The question has been asked whether one of your MCs is like you. But do you ever "fall for" one of your MCs?

[John_Vandermeer]

I have at least once. And like a modern day Pygmalion and Galatea, I even had the MMC give the FMC a ring, a bit on my behalf as well as his own.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

In every series I write there is a female MC that would have me at hello

 

[Rob_Royale]

In every series I write there is a female MC that would have me at hello

Yep, what he said. To expound, many are based on women I've known and admired from afar, throughout my life. So in many ways, I already have fallen, in lust.

 

[Duleigh]

In this respect, I "fall for" all of my characters; they're like my children. I won't be able to deliver their story if I don't love them.

Exactly.

And the reader will know if you like your characters or not. You're inviting readers along to join you on an adventure and it would be a pretty crappy adventure if the characters were unlikeable. I have read stories and books where the characters were written as less than likeable for some unknown reason, those are books and stories left unfinished. Why should I follow along if the writer doesn't like his own characters.

As for which of my characters do I love the most? It depends on which story I'm writing at the time. Right now it's Dr. Lanh Campbell, but her story is done and she's waiting for me to call her back to action so next is my Enchantress, Octavia Worblehat (and yes, her name is a clue)

 

[Smuttyandfun]

I have a soft spot for many of my characters. If I ever take the time to re-read a story, it's like visiting an old friend that I'm very fond of.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If you don't fall in love with your characters, why would you expect your readers to? We're writing erotica, fantasy, so why wouldn't you write characters that appeal to you, intimately and personally?

 

[neuroparenthetical]

Why should I follow along if the writer doesn't like his own characters.

Because exploring unlikable characters can be interesting as fuck? Dostoevsky, Nabokov, GRRM, Joe Abercrombie... tons of authors spend lots of time with unlikable characters. Low fantasy, in particular, is full of them. It's practically a trope that somebody who's built up as a hero (internally, not by the author,) turns out to be a horribly flawed individual, and even a downright awful one. You can absolutely make them awful in interesting ways.

What I find even stranger is that erotica is full of characters you shouldn't like; a lot of them are rapists, sadists, bullies, or just generally selfish and coldhearted. Some of them get their comeuppance, but definitely not all of them. Those stories can be very interesting!

This strikes me as an incredibly limiting preference; are we going to do some No True Scotsman to try to walk it back a bit?

 

[John_Vandermeer]

If you don't fall in love with your characters, why would you expect your readers to? We're writing erotica, fantasy, so why wouldn't you write characters that appeal to you, intimately and personally?

"Fall in love" or even "fall in lust" can mean different things. I fall in lust with all my FMCs. I am empathize, to varying degrees, with all my MMCs. But we can't always write the same story, so characters have to be all different, and their circumstances all different. So our attachment to them as "imaginary real" people has to be different. So fallen-in-love, in a certain sense, I am 100% sure of once. Of course I am fond of all characters I have created so far.

 

[John_Vandermeer]

Because exploring unlikable characters can be interesting as fuck? Dostoevsky, Nabokov, GRRM, Joe Abercrombie... tons of authors spend lots of time with unlikable characters. Low fantasy, in particular, is full of them. It's practically a trope that somebody who's built up as a hero (internally, not by the author,) turns out to be a horribly flawed individual, and even a downright awful one. You can absolutely make them awful in interesting ways.

What I find even stranger is that erotica is full of characters you shouldn't like; a lot of them are rapists, sadists, bullies, or just generally selfish and coldhearted. Some of them get their comeuppance, but definitely not all of them. Those stories can be very interesting!

This strikes me as an incredibly limiting preference; are we going to do some No True Scotsman to try to walk it back a bit?

100% agree on this. I do every now and then like to explore main characters, of both genders, that may have less than admirable qualities.

 

[WyreBendr0417]

I've never fallen for one, but quite often my MFC is someone I've known and was attracted to or an actress in a particular role she played that I found attractive or provocative.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Were they real, I would, as they are not real, I can't.

 

[gunhilltrain]

"Fall in love" or even "fall in lust" can mean different things. I fall in lust with all my FMCs. I am empathize, to varying degrees, with all my MMCs. But we can't always write the same story, so characters have to be all different, and their circumstances all different. So our attachment to them as "imaginary real" people has to be different. So fallen-in-love, in a certain sense, I am 100% sure of once. Of course I am fond of all characters I have created so far.

