Different stories, basically same characters

[bushyTrail]

Let me explain myself better. I started writing stories for Literotica based on recurring "serial" fantasies of mine, in order to give them a more stable footing and allow them to develop to a more satisfying end. This allowed me to reflect more on what I write (which was kind of the purpose) and now that I've completed the first short novel and I'm finishing a new novella, I noticed that characters in one story share a lot of personality traits with some counterparts in the others (written or not). However the plots and the themes are very different (in certain cases even "opposite", so to speak).

It feels like there is a certain set of fixed personas in my head, who receive a new role whenever a new story emerges. This seems to me a classic amateur writer problem, but I also have the impression that it is far less present in my non-erotic stories, so maybe there's more to it.

Does it happen to you? What are your thoughts? Thanks!

 

[KeithD]

Yes, I've done that. It's fine.

 

[SimonDoom]

You're not alone. What you're describing is very common. It's perfectly normal that as authors we project ourselves into our characters and imagine how we would act in certain situations. It's normal that after writing more than a few stories we would notice that our characters share certain traits.

It's not peculiar to erotica. You can point to any number of authors whose protagonists tend to have similarities in outlook, values, responses to things, etc. It takes work to make sure you're not writing the same characters for every story.

 

[bushyTrail]

Maybe the solution is to take inspiration from certain videogames, where characters are described according to some score in certain categories. In this case, you would single out certain personality traits. Then, before deciding who your character is, you roll the dice and get a randomized starting point, from where you can do the fine tuning that no personality test can achieve.
However, as SimonDoom said, it seems quite some work. Also, there's the problem of interactions: a couple can never be random, for example...

 

[A_Little_Show]

You're not alone. What you're describing is very common. It's perfectly normal that as authors we project ourselves into our characters and imagine how we would act in certain situations. It's normal that after writing more than a few stories we would notice that our characters share certain traits.

It's not peculiar to erotica. You can point to any number of authors whose protagonists tend to have similarities in outlook, values, responses to things, etc. It takes work to make sure you're not writing the same characters for every story.

Robert A. Heinlein is famous for only having one character throughout all of his books. Some people say the female characters are patterned on Heinlein's wife, but to me, they are still the same character. The women in his books think and behave just like the men from sexual predilections to economic theories to crisis resolution. IMHO, absolutely everyone in every Heinline story has an identical personality and world view.

In spite of that, he told some great stories and included poignant social commentary and descriptions of unusual human relationships like "line marriages".

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

Let me explain myself better. I started writing stories for Literotica based on recurring "serial" fantasies of mine, in order to give them a more stable footing and allow them to develop to a more satisfying end. This allowed me to reflect more on what I write (which was kind of the purpose) and now that I've completed the first short novel and I'm finishing a new novella, I noticed that characters in one story share a lot of personality traits with some counterparts in the others (written or not). However the plots and the themes are very different (in certain cases even "opposite", so to speak).

It feels like there is a certain set of fixed personas in my head, who receive a new role whenever a new story emerges. This seems to me a classic amateur writer problem, but I also have the impression that it is far less present in my non-erotic stories, so maybe there's more to it.

Does it happen to you? What are your thoughts? Thanks!

If you look at Amazon you will see a lot of authors making really good money doing the exact same thing. Nothing wrong with it.

 

[bushyTrail]

Robert A. Heinlein is famous for only having one character throughout all of his books. Some people say the female characters are patterned on Heinlein's wife, but to me, they are still the same character. The women in his books think and behave just like the men from sexual predilections to economic theories to crisis resolution. IMHO, absolutely everyone in every Heinline story has an identical personality and world view.

In spite of that, he told some great stories and included poignant social commentary and descriptions of unusual human relationships like "line marriages".

Oh... I actually read a couple of his books and managed to never notice that! Probably because I read them in the span of years. I know him as a Sci-Fi author, and come to think of it, many of the most famous authors in the genre at the time were not the best at character work (I'm thinking Asimov, for example)

 

[OmnislashXX]

Yes. They are called tropes.

 

[bushyTrail]

Yes. They are called tropes.

No, tropes would be same characters but different authors. I'm referring to an author using always the same personalities with little change, possibly when nobody else uses them in the literary production.

