You ever become your character

Well, you spend hours trying to get into a character's head, understand their motivations, listening to their every word and thought and you can't help it sometimes. I remember that last time I had a Scottish character; I made every effort to write the brogue in and typed 'aye' instead of 'yeah' for weeks.

I was having marital problems (no, really?) a while back and I figured I wouldstart writing a short about it, and I started writing and the story grew beyond what had actually happened, and I could relate to each and every event that the fictional wife (bitch) did to her husband and I started hating her and as I was going through the writing process I realized my marital problems were becoming worse, partly because I had confused the fictional wife and the real wife and their activities and I had assigned all the faults of the fictional wife to my wife.

The main character's problem was only a thing with run on sentnces. But as you can see, that was totally made up.

for me it's the opposite. my character becomes like me and a bit of what i'd like to be like.

My characters become like me too. I have to remind myself that they wouldn't react the way I would in a given situation.

I wouldn't mind having a few aspects of my characters' personalities.

I like that my MC (Johnny) is confident and unfazed (externally, anyway) by the opinions of others. I could really use both. I like that he's fine (70's term for really gorgeous)...He could throw a bit of extra my way. I won't complain.

His wife Natalie is a survivor. Okay...That's probably me. hahaha.

His brother Dimitri is supportive of Johnny. Takes care of him when he seizures. Now, I'm gutless...Johnny would twist himself into a pretzel. So I could use a bit of that nursing spirit (especially if you're angry at the sick person).

Well...there. That's all I'm admitting to.

no. I actually like to work on characters who are totally unlike me. That's probably why I take so darned long to fininsh a book.

Some of my novel is actually based off of events in my life and the main character and others are definately semi autobiographical, but my protagonist is my opposite in a lot of ways which makes it interesting. The premise of my story has a lot to do with the issue of how the lines of art and fiction can get blurred as my character goes crazy while she writes her own novel. Gets kind of meta LOL- trippy.

Eeeef...that's one of the things I try VERY hard to avoid. it happens to everyone though; their character becomes a voicebox for their ideals.

JenNipps said:

It actually does make sense.

I think we assign certain problems/issues we have had (or currently have) to our characters and this can sometimes impede us from moving forward ourselves for the time we carry that character around in our head.

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I think that is -very- true. Sometimes I'll be writing with my perfectly neat outline right next to me, and my character will suddenly trash it, do something completely unexpected, and leave me clueless. After a day or two, I'll read back over it just to make sure I like it, then realize it had to do with something that was bothering me. I made him go through it because I wanted to get through it.

If it's unhealthy to "morph" into your mc then I'm royally screwed and should definetly be institutionalized. I think it's a natural thing that most creative people do. Writing to me is like exercising demons, and I believe it to be good thing. A...very...good...thing.

Only in the sense of imagining how he or she may react in any given situation - that's how actors function. But never in the sense that one of my characters takes over and controls me.

Some of my characters have put up really good coherent arguments against my own point of view and later on I've considered what they had to say...

If I invent something new I sometimes pick it up and integrate it into my behaviour for a little while. One character called another "bartoom" meaning "someone I adore". I thought it was so nice that I took it for myself.

I fought against my first character for a few years until it dawned that the character had a story to tell and I was just the nuisance.

Me male, she female which often popped my eyes to the feminine mind - with the help of my wife, constantly clarifying. Writing that literary style, I guess, made writing a whole lot easier because I stopped thinking about what I was writing. Everything fell into place. It was that easy. Now I have a trilogy / saga with about ten characters (+ 2 men as well).

One weird thing (but there's lots else) and few folk above have mentioned odd things too. I was resting and thinking about writing or not, and a Spanish character I was writing shouted "WORK" in my ear - I looked the word up later. I was half asleep, probably my imagination, but I sure jumped 0_0

I've definitely wished I was my character because she is strong-willed and confident. I think in some ways your character could rub off a little, especially if you're having a good run with your writing and/or editing. You're spending a huge amount of time with them and you know them inside-out. I think it makes sense if it happens.

I believe that when you create a character,you do one of two things.

You either give them traits that you have or ones you wish you had.
If you are a rather shy or quiet person writing tough characters,you might be unaware that you are tough. You just show it in a different way!

Every female character I write,no matter the genre,is strong-willed. I'm pushy and tough as all hell,so that rubs off. They also dress well. I LOVE fashion!

I have a friend who is one of the shyest people ever,but every character she writes is boisterous,social,etc. I think doing this has helped her open up more.

I agree with Kitty above me here in the sense that writers tend to give characters traits they wish they had. Hence why the majority of main characters are strong-willed boundary-pushers. We take our own lives and make them kookier and romanticise them and give them happy endings.

However, the last few pieces I've written have all had a main character who was naturally evil. It's been a test of my own character more than anything, to see how willing I am to watch my own main character act insultingly to everyone they meet. It's uncomfortable, but a useful thing to do, in my opinion.

My character Charles has a red bike and smokes alot.
And I started riding a bike and smoking alot.
Sigh.

I won't say I "become" my characters but there is a little bit of me (either who I am now or who I'd like to be) in almost every one of them, even the male characters (I am female ). I tend to identify most with the characters who are women in their late 30's/early 40's who have some gumption but have been oppressed all their lives by expectations and family (because that's very close to my own history). But these characters are rarely the protagonists of my novels. They are usually more peripheral characters.

Tam

Definitely. I used to do a lot of amateur acting when I was younger so I guess falling into character of my character comes naturally. I find that when I am writing a story, I will even start to act out dialogue when I am away from the computer. By the way, if you see a guy in a red jeep who is having a complete conversation with nobody and you don't see a blue tooth in his ear, well, um, you'll know who it is.

I've always noticed that my characters are a lot older than me. I'm 18 and I find my main characters being in their 30s. One of which is very close to my heart and when I write for her, I can really get to know her in my head as if she really was me. Is that odd that I can identify with older characters better than ones my age?

i created my story when i was 12 as a way of escaping my life. It started out as daydreams where in my head i actually had friends we we had adventures. When i started writing down my thoughts thats when i became a character in a book. I put myself in my books. Guess you could say even though my books matured into actually stories and not stupid childhood daydreams i never left my stories. I'm still a character in my series, and the character me is a mixture of the actural me and the person i wish i could be. Because of this I have alot of trouble writing anything where I'm not the main character.