Are you your MC (sort of)?

How much does your main character resemble yourself or how much of yourself do you put into your MC? I know we're writing fiction (most of us) so it's not like the plot events actually happened to us, but I can't help but think of how I would handle things are respond to situations that I'm putting my character through. It's not me, but sometimes it is me if that makes any sense.

I also think POV can play a big role in this especially when it comes to writing in first person. And I think my best work is my stuff written in first person. Is that because it's easier to inject ourselves when writing in first person? We all put a lot of work into our characters. How much of yourself do you put into your characters?

 

It's weird. The more superficial similarities (age, gender, social class), the less comfortable I am when writing the character. But a character with stark differences could have my personality to a T, and it doesn't seem too close for comfort at all.

 

There is a deep philosophical rabbit hole I want to avoid with this topic, we are everyone and everything in our stories, even if we make an effort to make character different than who we are, they are still us by virtue of being our interpretation of "not us"

Okay enough philosophy, let's talk brass tacks.

All characters have a bit of me in them but some character ARE me. Me if I had superpowers, me if I was in a space war, me if I was a vampire, me, me, me. Write what you know and there is no topic I know better than the topic of me. I did this much more when I was a younger writer, I don't do it today. Now I like to focus on characters who are not deliberately me, I like for their voice to be unique. The most fun and interesting characters are the ones who would do and say things I wouldn't.

What I will often do is create a character that IS me, but isn't the main character. By doing that it allows me to put all my me-ness into one character so I am less likely to do that to other characters. So basically I am the Watson, asking all the questions I (and the audience) might ask so Sherlock can show off how cool (aka unlike me) he is.

 

My characters are not me. I wrote (and trashed) my revenge/poor dramatic me novel four decades ago and thereafter lost interest in myself as a character. Sometimes my characters share an experience, a job, or a location with me, but they rarely, if ever, react or think the way I would.

 

It varies for me. As @West Angel pointed out, and I do believe, all our characters come from a place inside to one degree or another. I've compared it to Jungian dream theory before. In my dreams, I am everyone. That being said, the extent to which a character is based on me changes from story to story. I can identify with my MC's and, often enough, they react the way I would, but I've only once written myself into a story. I have temporarily (I hope) abandoned that project until I can come up with a solid outline for Act III. I was discovery writing, which was super easy for the parts that mirrored some of my own experiences and more difficult later on.

Other books and shorts are not about me. In fact, as natural as it feels at times, I've found it to be a challenge at other times to get into the head and the voice of a character. It's a fun challenge, and one that I believe has yielded positive results for the most part. One of the reasons I don't write myself more often is that I don't want to write the same character over and over. I want them to feel individual and well-rounded.

 

Something of the author slips into their characters often unintentionally. Personally, I try to slip into the character's head when writing them. The way an actor can slip into their character.

 

H. Rider Haggard admitted that Allan Quartermain (from his masterpiece King Solomon’s Mines and others) was basically a self insert, and in my humble opinion Allan Quartermain was a fantastic character—he even inspired Indiana Jones! So I think it can be done well.

 

I find that it's usually one specific aspect of myself that lands within certain characters. Like, one person gets immaturity, another gets naive ambition, and the other gets spirituality. I don't like making characters that truly are me, unless I'm writing a goofy fanfiction. Writing characters is not merely about expressing myself, but expressing the parts of others that are also admirable. For example, I'm not a calm, professional man with a complicated vocabulary, but I sure do love reading about them.

 

I think it's just kinda an aspect of writing. Whether you're writing a fanfic, a novel, or a screenplay, you do kind of end up inserting a bit of yourself into the person you're writing. I mean, you want to get into the heads of the characters you're writing, so naturally our brains create something within the character that lets us connect to them. And it's not always things that are a part of us. It can be things that we want, things that we feel or think, maybe even our hidden dark sides if the character's a villain. Personally, I think that's why I have trouble with fanfics, I try to keep characters in character but then I end up putting a bit of myself/my desires into the characters then boom, I've altered the characters into something slightly different. Their base is the same, but they've clearly been altered.

I think that this is an ok thing to do. You can create some truly amazing stories doing this. Just remember to never insert the part of you that wishes to be perfect in every way, the part that wishes that on day one you could be better than the person who had been doing something for years despite having no experience, the desire to be able to say or do whatever you want without consequence. Because unless you plan on deconstructing those things, it can make your character seem lifeless or even unlikable.

 

My characters are generally not me, although I will from time to time use my life experiences, especially in short stories. Most of my main WIP characters are either composites of people I know or composites of historical figures.

 

Certainly not. Among my MCs are a 1st-century AD Roman captain, a 6th-century BC exiled goatherd, a 2nd-century BC Rhodian shepherd, and a 12th-century BC Theban Sphinx.