 

[NotWise]

It feels like there is a certain set of fixed personas in my head, who receive a new role whenever a new story emerges. This seems to me a classic amateur writer problem, but I also have the impression that it is far less present in my non-erotic stories, so maybe there's more to it.

Does it happen to you? What are your thoughts? Thanks!

I don't know if it's a problem at all, and others have pointed out that it isn't limited to amateurs.

It would be difficult to write protagonists that fall very far from your personal experience. You can put your stock character into wildly different situations and effectively have different characters. Writing protagonists who react in way that are outside your personal experience is possible, but it seems like an enormous labor.

If you want variety in your characters, then you can get that with your secondary characters and your antagonists. You might even be able to use them to develop a new protagonist character.

I may have a problem with my antagonists -- at least the human ones, rather than situational ones. There may only be two of them.

 

[Voboy]

There are whole genres based on this concept: harlequin romances? Check. Dick-lit? Check.

Clive Cussler? Tom Clancy? Brad Fucking Thor? Check.

Put your mind at rest. We write, in part, because we enjoy exploring certain character traits. So is it any wonder that we keep on enjoying and exploring them in multiple stories?

 

[ElectricBlue]

It feels like there is a certain set of fixed personas in my head, who receive a new role whenever a new story emerges. This seems to me a classic amateur writer problem, but I also have the impression that it is far less present in my non-erotic stories, so maybe there's more to it.

Does it happen to you? What are your thoughts? Thanks!

Always. I'm too lazy to invent male characters, so I just write fantasy versions of myself. I've got a whole continuing series with the same male protagonist moving in the same urban world. Then I have another version of me for younger man stories - basically me at uni and into my twenties, early thirties.

All of my women, however, are different (although, very recognisable types and personalities). On the whole I don't know where they come from, but for me, that's one of the reasons I write. Who are all these women? It's a form of worship .

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's only a problem when it becomes monotonous to the reader or the author. In some cases it's a positive thing - a lot of people "comfort read" and knowing what to expect is a big part of that.

At the moment I'm working with a recurring character who will show up in different stories in different settings (usual caveat: if I ever find time to write them!) as different aspects of the same being. It can be interesting to experiment with "how does this same archetype play out in different settings?"

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's only a problem when it becomes monotonous to the reader or the author. In some cases it's a positive thing - a lot of people "comfort read" and knowing what to expect is a big part of that.

At the moment I'm working with a recurring character who will show up in different stories in different settings (usual caveat: if I ever find time to write them!) as different aspects of the same being. It can be interesting to experiment with "how does this same archetype play out in different settings?"

I agree. With a familiar character, known well by the author and by readers, the character acts as a kind of short cut, a "known" place from which to take off. I agree too, if the author gets bored, that's going to show from a thousand miles away, but if you keep re-inventing things as you weave the worlds together, you give readers a big Easter egg hunt.

My latest, in Pending as I write this, is me going all meta with my own stories - I'm writing something where the person who inspired a character recognises herself in the earlier story, and gets in touch with the writer, who is now the oft used protagonist. So far, I haven't disappeared up my own fundamental, and I've had one advance reader ask for cross-references (which are now there, at the end of the first Part).

I'll be writing solipsistic stories next, where all you guys don't actually exist, and are all figments of my imagination. Except there's no way in the world any single person could make all you guys up. Truth has to be stranger than fiction .

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I always use the same character names, my memory is shit so if I try to change up the names I get all confused.

And
for the most part, I think my characters are all similar. Same people, different circumstances, different stories.

 

[SamScribble]

Many years ago, I participated in a workshop on how to write a short story.

The woman leading the workshop said that the heart of the process is really very simple. Take a character; put the character in a situation that is other than where they would like to be; and then write them out of it in a way that is believable to the reader.

She went on to say: in order to make it believable, you’re probably going to have to write what you know. The character is, to some extent, going to have to think and act in a manner similar to the way in which you might think and act in similar circumstances – or, failing that, the way in which someone you know quite well might think and act.

Stray too far from the path you know, and your character is likely to lose her credibility with the reader.

Writing what you know is hardly cheating.

 

[RetroFan]

I often use the classic 'four temperament ensemble' for my characters in my stories.

For example, in my story series 'My Best Friend's Fat Sister' Sean (the narrator) is melancholic, Zoe (the crazy fat sister) is sanguine, Adam (Zoe's brother) is phlegmatic and Emily (Adam's wife) is choleric.

