, but I don't really feel a 'love' attraction to them, maybe because they aren't very lovable.

 

[sr71plt]

There are different forms of love, of course. It can be a different form from lust. For instance, my "Wolf Creek" novel serialized on Lit. was done from familial love and respect for a life well, if racily, lived. I wanted to capture and honor the life of my paternal grandmother (who experienced much of what was covered in the novel, although certainly not all--she never made it to the jungles of Southeast Asia. But she did do more of what's in there, with more notable people given characters in there, than one would suppose. And I wanted to capture that--something that couldn't really be openly written about).

 

[jehoram]

I haven't exactly fallen in love with my characters. I was in love with them before I started writing about them.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to see the way some of them developed as the stories progressed. I wonder: were they already doing that in my head before the stories were written, or did the act of writing bring them out? A little of both, I think.

And since all of my characters spring from my mind, or are developed inside my mind without external references, falling in love with them is really falling in love with myself. The ultimate in narcissism, or in literary masturbation, if you look at it another way.

 

[THROBBS]

Totally.
Pygmalion and Galatea

Whether I am drawing or writing women, I draw (or write) women that I have known or loved or want to know or love.

I even have a drawing of that phenomenon (Pygmalion and Galatea), a steam punk version. I believe I called it "making love".

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's even happens to the pros.

For instance you clearly sense an infatuation that transcends the fourth wall by Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey), Laurell K. Hamiton (Micah and Nathaniel... mmm... actually most of her male cast), P. D. James (Adam Dalgliesh), Maria Lang (Christer Wijk) and Patricia Cornwell (Benton Wesley) .

It seems to be most pronounced in female writers. I can't really think of any male examples...

Also, Anne Rice with Lestat, who was partly based on her husband Stan. And Jacqueline Carey with Phaedre.

For me, as a reader, it tends to be a turn-off. I stopped reading both Rice and Carey because they got obsessed with telling me how wonderful their Mary Sue was and how everybody in the universe fell in love with them. ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD. But apparently millions of other readers liked it enough to keep buying.

But I still like DLS's Peter Wimsey stuff. I think that's because she (and Harriet Vane) are cautious about that infatuation; Harriet loves Wimsey but she refuses to marry him until she can do it without compromising her own intellectual independence.

 

[sr71plt]

Of course Peter Wimsey is at least neuter if not bi or gay.

(And I chuckled at the thought that Pat Cornwall would be in love with a male character.)

 

[lovecraft68]

Also, Anne Rice with Lestat, who was partly based on her husband Stan.

Hopefully for her sake, Stan whined and wept far less than Lestat.

 

[SamScribble]

I'm not sure that I would go so far as to say 'fall in love', but there are several of my characters who I would be more that happy to have lunch with.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I think you're all an episode of Dr. Phil waiting to happen. Or Jerry Springer, if any of your characters live in mobile homes.

Q_C

 

[MSTarot]

I have a character that is based on someone I was in love with... so in a round about way, Yes.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think you're all an episode of Dr. Phil waiting to happen. Or Jerry Springer, if any of your characters live in mobile homes.

Q_C

To me Springer is 100 times more credible than that ambulance chasing con artist who owes his entire career to Oprah.

But man would I love a half hour with him. fuck his mind up really good

I am not kidding about the con artist part. Read up on him arrested in the 70's for bilking people out of money.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Of course Peter Wimsey is at least neuter if not bi or gay.

Give or take the bit where he pursues Harriet for several books and they end up having five children. Unless Bunter helped out there ;-)

He certainly has a campy vibe, but to me that reads more as "upper-class Englishman trying to pass as a twit". I could believe bi, though.

(And I chuckled at the thought that Pat Cornwall would be in love with a male character.)

Why so? I know Cornwell's married to a woman these days, but she was married to a guy for nine years, and doesn't seem to have ruled out "bi": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...l-Powerful-women-are-more-likely-to-kill.html

Hopefully for her sake, Stan whined and wept far less than Lestat.

Is it physically possible for any real human to whine as much as Lestat?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

No I fell in love with the women who became characters in my stories.

 

[StrangeLife]

(And I chuckled at the thought that Pat Cornwall would be in love with a male character.)

Benton as a concept - not the dude

Initially I sensed the same thing about Lucy Farinelli, but after reading her later books I scrapped the idea. Lucy is more like pats own avatar in the books... not her crush.


And Peter Winsey marries a girl. Just saying...

 

[sr71plt]

And Peter Winsey marries a girl. Just saying...

Oh, how naïve we can be on Literotica. (So did I.)

 

[sr71plt]

Why so? I know Cornwell's married to a woman these days, but she was married to a guy for nine years, and doesn't seem to have ruled out "bi": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...l-Powerful-women-are-more-likely-to-kill.html

Cornwall has always done what she needed to do to get what she wants. She breezed through my neighborhood, leaving havoc in her wake (the married female agent Cornwall got her info on the FBI Quantico facility from--and waltzed away as the agent's husband was taking a minister hostage to lure his wife and Cornwall to a shooting match; and there was the scandal with the Virginia governor's wife . . .) She's about as fundamentally a lesbian as anyone I've seen at a cocktail party (not because of the local antics as much as because of what the whole package shows when encountered in person).

 

[StrangeLife]

Cornwall has always done what she needed to do to get what she wants. She breezed through my neighborhood, leaving havoc in her wake (the married female agent Cornwall got her info on the FBI Quantico facility from--and waltzed away as the agent's husband was taking a minister hostage to lure his wife and Cornwall to a shooting match; and there was the scandal with the Virginia governor's wife . . .)..

Sounds like her biography would be more entertaining than her books...

 

[sr71plt]

Sounds like her biography would be more entertaining than her books...

I agree. I stopped reading her Scarpetta books because the character was so morose that I wanted to slap her.