Would you get along with your characters?

[filthytrancendence]

I think there's a video game about that...

Or maybe it's just about how much Stephen King seems to hate most of his author insert characters. Hard to tell.

Anyway, I'd like to think so. Most of them have bits of me, whether I realize it or not.

Honestly most of my side characters are the people I'd want to hang out with. They're usually more fun.

 

[old_prof]

Anyway, I'd like to think so. Most of them have bits of me, whether I realize it or not.

My one MCthat I suspect I would struggle to get along with has too much of me. I suspect we would clash.

 

[filthytrancendence]

My one MCthat I suspect I would struggle to get along with has too much of me. I suspect we would clash.

Yeah, it really depends which part of me it is, lol. I've found that I've tended to give my FMCs the parts of me that I like better.

Again, not usually consciously. I always seem to realize this somewhere in the middle of the process.

 

[PrimalDual]

I write flawed characters. Flaws that the characters themselves are mainly unaware of.

Probably I would find the dominant ones annoying.

The submissive ones who wanted to improve themselves under my kindly tutelage, I could probably abide.

Any author-avatars you might detect in these stories, and especially their personality flaws, are strictly by coincidence.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Upcoming Krystal Kensington is styled a bit after India Summers and I know damn well she'd never talk to me.

 

[PrimalDual]

Oh lord, I'm their demiurge. They wouldn't be around without me. I could imagine some resentment, but all the bowing down would be in one direction.

Oh yeah, that reminds me.

One of my short stories, Hump Day - a very long one, for me anyway, 30k words or so - involves a device that seems to be time-travel or an alternate universe or some damn thing, repeated ad nauseam, but by story's end the device is revealed to be that the main character is merely the mental creation of an old woman enjoying a series of masturbatory fantasies.

And the poor man HATES his creator for what she puts him through.

I suspect I conceived of the plot device in a moment of concern regarding the same issue as this thread.

 

[StillStunned]

I take it you don't write any stories with serial killers

Murderers, psychopaths, stalkers, rapists, traitors to the human race... but none I'd call a serial killer.

They're still sex-crazed perverts though.

 

[Britva415]

Would you be compatible? Would they like you?


Mine are successful, upscale, attractive, desirable, friendly, outgoing, trusting.


Everything I'm not. They wouldn't even give me the time of day.

Being likable and approachable is a feature of my characters. This feature has the function of readily furthering the hook-up.

So yeah, I'd get along with them. I'd probably hook up with them!

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I mostly write pretty ordinary people with an academic-type background, often with traits nicked from myself or my friends. So yes, we'd probably get on fine though various women and I might do the lesbian sheep thing and never get it on. Ditto with the shyer men.

More worryingly, I think I'd get on fine with my immortal hell being who feeds on intense thoughts, usually sexual...

 

[StillStunned]

More worryingly, I think I'd get on fine with my immortal hell being who feeds on intense thoughts, usually sexual...

That's not a nice way to talk about Laurel.

 

[OddLove]

That's such a wild question I never asked myself. All I ever cared about was whether or not I liked them.

If I flipped it around, I'd say some of them would not hate me, but I'm so introverted and isolated that they'd never get the chance to know me lol

 

[SimonDoom]

Most of them, except the obvious villains.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Oh yes. I purposely write very likeable characters, to a fault, if I'm being honest.

 

[SkyBubble]

Yes, I'm pretty sure I would. Most of them.

 

[NuclearFairy]

That's such a wild question I never asked myself. All I ever cared about was whether or not I liked them.

If I flipped it around, I'd say some of them would not hate me, but I'm so introverted and isolated that they'd never get the chance to know me lol

I've been pondering how to answer this since the thread started, but that pretty much sums it up.

 

[XerXesXu]

Some I'd fuck, some I'd buy a beer, some I'd show my back.

My intent in creating them is that readers should feel the same way.

 

[Bloodandglitter]

I adore my characters. Most of them are a lot of fun and would be great fun to hang out with

 

[Azuldrgon]

Would you be compatible? Would they like you?


Mine are successful, upscale, attractive, desirable, friendly, outgoing, trusting.


Everything I'm not. They wouldn't even give me the time of day.

With the recent three series I did, here are my thoughts:
Leo and Marcie/Good Neighbors: Since Leo is based on me, except not as successful, and Marcie was based on a friend I made from Lit, I think we'd get along.
Angel Time: The main character is based on my favorite barista. She's amazing and we still get along well.
She's a Good Girl: The guy is based on me. The girl is based on a Litster I have a crush on. I think in real life, I'd be way too shy around her.

 

[AwkwardMD]

 

[AwkwardMD]

 

[AwkwardMD]

Now I really wanna re-watch the Spider-verse movies again.

 

[Lumiere_Amie]

Interesting question. I think they would find me boring.

 

[WCSGarland]

Absolutely. All of my characters would adore me since I created them.

 

[old_prof]

Absolutely. All of my characters would adore me since I created them.

Rats. Most of my characters are atheists and don't believe in a creator.

 

[RetroFan]

I liked two of my stories so much - interestingly both set in the 1950s - that I wished I was in the story with the characters, although not for any sexual reason.

One was 'Banging Cousin Becky In Blackpool' which is set in 1955, the other was 'Cindy's Close Encounter', which takes place in 1959.

My reaction to the Becky story is perhaps more understandable. I wrote it in 2020 when we were undergoing week after week of demoralizing lockdown, and I wished so much I was in England having summer fun by the sea in Blackpool all those years ago with the characters, rather than stuck in the awful reality of life at the time.

The Cindy story, a Halloween story set in Connecticut was written in 2023, when things were of course much better than in 2020. However, I wished as I was writing it that I was one of the good-looking All-American teenagers in the story enjoying their senior year of high school in 1959/1960 and friends with the ones in the story, and of course attending the school's Halloween dance for 1959.

These two stories for some reason set off incredible nostalgia within me, but for long-gone times many years before I was born and in places where I don't live (I'm Australian).

Has anyone ever had a similar experience?