Writing the same character twice...

I am not too terribly against it. I really don't think the "type" is retired, or disposed of after the writer uses it. Look at it this way. I have spent a lot of my writing energy on sorting out the relationship between my mother and father. In differering ways and degrees, I model a lot of my characters on them. I will no doubt continue to analize and explore this character in various forms. Dad might be a priest in one book and a drunken sailor in another, but he's still good old dad. They come from the same mind, the same bag of stock characters particular to the author. I mean, kind of like Tennessee Williams kept writing the same characters. Stephan King also wrote the same Hell-fire preacher endlessly and a bunch of other characters like that.

I think many writers use characters to analyze and make sense of people in their lives, not to mention themselves. It's natural that we obsess over these character types, then.

I'm pretty wary of this in my own writing. I know I lean toward a certain type of protagonist, but I try to make each one unique--a special task when they're all first-present, and all coming from my head.

superman skivvies said:

How often do you read seperate books by the same author and find yourself thinking This guy seems familiar and then realizing that you remember him from a different book by the same author--as a different character? I noticed this in a couple of Christopher Moore books and also one with Stephen King (Carrie's mother in Carrie reminds me a whole lot of Annie Wilkes from Misery). Does this ever bother you when reading, because I know it bothers me. I almost found myself copying a certain character from the last book I'd wrote with my now WIP and I made sure it didn't happen. Have you ever caught yourself doing this? How do you deal with keeping your characters original?

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In the case of Stephen King, aren't ALL of his characters pick from 3 templates?

Template 1: A male with [insert odd quirk here] who says [insert funny word here--just remember to stick the f word in the middle of it] who writes books, is recovering from some addiction and likes 70's rock

Template 2: A female with [insert odd quirk here] who says [insert funny word here--just remember to stick the f word in the middle of it] who writes books, is recovering from some addiction and likes 70's rock.

Template 3: A weird, spooky religious fanatic (always a bible thumper).

EDIT: occasionally he substitutes the f word for the s word. But this is jarring to his readers, so he refrains from doing this often.

t0neg0d said:

Template 3: A weird, spooky religious fanatic (always a bible thumper).

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Hey, hey, sometimes they're not spooky!


(I loved Mother Abigail...)

I do this constantly. I even name them the same thing, because I attach names to types. "Timothy" is my big one, he shows up all over the place. He might be 13 or 23 or 35, and each time he might have a slightly different back story and he might be doing something completely different, but it's the same guy. Why try to hide it?

If I ever get famous I'll be "that author who writes about the same people over and over." But hey, I'll be part of a long tradition.

JoNightshade said:

I do this constantly. I even name them the same thing, because I attach names to types. "Timothy" is my big one, he shows up all over the place. He might be 13 or 23 or 35, and each time he might have a slightly different back story and he might be doing something completely different, but it's the same guy. Why try to hide it?

If I ever get famous I'll be "that author who writes about the same people over and over." But hey, I'll be part of a long tradition.

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I would gladly write the same character over and over... if it was selling!

IMHO, Mary Higgins Clark was guilty of this (I haven't read anything by her in a few years, so this applies to her older books) - her heroines were all 20-somethings, very successful given their ages (and no matter what their job was), always very pretty, always had some hangup from a tragedy in their past, and usually either had lost a parent or had some sort of weird estrangement from them. After a while, I got tired of reading the same person over and over, so I stopped buying her books. The plots were usually pretty unique (though often tied to some major current event), but I just got sick of the fact the heroines were all pretty much the same.

So, it would bother me eventually, and it stays in the back of my mind when I'm creating my own characters...

superman skivvies said:

No, I disagree. I'm a diehard King fan, and I think he does a great job varying characters.

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Hmm, and yet when you posed the question, the first writers to spring to my mind were King, Irving and Ballard.

All of whom I think are fantastic writers.

Sometimes that character just works.

It's weird, in my writing, I can see the evolution of the archetype that ended up being my main character, Stef. There were two main works that contributed to her creation, and I can trace a lot of the elements back to those works (liking guns, her death, affiliation with computers, interesting relationship with boss etc).

It's ok though, I don't plan on doing anything with the old stories, and if I do, I'll be able to create new versions of the characters so that they...don't feel like derivations from a character that was derived from them...

Nakhlasmoke said:

Hmm, and yet when you posed the question, the first writers to spring to my mind were King, Irving and Ballard.