This reminds me of the "Character Addiction" thread below. I think he meant "loving your characters" as a writer. I suppose it could also mean, for some people, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. There is an old Twilight Zone episode like that, where a playwright (Keenan Wynn) is able - merely by writing - to create a "real" woman to replace his disagreeable wife.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Because exploring unlikable characters can be interesting as fuck? Dostoevsky, Nabokov, GRRM, Joe Abercrombie... tons of authors spend lots of time with unlikable characters. Low fantasy, in particular, is full of them. It's practically a trope that somebody who's built up as a hero (internally, not by the author,) turns out to be a horribly flawed individual, and even a downright awful one. You can absolutely make them awful in interesting ways.

What I find even stranger is that erotica is full of characters you shouldn't like; a lot of them are rapists, sadists, bullies, or just generally selfish and coldhearted. Some of them get their comeuppance, but definitely not all of them. Those stories can be very interesting!

This strikes me as an incredibly limiting preference; are we going to do some No True Scotsman to try to walk it back a bit?

That reminds that many actors believe that the villains are often the best roles to have. There are many examples of that.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

I read a book by one of my favorite authors, and the MC seemed totally unredeemable. What impressed me was how the author gradually gave you an insight into why he was the way he was. Once I'd finished it, I decided it was so compelling, and such a page turner, that last year I picked it up and read it again.

 

[Djmac1031]

Oh, easy. Jenna, from my series The Jenna Arrangement.

Obviously, i can separate fiction from reality.

Biut despite her being only a figment of my imagination, I do have more than a bit of a crush on her lol.

I love all my characters. But she's been the most fun to write for sure.

 

[PandemicReader8]

Not in anything I have or am writing for Lit. But for a PNR I contributed to an anthology. I created a FMC who I absolutely needed to "Weird Science".

 

[Grendelpuppy]

A lot of my Main Characters are maturing, married, realistic MILFs. I would definitely enjoy fucking any of them.

 

[Nutbutterbish]

Yes, one of my MCs is like me, and I love him. But that is the inner Narc in me, I guess.

 

[SirBurnInside]

Not yet. Doesn't mean I won't in future, but as if the stories I've written so far I haven't really thought much about them other than what they are doing/thinking within the story. I've certainly never fallen for any of them or wished they were real.

I tend to compartmentalise my characters in my head, and once that story is over they disappear into the darkness until I think of something else for them to do, if indeed I ever do.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Because exploring unlikable characters can be interesting as fuck? Dostoevsky, Nabokov, GRRM, Joe Abercrombie... tons of authors spend lots of time with unlikable characters. Low fantasy, in particular, is full of them. It's practically a trope that somebody who's built up as a hero (internally, not by the author,) turns out to be a horribly flawed individual, and even a downright awful one. You can absolutely make them awful in interesting ways.

What I find even stranger is that erotica is full of characters you shouldn't like; a lot of them are rapists, sadists, bullies, or just generally selfish and coldhearted. Some of them get their comeuppance, but definitely not all of them. Those stories can be very interesting!

This strikes me as an incredibly limiting preference; are we going to do some No True Scotsman to try to walk it back a bit?

Stories with unlikable characters can be engrossing, but the question is deeper -- or wider in scope -- than that. Besides, not everybody cares or likes to read Dosto. I could not read Nabo. Fuck Nabo! What if the characters are unlikable, the story dreadful and the ideas wrong? What's there to read?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

If I don't, how can I expect my readers to?

 

[CyranoJ]

IMO it is not possible to write the kind of NC/R stories that Literotica will publish without loving your heroine, especially given the horrible things your story will put her through. This will seem contradictory to the sort of person who imagines NC/R must be about hate, misogyny and male power fantasies (or maybe, more fairly, will seem perverse). But it's true, and it's a precondition for my finishing any such story.

Of all my characters in such stories, my most beloved on Lit is "Hanna" from Strange Hunger, along with her lover "Nomi." Followed closely by the bevy of heroines from the Space Princess stories that currently live on Amazon, and Evangeline Stone from the "Serpent's Kiss" novella that does likewise.

 

[AchtungNight]

Most of my FMCs are based on actresses or other celebrities on whom I have pre-existing crushes. The original FMCS are based on a fantasy girlfriend I had in college and her friends with benefits. So uh, I guess that’s a yes.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I suppose there might be some I'd fuck. I can't really say I'd fall in love with them, it's more the relationships I want, than the people I put in them, but I suppose I could fall for some of them if they were real. If this makes any sense at all.

 

[MyBareTorso]

In every series I write there is a female MC that would have me at hello

I would VERY much like to have sex with every female MC I have written. They are ALL fantasy figures for me, and they are all women I desire. That's why I write erotic stories about them.