You can make up your own minds, but I'm damn sure I've never been any of those

 

My characters usually start out as versions of me one way or another
almost always they'll grow and eventually just become their own character through the story ive put them in

 

If you write yourself into the MC, isn't that a tad bit narcissistic?

I've only written myself into a story twice, once as the villain/antagonist, and again as a side character (was only engaged into the story for 2 chapters).

I'm not saying it's a BAD thing, if you're a GOOD person then sure, write yourself as MC. Personally, I'm evil to the effing core, I only pretend to be a decent human being, simply for the fact that I'm aiming for the shallow end of the Lake Of Fire in the afterlife. (That & I've learned the HARD way that jail is bad for my health)
To thine own self be true. You can lie to everyone else, but be honest with yourself. Otherwise you're destined for trouble & you'll never see it coming.

If I EVER get around to finishing my autobiography, it'll be titled: "Tales of Wow, Woe & WTF".

 

It's not really narcissistic to put a bit of yourself into an MC. Show creators/authors will often insert a part of themselves or a facet of their lives into their shows/characters because it makes it easier to understand your characters.

Of course there are works of fiction that have self inserts who are basically Mary Sues. Even then, depending on the person writing said story, it can vary between a simple mistake done by an amateur to actual narcissism.

 

It definitely isn't narcissistic. It can be therapeutic even. My first ever writing project was a trilogy I dedicated months and months of active work on it and the MC was based on me.

It's been years since I wrote it at this point. I'm never going to let anyone read it because it unintentionally turned out to be an exploration of my soul rather than the epic Sci-Fi I wanted it to be. I'm autistic and I struggled immensely in life because of it. Writing this huge story with a lot of character development helped make me see myself from all kinds of angles. I love that trilogy even though the writing straight up sucks! The story is kind of good though.

Outside this trilogy, I have written a lot of short stories with 'me' elements in it and people liked these stories. I think it can work if you do it properly.

Its only narcissistic if you are in love with yourself and you want to 'grace' the world with thy beauty by writing stories with perfected versions of your already perfect self.

I've only ever met one narcissist. Those people really do exist, and that guy had photographs of himself everywhere, and even openly admitted it. He was a real life narcissus... but with a camera instead of a river.

Believe it or not, though, he didn't seem to be a bad person other than that.

 

Sure. If the MC has little aspects of you in it (e.g. eye colour / hair colour / little mannerisms like stroking the jaw when thinking, or throwing the head back when laughing), it's not narcissistic. Lots of people have the same colour eyes or hair, and the same (or very close) mannerisms.

But if everything about the MC is like you, including the name, and the MC is wonderful, beautiful, powerful and strong, all-knowing and all-wise, and beloved by all, and ALL the women/men want to sleep with him/her ......... that, my friend, is definite, 100%, Grade-A narcissism. Plus, it's obvious narcissism -- the worst kind.

IIRC, the Egyptian Pharoah Ramesses II is guilty of this kind of thing. But then, lots of different kings and emperors back then were, also.

"...And the Hittites didst maliciously, gleefully and with malice aforethought (and even afivethought) invade His Majesty's realm, and conquer His towns, and mistreat his subjects. But Lo! His Majesty didst ride among them on his glittering golden chariot, and didst shoot them down with his bow, and none dared oppose him! And His Majesty brought down the Oh-So-Evil Hittites, and conquered their lands, and brought their Emperor low, and ..."

(Sounds like a Saturday Morning Cartoon(TM), doesn't it?)

 

One of the first things I learned about writing is that creating a MC that's basically you, with absolutely no flaw whatsoever, is the definition of a 'Mary/Marty-Sue'. Sure, some of my characters have certain traits that are me, but I try to make them their own individuals.

 

Vanity or self-obsession. To be fair, spending hundreds of hours on a piece of literature where each character carries a part of your personality in order to explore your chosen theme(s) is also extremely vane. "Yar, I be just a humble writer that spends a substantial amount of time mentally in a world of entirely my own creation."

The difference is that it's actually enjoyable to read, though, where M. Sues aren't. That said there are entertaining characters who don't really have flaws. The distinction, which I think I've talked about before, is the world rather than the character. If the world fully yields to the M. Sue, tells him he's beautiful, amazing, the smartest, and he wins every engagement vocal or otherwise, then he's M. Sue. People accuse Luke Skywalker of being a Marty Sue, but the events of Episode 5 dash that.

Spoiler: Spoiler in case you haven't seen Star Wars

Dude cuts his hand off and says "I'm your daddy." Then the movie ends. He loses. The world doesn't let M. Sues lose.

Action heroes are accused of being M. Sues too because... they don't have drinking problems or beat their wives or whatever. But the action heroes aren't masters of everything, rather, they're just masters of action, and are beat back by the world in the first two acts of the movie in order to set up the payoff.