All of whom I think are fantastic writers.

Sometimes that character just works.

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I also like SK's books, there always entertaining. The characters are just predictable. Predictable can be a good thing, though.

I think writers have a tendency to do that because they write what they know. Sure, they can dream up characters (quirks, characteristics, etc.) by eventually, especially if these are main characters, they're going to be drawn from people the writers know, or at least readily supplied by his or her psyche. After all, characters -- as real as they are -- are only extensions of the author's imagination.

Especially if you have written 15, 20 novels, how can you ever avoid writing a similar character? After all, I don't think there are really that many fundamentally different types of people in real life anyway. Sure, we're all different with different backgrounds, etc. but in many ways, a lot of us are very similar in hopes, dreams, temperaments, personalities, etc.

In my own writing, I try different things, and the characters who speak to me seem to be very different. The protagonist in my first book is very different than that in my WIP, but they still share similar traits (partially because they're both the "heroes"). My female leads are rather different, partially because one is still very young (15).

Personally I don't make a conscientious effort of making my characters all different. I don't draw character charts and say, "Hey, I already have someone like this, so I should make him this way so that he's different..." I just let my characters speak to me and show me what they're like. I understand there would be limitation, but at least they feel organic to me instead of some puppets or quirky characters for quirkiness' sake.

superman skivvies said:

How often do you read seperate books by the same author and find yourself thinking This guy seems familiar and then realizing that you remember him from a different book by the same author--as a different character?

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Yes, and this usually turns me off from that writer.

I haven't come across it too much, but when I do it doesn't bother me too much because I've done it before, and it's usually just subtle reminders like so-and-so in such-and-such book is kindhearted and compassionate, and so-and-so in such-and-such book by the same author is also kindhearted and compassionate. I don't repeat characters very often anymore, but looking back at the stuff I wrote in gr.5 (more than 5 years ago), I find that my characters are pretty much all the same because the stories are pretty much all the same. :|

maestrowork said:

Especially if you have written 15, 20 novels, how can you ever avoid writing a similar character? After all, I don't think there are really that many fundamentally different types of people in real life anyway. Sure, we're all different with different backgrounds, etc. but in many ways, a lot of us are very similar in hopes, dreams, temperaments, personalities, etc.

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Honestly I've meet people who are practically doppelgangers of others I know. Even if they don't look the same, they have strangely similar moods, humor, and opinions. How unique can one be with 6 billion people on the planet?

I think that there's no way one can exhaust what can be done with a character in a single story, so it's perfectly justify to reincarnate a character as long as you're going to do something different with them. For example with my characters I have some I want to see in a futuristic science fiction setting as well as a historical fantasy setting, and one that I want to explore what he would be like if he were in mourning without ruining the happy ending of his first story (or upsetting readers) by killing off his lover, and if you have any kind of time loop or alternate universe story you might even need to have two versions of the same character in the same story! So I wish people would not use the phrase 'guilty of this' as if it were some kind of crime or sin. I think it's only a problem if the author doesn't realize they are doing it; otherwise it's just a design choice.

I guess I haven't read enough books from individual authors to notice such a trend. It would bother me if I noticed it, though. It would smack of unoriginality.

I can't say whether I do it or not. I definitely have characters who are similar to each other, but as for exact copies, I don't think I do that. I wouldn't be able to say for sure as, in my head, all these are individuals to me; maybe the reader sees them differently?

The way to keep oneself from recycling characters? Imagine every character as a separate personality inside you. If two of them end up alike, it's likely by chance, and they aren't 100% the same anyway. There really are some people in life who are a lot alike; I guess it's just how you present them in the story. The same character can be completely different if they're put in a different role, for example.

It's just such a foreign concept to me to recycle characters because in my head they're all their own people. They would just balk at me trying to copy them. I would balk at me trying to copy them. Like, "Why are you giving So-And-So a different name??" I don't see how other people recycle characters unless it's all done unconsciously, in which case I'd think either the characters are just similar and aren't really the same (the reader's perception might be at fault), or else the writer needs more experience creating original characters and doesn't know it yet.

I know I'm babbling, I just find it a very difficult concept to understand.

I don't think I've consciously noticed this tendency, but then I rarely ever read two books in a row by the same author. I've always liked to vary it up and if I read something by one author, I'll then purposely read something by a different author.

By the time I return to the first author I've pretty much forgotten character details so I never notice similarities.