This pattern is also apparent with the teenagers in my story 'April Leads Julie Astray' where April is sanguine, Julie melancholic, April's twin brother Brad choleric and Julie's younger brother Peter and Brad and April's cousin Chip both phlegmatic.

 

[bushyTrail]

I'll be writing solipsistic stories next, where all you guys don't actually exist, and are all figments of my imagination. Except there's no way in the world any single person could make all you guys up. Truth has to be stranger than fiction .

Cool! Solipsism, and most of all techniques to unveil it, has always been fascinating to me.

There are whole genres based on this concept: harlequin romances? Check. Dick-lit? Check.
Clive Cussler? Tom Clancy? Brad Fucking Thor? Check.

Oh, Clive Cussler! He was, for reasons that are beyond me, the author of the first book not for kids that I've ever. He really does always write with the same people in it (the protagonist is always Dirk something, if I remember correctly). I forgot all about the plots of his books, and that's not a good sign, however...

It's only a problem when it becomes monotonous to the reader or the author.

Well, it's not a problem to me, for now, more of a curiosity. As electricblue66 was saying, why them in particular? What to they mean to me? It's not like I want to psychoanalyze myself, but still part of the reason why I've begun to write erotica is to understand better my own fucked-up fantasy.

 

[OmnislashXX]

I use alot of blonde, petite women. The lighter-skinned, the better. I also have a cheer-leader fetish so I have at least two or three main characters in different stories.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

ITruth has to be stranger than fiction .

Every fucking day!

~~
I've only got a few stories so far. But I definitely think my female characters are similar. Or at least they would be more similar if I'd written some of them better...
But now I'm thinking of how to write someone who's different from my usual. Like what exercises would facilitate that and how to give the person a distinct voice.

 

[Voboy]

Every fucking day!

~~
I've only got a few stories so far. But I definitely think my female characters are similar. Or at least they would be more similar if I'd written some of them better...
But now I'm thinking of how to write someone who's different from my usual. Like what exercises would facilitate that and how to give the person a distinct voice.

It’s not an exercise. It’s just altering traits. Say one of your characters routinely falls into bed with any handy penis. Next time you write a story, have the female character decide to wait and play hard to get. Witty repartee will ensue.

 

[bushyTrail]

Well, considering characters outside your comfort zone can also be rewarding: it gives you a chance of learning something new when you do research. Of course the risk is to have a superficial take on the matter: for example, I can't stand how scientists are usually depicted because most people don't know how they actually work and when it comes to do some investigation, authors do a shoddy job.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

It’s not an exercise. It’s just altering traits. Say one of your characters routinely falls into bed with any handy penis. Next time you write a story, have the female character decide to wait and play hard to get. Witty repartee will ensue.

See, in my brain, altering traits and deciding to change behavior is an exercise. Not a formal, writer school exercise, but a specific way of making my brain do something different.

a superficial take on the matter: for example, I can't stand how scientists are usually depicted because most people don't know how they actually work and when it comes to do some investigation, authors do a shoddy job.

I feel the same way about the way mental health professionals are portrayed and how assessing behavior and therapy actually work. {Shakes fist in the general direction of 'Criminal Minds'}

 

[SimonDoom]

Well, considering characters outside your comfort zone can also be rewarding: it gives you a chance of learning something new when you do research. Of course the risk is to have a superficial take on the matter: for example, I can't stand how scientists are usually depicted because most people don't know how they actually work and when it comes to do some investigation, authors do a shoddy job.

I think this is a common complaint. Doctors often can't stand TV shows about doctors because the depiction of what they do is so false. Lawyers complain about lawyer shows for the same reason.

I have a nerd friend who hates Big Bang Theory because in her view it portrays nerds falsely.

 

[bushyTrail]

I think this is a common complaint. Doctors often can't stand TV shows about doctors because the depiction of what they do is so false. Lawyers complain about lawyer shows for the same reason.

I have a nerd friend who hates Big Bang Theory because in her view it portrays nerds falsely.

Yeah, that's right... I think it's inevitable. Maybe the correct thing to complain about is the lack of effort, instead of its result, because obviously a writer cannot be expected to become expert in things that don't pertain them. In the Big Bang Theory there is a lot of effort, for what concerns Physics, for example, while, say, in Star Trek there's much less. (I know that I'm going to regret this last example )