How much of yourself should you put into a novel?

Hey, Shadowmoo your question made me laugh. Not because it is a funny question, but I just left the first three sentence thread and saw yours. They included a mouse, and then I read this question. Not sure why I found it so funny but I pictured a mouse behind his computer contemplating your dilema. So anyway, let me move on and get to your question.
I think you can pull from your own experiences but just make sure your main character has his/her own voice. You don't want the reader to get confused between author and main character. They say write what you know, so that's what I am suggesting. Write the story and then after see if it's a problem. Probably not much help, so sorry. Good luck, though!
My two cents.....

Shadowmoo said:

Trying to avoid self-insert but also want to draw from my own experience. Is there a problem with self-insert or how to you create a unique character with their own persona?

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As long as you are an interesting character, why not?

You just have to be sure you are writing a wish-fulfillment story. These are usually only fun for the writer.

There's no problem at all with autobiographical fiction. In my opinion, one of the most exciting and impressive pieces of contemporary literature is Knausgaard's My Sturggle, which is a six-volume novel based largely on the author's life. And of course, there are countless other examples where confessional fiction has been done well (The Bell Jar is purportedly more fact than fiction, for instance).

Personally, I don't write much autobiographical stuff because I don't find myself all that interesting. I do have a habit of borrowing certain details from my own life--the geography of places I've lived, conversations I've overheard, stories my friends have told me--but that's about as far as I go.

Shadowmoo said:

Trying to avoid self-insert but also want to draw from my own experience. Is there a problem with self-insert or how to you create a unique character with their own persona?

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Like Trent said, there's a difference between SI and wish-fulfillment. Generally, if I'm thinking about putting parts of myself into a story, I won't dump it all in a single character. I'll spread it out over several, whether MCs or minor characters. I'll pick my best and worst aspects and weave them into characters in a way which makes them realistic and relateable both for me and for readers.

The reason I don't SI into a single character is that too often we can become mired in our own flaws, or alternatively, blind to them. When you're 'being' a character too much, you can lose sight of the bigger picture.

Human beings are complex creatures. We have enough of ourselves to fill in the characteristics of many a character.

I have only my own experience to draw from.

It's really up to you. Some famous authors pretty much exclusively write autobiographical fiction or fiction that's closely connected to their experiences. Others aren't really interested in that. And of course, there's middle ground.

I think it's only an issue in that some people find it uncreative if it's all a writer ever does. Personally, I think it's fine to be primarily inspired by your own life. An interesting, well-written story is interesting no matter what inspired it.

My MC is everything I'm not and would wish to be.

I try really really hard to not self insert. I want people to enjoy my books, but gauging reactions at parties, when I let loose my anecdotes, I aren't interesting enough to self insert.

That said, I put a hundred percent of me in my books, heart, mind, soul and warts. Its all I know.

When you write a story, technically, you're already putting yourself into it. You are the narrator, the story was your idea, the effort you put into that story is entirely yours. Everything about the story, novel, song, or literary project of any name, is you.

Gene Brewer wrote himself into the K-PAX trilogy as the main character. But from what I know of the author he and his literary counterparts are two very different people. They share a name and that's about it.

I've put myself into my own work but never as the main character. I'm usually an ancillary character, whereas the main character is someone I wish I could be, which sounds pathetic, but there you go.

On a conscious level, not at all, but I'm sure we all do to some extent whether we realize it or not.

I don't write about my personal life. I do use my life's observations and experiences to influence my writing. I suspect that's similar to what most writers of fiction do. Ian Fleming was actually an intelligence agent; he wasn't James Bond, nor did he do James Bondish stuff, but his experience clearly led to his interest in writing his fiction. Joseph Wambaugh was a cop, and took his experience into the realm of writing crime fiction. John Grisham was an attorney, and took his experience into the writing of legal/judicial-based fiction.

Using your personal experience doesn't automatically make your work autobiographical. But some writers indeed do mine their own lives for fictional narrative. As always, whatever you path you choose, what counts is how well you carry out the journey.

caw

Plenty of well-regarded pieces of fiction are partially, loosely, or even more tightly based on an author's actual life experiences.

http://bookriot.com/2014/07/16/romance-101-marriages-convenience/

https://daveastoronliterature.com/tag/semi-autobiographical-novels/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographical_novel

I'm guessing that these lists are just scraping the surface. Indeed, I can think of some good semi-autobiographical books I've read that aren't on it.

