Character Traits

[ozmosis7]

My characters certainly have pieces of me. As I used to smoke long ago, I know how it feels, what it's like to miss it, how it haunts you even now--things like that. But they also have other lives of which I have nothing in common. For instance, I have yet to skin anyone alive, and I don't plan on it any time soon unless my one neighbor complains about my bushes out back a few times more. :P

[the_last_gunslinger]

For the most part, I feel as though my characters are derivatives of myself, with some embellishments to make them a touch more interesting. Perhaps I adhere too literally to the old adage that a writer should write what he knows, and I do know myself better than just about anything.

I'm not a particularly vulgar person, for example, and someone reading my stories would probably pick up on my lack of profanity. Most of my characters don't use excessive language such as that. It doesn't mean I never will, but I think my personality prohibits me from writing something too profane. I also place a heavy emphasis on a college education and as such, I find that many of my main characters are educated, or aspire to be educated, and I often draw on my academic knowledge as a shared expertise between myself and the characters I create.

[Draven Ames]

My characters are so far away from myself. I will note that a main character in my novel smoked, and I smoked at the time. I spent time carefully evaluating the smell and taste of smoking, so I could accurately describe the sensations. The point? I quit smoking after writing the book.

Turns out, once I paid attention to it, I realized how much I hated smoking. My wife quit smoking two weeks after I did.

[C.W. LaSart]

LMAO! Craig, I think I adore you (don't take that the wrong way, I know you are married and I am blissfully happy with my boyfriend of five years!). I suppose you could be onto something there, and I will not completely dispute it. I will add though, that if I harbor such longings, they are certainly subconscious since my writing is wholly dependent on Muse. I don't seek out stories, they just pop into my head, mostly complete and itching to be written. When I am writing, my characters stray so far and fast that it often feels like I am reading something that another has written, rather than creating my own world. There is always talk in the writing world of "pantsters" and "plotsters" and I am most definitely a pantster. I rarely feel personal pride in the stuff I write because I feel like a fraud-like someone else wrote it through me if that makes sense. The stories are written on autopilot and if I consciously add anything to them, it is during the edit. So maybe you are right my friend, but I hope I never have to confront the dark and evil woman inside me! LOL! I am so glad to have met you! I would wish you a happy holiday, but I suppose the 4th of July is far from a holiday there! I have always wondered if you guys get irritated when we celebrate it Just kidding, we are allies now and that's all that matters! I am secretly quite tickled to have so many new British friends.

[Craig Wallwork]

Haha. Love the fact you use names of people you know. I once had a character named after my boss that came to nasty end.

I’m going to throw something out, and I’m not trying to offend or doubt what you’ve told me, but maybe there's a part of you that craves certain aspects of the character’s lives you portray, for example - the escapism of the drug addict, the scheming mind of the confidence person, the casualness and randomness of the hooker (not sex you understand, just the fredom of doing something ) and the freedom that money brings the rich arseholes. While we are able to detach ourselves from the character’s we write, the darker part of us, the person submerged under the blanket of social etiquette, manners, morals, is allowed to come to the fore and breath, wipe its brow and stick its sweaty crotch in the face of saints and priests without fear of repercussion. That we have the freedom to write and create characters that can be the most obnoxious people that have ever walked the earth could be a way to vent the darker sides of our lives. At the end of the day, it has come from our minds, which is to say, while the allotment of the imagination is fertile, we still need to the seeds to sew, and these seeds are rooted in emotion.

I want to add, before you beat me up CW, I don’t see you are a crack addicted hooker who cons people out of money. You’re way too nice.

[C.W. LaSart]

My characters bear absolutely no resemblance to me. I have written stories about drug addicts, cons, hookers, rich assholes and the list goes on, but they never have anything to do with me. What I do, however, is often include snippets of real conversations I have had with people, or sayings that my friends use. I also, name the characters after friends a lot, which never fails to amuse them. I just killed my sister off in a story and I hope she is flattered rather than irritated

[Craig Wallwork]

It’s only occurred to me recently that nearly all of the characters that I have committed to paper have no interest in smoking, a preclusion based on the fact, I assume, that I am not a smoker. So it seems, on a subconscious level, while I am eager to instil theories/methodologies/opinions that I hold, I am also keen on excluding those that I don’t practice or have no interest in.

So I was wondering; how similar is the fictional character we write, compared to the author who writes them? Are the characters you write just different facets of your personality, or are they completely different from you? Do they smoke, when you are not a smoker? Are they racist, when the hand who breathed life into their bigoted bones is pro-diversity?

Curious.