Self injection

[Kantarii]

I don’t think I’m the only person to inject aspects of myself into more than one of the characters I create, some more than others. I do have one character in a couple of my stories that mirrors me as a person: personality, attitude, thinking, fears, fantasies, vision, etc.

To the other writers here: Do you inject aspects of yourself into the characters you bring to life and to what extent?Kant

 

[Kojak01]

To the other writers here: Do you inject aspects of yourself into the characters you bring to life and to what extent?Kant

Yes, I do. To varying extents.

 

[weftandwarp]

I don’t think I’m the only person to inject aspects of myself into more than one of the characters I create, some more than others. I do have one character in a couple of my stories that mirrors me as a person: personality, attitude, thinking, fears, fantasies, vision, etc.

To the other writers here: Do you inject aspects of yourself into the characters you bring to life and to what extent?Kant

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It's difficult. I can't because I have an aggressive stalker. Very unpleasant. I put things in my stories to confuse my stalker. It hurts that I have to do that. I once wrote a series of stories about a boy who was feckless and very lateral who was me. I can't do that any more and I loved him because he helped me to understand myself.

I find I do though, in a different way. My characters are all very independant. Often they are very lateral in their thinking, to the point of being disjointed. They're often shy, honest, isolated and socially awkward. For the geek thing coming up I have two stories ready to submit that have a lot of me in them. The stories are a risk because they may identify me. In both, the protagonist is committed to one thing and pursues it with a dedicated energy almost to the exclusion of every thing else. It has always been my way. It isn't always successful, I hasten to add. At the moment I'm between things and am taking the necessary deep breaths before I start the new one.

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

To the other writers here: Do you inject aspects of yourself into the characters you bring to life and to what extent?Kant

I give my characters virtues that I wish I possessed. They tend to be more confident, more thoughtful, or smarter than me. They have things in their lives that I lack. I write characters that I aspire to be.

Is that the same thing? Are my aspirations aspects of myself? Not sure. I guess that's open to interpretation.

On the other hand, I do like good beer, and so do many of my characters. So there's that.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Sometimes. But one of the reasons I write is to get away from myself.

 

[ElectricBlue]

To the other writers here: Do you inject aspects of yourself into the characters you bring to life and to what extent?Kant

I'm lazy. All my men are pretty much me. Alex is the younger me, 18 to early thirties, Adam is the older fantasy-side me, fifties onwards. What they get up to is their fictional luxury, but their essence is mine.

My women are either true, true in real life but fantasy false, or come screaming out of my psyche begging for release. Or borrowed from somebody else, after asking nicely...

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

I do so undeniably. A habit I'm trying to break. I've recently become self-conscious of it.

What seems to be the biggest challenge at this point, is to be more open to my depiction of the female characters. Being a male, this is extremely hard for me think vividly in that manner.

When it comes to females, I have to rely heavily on movies, commercials, look at day-to-day interactions between women and women/men. Or simply revert back to the male POV.

I simply expected it to come to me as I started writing. But no, I had to get all picky and pissy about how I want to portray it all. Short, erotica stories are easy now and about to find out how it will play out. Anything deep - I'm struggling w/that.

 

[JasonClearwater]

Physically, I share some attributes with some of my characters, and there are definitely scenes inspired by real life events in some of my stories.

But in terms of the rest of the internal content, like thoughts, beliefs, dreams; I just give them what they need to fulfil the needs of the story. They very rarely reflect me, only my preferences for characters in the types of stories I write. The scenarios, unfortunately, are rarely autobiographical. I have yet to fuck three strangers on a Ferris wheel. And I'm still waiting for someone take me on a date to Vue de Monde who's worth dancing to Calvin Harris for.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Totally guilty of this...

And they're usually named Mike, too. And they tend to be tall, scary, blond Klingons with a really bent sense of humour.

If they're the story's subject, they're usually lucky bastards, doing better than they oughta, because a girl loves them. In the case of my most popular story, he's a foil to the main characters, to keep them from being too Mary-Sue.

Many, many years ago, I collaborated on a long-running fic that parodied Mary-Sue self-insertion fanfiction. The self-inserted characters we wrote about all had rather severe cases of Dunning-Kreuger Syndrome, thinking that because they were self-inserted, they would be godlike and cool. But the author really just wanted to torture them.

Mary-Sue self-insertion is common. I prefer my self-insertions (this sounds dirtier every time I type it!) to have a Byronic cast to them. It keeps people engaged. My self-inserts are never just placeholders for the reader, a la Bella Swan.

And I can prove it, because none of my avatars in my stories will EVER play vampire baseball.

All my Mikes are me, and they've all done the things I've done, except for one, who is a theoretical physicist. I ain't one of those. One is becoming an author, another was a sup in a call center for a big cellphone company, they've all been left by their beloved or otherwise lost them, and are miserable. Until the girl in the story lights up their life again.

Write what you know, I guess.

 

[Voboy]

Absolutely.

Normally, I portray myself as either a dumbass or someone vaguely unlikeable.

