Would you be friends with your characters?

Straka · Oct 22, 2008

A few betas who've read one of my works, said they wouldn't like my MC as a friend, but they liked him as a character.

This intrigued me because I don't believe I've ever thought, would I be friends with character X?

So I pose to you, which characters from what works would you like to actually be friends with if they were in the flesh?

Alpha Echo · Oct 22, 2008

Good question.

I think I wouldn't want to be friends with my MC at the beginning of my WIP, but by the end, the growth that she experiences...I would want to be friends with her.

I never really thought about that either. I've always loved my characters - even the "bad" ones, but I never thought about being friends with them. Looking back, I don't think most of my MC's would be friend. I have another character in my last manuscript that I'd love to be friends with, but she wasn't the MC.

III · Oct 22, 2008

As goofy as it sounds, I think I have become friends with my characters and I'll miss them when the story is over.

sunna · Oct 22, 2008

Well, if it's goofy, I'm right there with you.

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 22, 2008

Well, my MC is me. So I would hope I could be friends with myself.

Although there are some days when I piss even myself off.

Carmy · Oct 22, 2008

I'm friends with most of my characters, but there is an MC who pi**es me off because she's too dumb to see the danger she's in. There is also another MC I wouldn't trust any further than I could throw him.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 22, 2008

I would say that, yes, in general, I could probably be friends with most of my characters... What characters would I like best? Not sure yet.

Calamity_Jones · Oct 22, 2008

I don't think I could write about somebody who pisses me off. I'd have to make them suffer a serious accident very quickly.

Now don't get me wrong, a good villain is one that the reader feels genuine hatred towards, Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter, anyone? I don't think anybody could read about her without foaming at the mouth with uncontrollably burning furious hate.

But a character that annoys and irritates is a completely different thing... Like Nynaeve in the Wheel of Time. I want her dead. And she's one of the "good guys".

Most of my main characters I could make friends with, since I made one of my main characters more or less a clone of myself...

jannawrites · Oct 22, 2008

Absolutely. The main character in my first novel gets a lot of who she is from me (I think I sort of lived through her vicariously), and those of prominence in her life are similar to those in mine. I'd be friends with all of them.

There are two exceptions: a stalker (self-explanatory, that one) and a complaining, self-absorbed, unpleasant woman, who was based on all those in my life who've rubbed me the wrong way. In the end she's friend-worthy, but in real life I'd avoid her.

I wonder if anyone's ever written a book for which no characters are likable enough to have been their friends? Likable characters seem to go hand-in-hand with a writer's work - at least one or two - but maybe it depends on the genre.

jannawrites · Oct 22, 2008

Calamity_Jones said:
I don't think I could write about somebody who pisses me off. I'd have to make them suffer a serious accident very quickly.

Now don't get me wrong, a good villain is one that the reader feels genuine hatred towards, Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter, anyone? I don't think anybody could read about her without foaming at the mouth with uncontrollably burning furious hate.

<snip>

I think it's cathartic to write about people who piss us off. In the case of the unpleasant woman I mentioned in my last post, getting her character out on paper helped me deal with the frustrations of people like her in my real life. Almost as if sharing her with my (potential) readers makes someone like her that much more tolerable, and relatable too, because everyone knows someone like her.

Storm Dream · Oct 22, 2008

The characters in my latest WIP would probably be really fun at a party...but I wouldn't want to be pals with them.

I'm actually trying to think of any novels I've had where I'd want to be genuine friends with the MC. Maybe last year's NaNo. Everyone else seems slightly unlikable.

Nateskate · Oct 22, 2008

My novel has multiple MCs. Some I'd love to meet.

DisenchantedDoc · Oct 22, 2008

I try to make my characters likable... I'm just too drawn to the anti-hero. Dammit!

But most of my characters are loosely based on people I know and have been friends with at one point or another in my life. Some I'm still friends with. Some I'm not (they become a great basis for villains).

MissKris · Oct 22, 2008

My MC in my first novel I'd be friends with. She's smart and independent and thinking. The MC from my WIP, not so much. He'd be one of those obnoxious know-it-all kids to me. And most of the MCs from my short stories are too quirky for me - except the old bingo-playing, muffin-baking, cussing midwestern lady. She'd be a hoot to be around.

The Lonely One · Oct 22, 2008

It's interesting to think I would make friends with:

- a space-aged killer

- an elderly self-loathing man with pictures, time and a gun

- spider-like creatures from Europa

- a man who is trying to wipe out humankind with a strain of mad cow disease

I'm sure I could go on.