I suspect the list of novels where the authors put a bit of themselves (or someone the know well) into one or more characters if much longer. Mark Twain, for instance, drew from his childhood experiences when he wrote some of his novels. Honestly, I don't think it's possible not to put a bit of yourself, or at least someone you know, into any character you create, even if it's a matter of thinking about how different you would be if you were in such and such a situation, or trying to get inside the head of someone who is very different from you in many respects.

Odile_Blud said:

On a conscious level, not at all, but I'm sure we all do to some extent whether we realize it or not.

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I intended to say pretty much this. I've never intended to put myself into my characters, but every time they are a more accurate reflection of me than my own perception at the time was. I only really realised this when multiple characters expressed a trend towards depression, which is something I've only recently been able to spot in myself.
So, to answer the original question, I'd say don't worry about it too much. Personally I try to avoid self inserts, but aspects of yourself turning up are inevitable, so just roll with it.

Shadowmoo said:

Trying to avoid self-insert but also want to draw from my own experience. Is there a problem with self-insert or how to you create a unique character with their own persona?

Click to expand...

The objections to self-insertion seem to be the the reader doesn't want to know about the author's foibles. I doubt many readers will know the author. Besides, creating "a unique character with their own persona" has already be done. The character is you, and another you does not exist.

Another objection was that writing about oneself means the author must create enough conflict and shortcomings for the main character. Trust me on this - I have lots of shortcomings and conflicts.

In fact, my current project is very much based on me. It necessarily is fiction simply because the setting is twenty years in the future, with the main character (who is never named, by the way) revealing past events through flash backs and other techniques.

IMHO, including large doses of yourself in your fiction can make for a very interesting read.

Think of it this way; no matter what you write, it comes from your memories like a dream. It's always you.

There's a lot of my *personality* in my MC's father, but not really any of my life, if that makes sense... and he's definitely a secondary character.

As usual, it depends on how it's done. Some authors seem to have a character based on themselves. That, for me, is why all the women fancy Mikael Blomkvist in the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. It's author wish-fulfillment as this is the character that gets all the sex. It's why Ian Fleming put so much of his own character into James Bond, who also gets all of the sex. It's why almost every Stephen King novel has a Stephen King-esque character in it.

Then you have the authors who put a named version of themselves into a novel, in the same way that Alfred Hitchcock puts himself in all (?) of his films or the Stan Lee cameos in Marvel movies. I seem to recall that Clive Cussler did this in a novel called Inca Gold. At one point the MC meets a writer called Clive Cussler. It was a real eye-roll moment for me which jarred me out of whatever suspension of disbelief I was clinging on to at that point. Admittedly, having a lead character called Dirk Pitt doesn't help either.

If it works, it's a cute Easter egg for the readers to find. If it doesn't work, it can come across as a cheap gimmick.

The thing is, I don't think you're doing your job as a writer properly if you're not pouring a lot off yourself into your characters.

The trick is to pick out a tiny aspect of yourself and flesh that out into a single, distinct character. You've still got a grip on who they are informed by your own thoughts and experience, but they are so very clearly not you.

As an aside, it's a bit of a cliche for a chef to say that they put a little bit of themselves into every dish they cook.

And while I know that they mean, it does conjure up a rather unpleasant image or two.

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Shadowmoo said:

Trying to avoid self-insert but also want to draw from my own experience. Is there a problem with self-insert or how to you create a unique character with their own persona?

Click to expand...

a) They say it's authentic if it's actually happened - from that point of view, you're always inserting your own self/experience into it, at least a little.

b) Give characters a belief.

The work I just finished first-rounds on is basically about me learning to love who I am as a person, even though it's a dystopian set 300 years from now and the MC doesn't look like me and other things. I intentionally put at least a little droplet of myself in each character I create. If I see a character that doesn't have something, I'll give them my eyes or recurring headaches, or my hair color, or a love of crochet, or weird eyebrows or a scar on one knee, or even just the tendency to mumble that I had as a kid. Even if it's something the reader never sees, I still know I can relate to this character because she once tripped up some concrete steps and skinned up half her leg.

IMHO, you can't help putting some of yourself into a novel. But I think you transform it in the course of writing so that it becomes accessible for readers too. They see the human truth in your experience. Someone I read said a good novel tells us something about the world. A bad novel tells us something about the writer.

My problem with autobiographical is that I like my fiction to make sense, and life doesn't always make sense. What I mean is, a lot of things happen in life that are contradictory, or just irrelevant. They don't advance the plot.

But creating a character that acts exactly like you would, and faces similar challenges to what you have, is perfectly fine. Just don't be afraid to deviate from the biography wherever it makes a better story.

That's just personal taste. Some people don't need their fiction to make sense, or even prefer it not to. They're fine with a slice of life story.