Very few of my main characters are 100% made-up. Most of the time, I think it’s about 40-50%; I strive for realism, and almost all of the little details that help with that are taken from things that happen to me.

Most of my stories are VASTLY amplified versions of things I’ve idly thought about doing. I’m sure that’s true for most writers in any genre, which is why these things emerge onto the page in the first place.

 

[JasonClearwater]

If they're the story's subject, they're usually lucky bastards, doing better than they oughta, because a girl loves them.

You and Tom Cruise.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

You and Tom Cruise.

Hopefully my characters are deeper than a rain slick... :/

 

[Kojak01]

I give my characters virtues that I wish I possessed.

I do that as well. I take some traits I have and add some I'd wish I had and then see where it takes me.

 

[Bramblethorn]

To the other writers here: Do you inject aspects of yourself into the characters you bring to life and to what extent?Kant

Yep. Some intentionally; I'll borrow from RL enthusiasms or experiences, because those things interest me and I know them well enough to write about them. Others no doubt unintentionally - it's pretty hard to avoid letting your worldview subconsciously influence your characters.

I write characters that I aspire to be.

This also.

 

[Hypoxia]

My players are mostly based on me as I am or wish (or fear) to be, or on people I think I know, although sometimes I totally make shit up. Sometimes I combine people into one player, or split someone (including myself) into multiple players. Activities reported may be based on personal experience, or somebody's journals or other ideas I stole from somewhere, or shit I made up.

So yes, much of me is in there. DNA flakes off when you stir coffee with your thumb.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I don’t think I’m the only person to inject aspects of myself into more than one of the characters I create, some more than others. I do have one character in a couple of my stories that mirrors me as a person: personality, attitude, thinking, fears, fantasies, vision, etc.

To the other writers here: Do you inject aspects of yourself into the characters you bring to life and to what extent?Kant

Definitely. My first series, My Fall and Rise is, basically, memoir, so that's obvious. But in my new one, Mary and Alvin, my two main characters clearly represent different parts of my personality.

I have wondered if, by creating two characters who embody different aspects of myself, and having them fall in love and build a relationship, I'm doing a sort of self therapy. Or maybe I need to add a third character who constantly reads too much into things.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Definitely. My first series, My Fall and Rise is, basically, memoir, so that's obvious. But in my new one, Mary and Alvin, my two main characters clearly represent different parts of my personality.

I have wondered if, by creating two characters who embody different aspects of myself, and having them fall in love and build a relationship, I'm doing a sort of self therapy. Or maybe I need to add a third character who constantly reads too much into things.

Probably . I tend to use my close third person narrator as my "third person."

My current WIP has one major character who tells his own story, and the rest of the tale is told by a close omniscient narrator. This is handy, because I can obviously range out of view of my first person pov character, but also have other characters' takes on the lead.

This gives me a pretty much unlimited perspective for the story telling, and a varied range of dramatic devices. So far, it's working nicely.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Probably . I tend to use my close third person narrator as my "third person."

My current WIP has one major character who tells his own story, and the rest of the tale is told by a close omniscient narrator. This is handy, because I can obviously range out of view of my first person pov character, but also have other characters' takes on the lead.

This gives me a pretty much unlimited perspective for the story telling, and a varied range of dramatic devices. So far, it's working nicely.

Now I'm going to hear your narrator's voice as Ron Howard narrating Arrested Development.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Now I'm going to hear your narrator's voice as Ron Howard narrating Arrested Development.

Please don't.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Please don't.

Voice of Ron Howard: "The narrator is not Ron Howard".

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

I've just injected myself with some potent coffee. Feels like I'm on speed.

I suppose there's other matters of self jection of self in characters I should continue to look into. Then there's the new ones - oh bother.

 

[oggbashan]

I try not to.

My characters, except one, are an amalgam of people I've known, or met. But for the exception, NONE of them are based on a single individual and certainly not me.

The exception? Fag-Ash Lil in jeanne_d_artois story Unatit.

Fag-Ash Lil existed and was very like the character. She has been dead for decades.

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

I try not to.

My characters, except one, are an amalgam of people I've known, or met. But for the exception, NONE of them are based on a single individual and certainly not me.

The exception? Fag-Ash Lil in jeanne_d_artois story Unatit.

Fag-Ash Lil existed and was very like the character. She has been dead for decades.

That's good. But how can we not inject ourselves into characters at some point? We're writing what we know as we have come to know it. Everything else is an attempt to stick to the facts or exploit the imagination of readers. Trying to entertain and send out a message in some ways.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't think my characters are me, although I suppose they contain projections of things in me. Fantasies, mostly.

 

[Hypoxia]

That's good. But how can we not inject ourselves into characters at some point? We're writing what we know as we have come to know it. Everything else is an attempt to stick to the facts or exploit the imagination of readers. Trying to entertain and send out a message in some ways.

That's the crux. We write what we know, or what we think we know, or shit we make up based on what we think we know. If we think we know our own selves, that's who we write. We see the world through our own limited eyes, not spider-eyes or cats-eyes or extended spectra or sonar. We might IMAGINE what other visions would reveal but we're most unlikely to have personal experience with those sensations.