I think our characters are part of us, but sometimes the parts you don't consciously feel comfortable with, or would never explore in social situations (me thinks blood-lust is worth mentioning here). Thus, we explore these parts of ourselves from the safety of the page.

So would I be friends with my characters?

I guess that depends on how close the keyboard is.

C.bronco · Oct 22, 2008

Straka said:
A few betas who've read one of my works, said they wouldn't like my MC as a friend, but they liked him as a character.

This intrigued me because I don't believe I've ever thought, would I be friends with character X?

So I pose to you, which characters from what works would you like to actually be friends with if they were in the flesh?

Just the good guys, but only if they brought me pie.

Clio · Oct 22, 2008

Well, most of my characters are historical, but I've put the meat on their bones, so to speak. My female MC is indeed my best friend. Being separated from her by 2,000 years is a minor inconvenience in the crazy world that is my brain. I'm also hopelessly in love with one of the males - not the main protag - his sidekick! I've tried to keep the truly vile characters to a minimum, or just have them float through the background. But I did give one his head and he turned out to be as loathsome as I planned, and hopefully, readers would want to inflict a terrible death on him.

But when it comes to the one or two fictional characters I've created in this WIP, I got so close to one of them that when I reached a part of the novel where I had to do a terrible thing..... Oh, don't... I can still weep about it :Sun:

Phaeal · Oct 22, 2008

In my current WIP novel, I want to be RL friends with everyone from the sweet teen MC to Nyarlathotep. Me and Nya, BFF. Yeah, that'll work, 'cause the second F will really be forever.

There are tons of fictional characters I'd love to be friends with. A very partial list is probably already too long:

Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice)
Zooey Glass (Franny and Zooey)
Faramir, Pippin Took, Sam Gamgee (Lord of the Rings)
Joe Gargery (Great Expectations)
Melanie Hamilton-Wilkes (Gone with the Wind)
Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre)
Olga Bracely (Queen Lucia, Lucia in London, Trouble for Lucia)
Queequeg (Moby Dick)
Jim (Huckleberry Finn)
Francisco d'Anconia (Atlas Shrugged)
Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park)
Mr. Knightley (Emma)
Sam Dodsworth (Dodsworth)
Special Agent Pendergast (The Relic and others)
Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter)
Christopher Boone (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)

and from TV:

Dwight Schrute (yeah, Battlestar marathons!)
Dexter Morgan (as long as I don't become a serial killer)
Kara (Starbuck) Thrace (as long as I don't make her mad)
The whole crew of Serenity, yeah, even Vera

Wow, interesting. These characters range from the sweet and loyal to the brilliant but difficult to the exotic. I'd love to throw a party for them all.

:PartySmil

auntybug · Oct 22, 2008

Absolutely. My last 2 books have a great group of friends. They are kinda like some of mine. I'd love to be surrounded by them. Like Jay, I really miss them when the book is done. (Hence my last book turning into a 2-part. I love them so much - they wouldn't leave me alone!)

JoNightshade · Oct 22, 2008

I'm notorious for trying to make friends with quirky, unpleasant people.

So in other words, yeah. My characters would probably be my kinds of friends.

Ol' Fashioned Girl · Oct 22, 2008

Let's just say I'd rather be friends with her than enemies...

ABekah · Oct 22, 2008

Yes! I would be best friends with most of my characters, actually. Except the antagonists.

My characters are often bits and pieces of me, my friends and family.

Straka · Oct 22, 2008

Phaeal said:
The whole crew of Serenity, yeah, even Vera

I'd echo that.

Otherwise...

Robert "Bobby" Shaftoe (Cryptonomicon) He would be a good drinking buddy

I'll have to think up some others.

stormie · Oct 22, 2008

Not only have there been characters I would like to be friends with, but I sometimes feel I am that character, after I've finished writing the ms. *Cue eerie music*

MumblingSage · Oct 22, 2008

I'm friends with some of my characters, some I don't talk to, some I talk to but don't like much. They'll probably stick with me even after I finish their novels, too. I even have a few who haven't been written yet...

Anyway. Most of my characters are nice people, I think, so I'd probably get along with them in real life. Mostly because I don't enjoy writing about people I don't like. Even my antagonists might get along with me. That could be a fault in my writing, though, since it could make all the characters somewhat 'samey'...

Would you be friends with your characters?

Bored Fanatic

I should be writing.

rockin the suburbs

Court Jester

Boomer's Disposable Minion

no, really

no, really

Into the blue memory

Give me believable dialogue

Is the random.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

I have plans...

In the mind warp pavilion

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

teh other evil broad

has finally arrived

Hand? What hand?

Bored Fanatic

storm central

Inarticulate Herb