 

This is hard because i dont think i do it. i dont intentionally believe i do it.
but it happens. Things i would or wouldnt do in a situation... thoughts and feelings on a certain topic.... things i hate in a person becomes the basis for a villain.
but I dont think i have a single character that i can say is "me" in every aspect (scratch that... there was a time where i wanted to try to write a personal essay about being a stutterer, but it was too hard so I thought it would be easier if i created a fictional character that was a stand in for "me" and put this character in situations that i have encountered, maybe it would be easier to write if i disassociated myself from it.... but NOPE! dealing with the emotions were still hard and i abandoned it. I actually shared that attempt in the Workshop a couple of years before)

When i write my characters, i dont feel the same emotions as i did when writing the above one, so thats why I assume i must not have a character that is fully "me"

I have a WIP that is one of my only non-genre novel WIPs about a little girl dealing with mommy issues. I've always been close to my mom. I dont think I've ever had issues communicating with her or winning her love and attention. This character does have these issues. and writing these things from the POV of this little girl does make me sad (and the writing of the WIP is taking me forever because i need a breather after each chapter).
My mom did tell me that when i was in elementary school, i was really sad and my mom was called in for a parent-teacher conference. the teacher asked me to tell my mom why i was so sad and apparently i said that she never hung my pictures up on the refrigerator and that i felt she didnt like me. i have absolutely no memories of this event. but my mom said it crushed her that she'd made me feel like i wasnt important to her. so from then on, she put everything i made on display in her office and on the refrigerator (i do remember being annoyed when i was older how she'd gush over even the little stupid things i did and insisted on bringing stuff to work... so now everything makes sense, even though i dont remember the initial incident)
so maybe there is something going on subconsciously and this character in this WIP is reflecting that.

but like @ps102 said, it can be therapeutic.

 

I don't see how having your character do things or make decisions you would make in certain situations is anything like a Mary Sue character. Even if you put a lot of "you" in your character I don 't think it's going to come across like a Mary Sue. That's a whole separate issue. Injecting some or a lot of you into a character doesn't mean you are making them perfect or flawless. I'm not even sure how people reached that from the OP I posted.

Even when people write narrative nonfiction or personal essays about themselves they are not writing Mary Sue characters. I think it's quite the opposite in most cases.

I think it's probably smart to be a little of your characters and help them along. I actually think it's probably unavoidable. I don't think doing this has anything to do with vanity. Nor do I think writing about yourself in nonfiction has anything to do with vanity.

I think sort of being your character or having their decisions and action be similar to what you would do or think in a given situation can make your characters seem more genuine and realistic. This does not make your characters you. If you are not doing any of this, I'm not sure how you can really get along with character development. I think it would take a lot of work and not come out so well to make sure nothing from yourself is in your character. These are just my thoughts on it.

 

My current protagonist has rather a lot in common with me, including highly fictionalised, fantasticalised versions of certain important life events that inform his choices.

That said...I am told that I am not a very realistic person, so I tone him down quite a bit. I have the sort of career history and skillset that would lead to accusations of being a Mary Sue, so I have to make sure he can't do some things that I can or doesn't know some things that I do. Of course, he's a fantasy character, so he gets some extra skills that I definitely don't have.

He's competent at what he does, but not excessively so; he doesn't even discover the antagonists' plot until it's almost ready to be put into action and initially falls for their misdirection, though a bit of specialist knowledge he has points him vaguely in the right direction, but too late to stop the antagonists putting their plan into action.

A bit of intelligence gathered by someone else in the organisation 'off-screen' and fed up the chain leads to him having the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time to prevent the worst possible outcome. He chooses a course of action based on his moral values, against his own logical judgement and personal desires, which turns out to be the 'right' one. Success from that point on is in a large part due to the courage, skill and professionalism of the people he works with.

Some of those people are killed or wounded, including his closest friend who is nearly killed in an act of betrayal by a member of their own side; he tries to save her life but lacks the necessary skills and equipment (the timely arrival of a med-tech with a trauma bag saves the day). From that point on his insecurity about his moral fibre and continued ability to perform his role is replaced by a dangerously intense drive to find those behind the events of the climax, particularly the betrayal and near-fatal wounding of his friend; the architects of the plan mostly remain unknown, though a number of their high-value pieces are now off the board.

The story (so far) ends with him struggling to deal with his desire for vengeance, his guilt over the deaths of his team members, his inability to save his best friend and his realisation that bond between him and that friend has progressed beyond friendship and into romantic love and what this means for the future of their relationship, given that both have spouses and families.

Basically, his successes come partly from being knowledgeable and competent, but mostly from working effectively with intelligent, knowledgeable and competent people around him, while his various horrific failures are all on him and the weight of them is gradually squashing him into the ground.

So, yeah...he's me, but in a different context.

The friend who betrays him is also me, I think, but if I gave in to the worst aspects of myself. The next story arc is going to involve him tracking down that friend while trying not to become him in the process.

I don't think I'll ever let anyone read it, but I'm enjoying writing it.