Do you have an MC type?

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constanceg

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I've always tended to write MCs who are young, isolated women. (Not that this, um, says anything about me, or anything.)

I'm working on a ms right now where the heroine is very socially well-adjusted, and it is exhausting. I love this character to bits, but she notices and reacts to all of the things my loner girls usually skim right over without a second thought. It's a good change, but lord it's draining.
 

WriteMinded

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Alpha males with long hair and bulging biceps, preferably in a profession that requires armour and weaponry. :D

*skips off into fantasy land*
YEP! Me, too. Brawn and macho. Leather and steel. I see a woman in my future though. She probably won't be girly.
 

s.j.l

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No, but I noticed that my MMCs all look the same: black hair and blue eyes.

After I realized it I changed it up, but gosh, it's hard not to instinctively want to use it.

Haha, I noticed all my MMCs looking that way too! It makes me sad that I need to change it up but I can't have them all coming out of the same mold machine :(
 

SpiteLokidottir

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I love cyberpunk, so most of mine tend to be quite . . . modified in one way or another. And sarcasm. There's lots of sarcasm. I'm trying to branch out a little and experiment with other characters more, which is helping.
 

Blinkk

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Yes, I'm constantly surprised. In fact, I was in a tough situation the other day and thought, "What would Devin do?" And I used his personality to help guide me through the situation. It's weird, and I'm kind of hoping I'm not the only writer who does that...
 

marie_w

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I do. My main character is always a girl, flawed, individual, Quirky, has a unique past. Also, she is courageous, brave, , and at the end she has a powerful sense of compassion. :)
 

IdrisG

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There are tropes some of my characterizations have in common, but the character themselves tend to differ. For example, I write about hella protective mama bears often, but the circumstances are always different. I write a fair number of deadbeat or absentee fathers, but I also write a lot of loving father figures. Beyond that I like writing about complicated women who have a variety of differentially intimate relationships, some where they feel comfortable being vulnerable and others where they put up fronts. I love writing about women who have been badly hurt but are healing and are a little prickly as a result. Then again, I enjoy writing about women who are just fine, thanks. I guess I don't have much of a type, actually, just tropes I like to re-use.
 

WriteMinded

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Yes, I'm constantly surprised. In fact, I was in a tough situation the other day and thought, "What would Devin do?" And I used his personality to help guide me through the situation. It's weird, and I'm kind of hoping I'm not the only writer who does that...
Uh, I think you're the only one. :D
 

snowpea

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I've noticed two things:
I write about characters a lot like myself, rocker chicks, party people.
All my characters have grown in age as I have.

I used to really want to write YA, but now I'm more interested in writing about college students or women finding themselves in their 30s. I may write YA again someday but currently it's not my interest anymore.
 

snowpea

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Yes, I'm constantly surprised. In fact, I was in a tough situation the other day and thought, "What would Devin do?" And I used his personality to help guide me through the situation. It's weird, and I'm kind of hoping I'm not the only writer who does that...
I don't do that, but I really envy some of my characters. They are so much cooler than me and dress better than I.... And have better love lives!
 

dda27101

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It all begins with the story taking shape in my mind, over days, sometimes weeks. Next step, I start seeing it as a movie, and think about what favorite actors I would like to play the parts. Sometime I borrow from characters they created, other times I imagine how they’d portray my MC.
 

Chasing the Horizon

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I think the only thing every single one of my characters has in common is that they're all talented or gifted in some way. I think I'd find a character who isn't exceptionally good at anything or intelligent both boring and hard to identify with.
 

Anna_Hedley

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I don't think I do. Although, I have noticed most of my MCs are older than me and that I write a lot of age gap relationships. My previous MC was a huge, rough, Scottish (or the fantasy world equivalent of it), genial, warrior, and my current ones are a young, geeky, socially awkward trainee dom, and a guile heroine pirate in her fifties.

The only other thing they tend to have in common is being on the QUILTBAG spectrum.
 

snowpea

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Snarky, 30-something, single, female, free spirits or societal rebels
this describes mine perfectly, except they are usually in their 20s-30s. Also they usually end up dumping the loser boyfriend they're with in the beginning of the novel.
 

pandaponies

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I *tend to* write Good Guys/Girls who fall in love with your stereotypical Bad Girl, but it's not a rule for me. I've had snarky bitch MCs, I had one who started out just a brooding loner type guy and ended up downright evil (whoops, didn't do it on purpose). I guess mine are a decently diverse bunch. :D
 

Mr Flibble

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Yes, I'm constantly surprised. In fact, I was in a tough situation the other day and thought, "What would Devin do?" And I used his personality to help guide me through the situation. It's weird, and I'm kind of hoping I'm not the only writer who does that...

I do sometimes. Though I'm more likely to ask "What would Vasquez do?" before I mutter "let's rock" and make shooting noises under my breath :D
 

Lissibith

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Apparently not at all :) Last four books have two men and two women; one just turned 20, one in his late 20's, one mid-30s and one has her 39th birthday during her story. One has no intellectual curiosity and is relatively lazy but loves fighting and leads rebels, one's a no-nonsense effective and organized mentor and leader, one's an altruistic loner by necessity who desperately wants a family and one's a loner by choice who flirts with anything that moves and is otherwise passive to a glaring fault.

Maybe I'd do better if I did stick to a type...
 

oceansoul

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I really have a soft spot for outcasts, misfits and nerds ... that being said one of the 3 MCs in my current project is quite gregarious and athletic.

But looking back on my reading history as well, almost all of my favourite characters have been misfits. Nothing irritates me more than a next to perfect protagonist.
 

Blinkk

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I don't think I do. Although, I have noticed most of my MCs are older than me and that I write a lot of age gap relationships. My previous MC was a huge, rough, Scottish (or the fantasy world equivalent of it), genial, warrior, and my current ones are a young, geeky, socially awkward trainee dom, and a guile heroine pirate in her fifties.

The only other thing they tend to have in common is being on the QUILTBAG spectrum.

I've noticed I write about a lot of MC who are older than me too. Then again...my newest MC is only 18. So there goes that thought...

:snoopy:Age Gap Relationships! I'm in one of those, and lots of authors use age gap relationships as a bad or gross thing. Many times, age gaps are portrayed negatively. I'm into AGR stories. :D
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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:snoopy:Age Gap Relationships! I'm in one of those, and lots of authors use age gap relationships as a bad or gross thing. Many times, age gaps are portrayed negatively. I'm into AGR stories. :D

I've been in a few, and I'm writing one in my current MS, although I don't make a story point of it. She's 16, he's 28, but in ancient Egyptian society that's hardly unusual. The MC's sister is in an even bigger age gap relationship - she's 20, he's 38, but they've been married for 7 years! It's a very happy and successful marriage, although it's mentioned a couple of times that she's a bit of a princess and wraps both her older brother and her husband round her little finger. But the older brother doesn't want to be that way in his own relationship with the love interest, and is trying very hard to resist coming under her spell to the exclusion of everything else. Not succeeding particularly well tho...
 
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Kashmirgirl1976

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this describes mine perfectly, except they are usually in their 20s-30s. Also they usually end up dumping the loser boyfriend they're with in the beginning of the novel.

Haha. My characters tend to have flings than boyfriends. As for the snark and age, I think I put myself in the stories. But, they are not "Mary Sues", lol.
 
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