I think I have a sort of list of stock characters but I try to make them unique after using one (usually unconsciously) for the basic model.

As far as Stephen King goes, I think he has plenty of kinds of characters, but I haven't read a whole lot of him. It seemed like nobody in The Gunslinger (Just the first book of a series mind you) really fits the list t0neg0d posted. Starting the second book I definitely see the first of those going on (with Eddie).

Stephen King is prolific so it's definitely possible and perhaps likely that has some sort of formula to start with at least.

EDIT: Dan Brown seems to be pretty guilty of this, and in ways that seem obvious to me. Of course, I'm pretty much down with the Hatred of Dan Brown so of course I'd mention it.

Is it weird I find it a very different situation with main characters and secondary characters?

I think lots of authors tend toward similar main characters to some extent. Certainly that's not always true, and there are authors whose main characters are always drastically different people, which is certainly refreshing, original, and all that good stuff. But often it's natural to favor a certain kind of person if you're going to follow him/her through an entire novel, and I don't usually find anything wrong with that, if it's well-written. When done well, it feels like an original, new spin on something that feels comfortably, familiar.

But strangely enough, with secondary characters, I think it feels a little stranger if you have a character in one novel who's a carbon copy of a character from another. It feels like deja vu in all the wrong ways. But then, I have no problem if the author actually brings in the exact same minor character--same name and everything--into a larger role in another novel, to explore an interesting character more effectively. It acknowledges that it's the same character, and makes it work through the deeper characterization. Similarly, it's fun to see a major secondary character from a past novel come back make a "cameo" appearance in a minor role in another of the author's books.

Alastair McLean (although I love him) does this in every single book. His MC is the exact same person, just with a different name and girl. Dick Francis sort of did that too... But I don't really think it detracts from the books. Though they're all crafted to fit a formula, each one is intriguing and enjoyable (IMO )

kuwisdelu said:

But strangely enough, with secondary characters, I think it feels a little stranger if you have a character in one novel who's a carbon copy of a character from another. It feels like deja vu in all the wrong ways. But then, I have no problem if the author actually brings in the exact same minor character--same name and everything--into a larger role in another novel, to explore an interesting character more effectively. It acknowledges that it's the same character, and makes it work through the deeper characterization. Similarly, it's fun to see a major secondary character from a past novel come back make a "cameo" appearance in a minor role in another of the author's books.

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I like the idea of developing additional characters as a series goes on and agree with your post pretty much entirely.

I've never particularly noticed that in my own writing (I haven't written enough for it to crop up yet ).

However, I have noticed it in other people's writing. Especially the classics. Take Wickham from Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". I was re-reading "Sense and Sensibility" the other day, and I couldn't help noticing the parallells between the two characters.

But most of the time, this sort of thing doesn't matter. Some characters just work. For example, there are a limited amount of different types of villains, simply because all villains are bad. THere may be other traits which are different, but the main trait is constant.

kuwisdelu said:

Is it weird I find it a very different situation with main characters and secondary characters?

I think lots of authors tend toward similar main characters to some extent. Certainly that's not always true, and there are authors whose main characters are always drastically different people, which is certainly refreshing, original, and all that good stuff. But often it's natural to favor a certain kind of person if you're going to follow him/her through an entire novel, and I don't usually find anything wrong with that, if it's well-written. When done well, it feels like an original, new spin on something that feels comfortably, familiar.

But strangely enough, with secondary characters, I think it feels a little stranger if you have a character in one novel who's a carbon copy of a character from another. It feels like deja vu in all the wrong ways. But then, I have no problem if the author actually brings in the exact same minor character--same name and everything--into a larger role in another novel, to explore an interesting character more effectively. It acknowledges that it's the same character, and makes it work through the deeper characterization. Similarly, it's fun to see a major secondary character from a past novel come back make a "cameo" appearance in a minor role in another of the author's books.

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Good point. I think this has to do with minor characters often being easier to make unique from one story to another--we're not in their heads, only the MC's, so we only really see their surfaces. And when a reader catches an author surrounding a semi-familiar MC with a deja vu cast, they feel cheated because the supporting characters are more easily varied.

I think many writers enjoy using the same selection of archetypes from one story to another and playing with the expression of that archetype. I definitely do. All my MCs seem to be Virgos. Supposed to be my sign, but whatever, right? And yet...that's my favorite archetype to explore from within, in my writing, from slightly different angles each time.