Becoming your characters

MazingaSpidey said:

Hey all,

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and wanted to know if anyone else noticed similar things happening with them. Certainly as writers we are constantly pulling from ourselves when writing our characters. I see a bit of myself in even the characters that are most drastically different from me when I write them.

Lately I've noticed myself taking more chances, and sometimes even thinking more like the characters that I'm co-writing with a friend of mine. Somethings good, like becoming more proactive about engaging people I'm introduced to, some not so hot, like reminding the office manager that she is not my boss and is merely the assistant to the dean, emphasis on the "to the."

I'm not thinking that this is a "Dark Half" instance ala Stephen King, but maybe writing is allowing me to express things that I had previously held on to, for better or worse.

So, have any of you experienced something similar?

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I'm sure there's been some situations when I was more gutsy than normal, but never noticed. However, once in a while I'll catch myself wanting/wishing that I could bring myself to act like my characters as I'm writing them. I think it narrows down to wishful thinking, that I could break free from holding myself back and say what's REALLY on my mind...oooh, I'd be in some major hot water if that were the case with some people I know that needs a good tongue-lashing! Okay...I need to refocus here...

Anyways...

Perhaps you're right, that writing is helping you come out of your shell. It's up to you, though, to be aware of what's pushing the limit and how to use your character's actions for your own benefit.

I sure hope I don't start acting out like the character I'm writing now. He's a real slime ball, easily steals from the dead and trades their goods for profit. That kind of confidence I don't need.
I do feel that for a character to really be genuine you have to let him live in you. Let him breathe, have thoughts and feelings. Well, not to many thoughts and feelings or I might have some 'splainin to do.

Well, I become my characters when writing, but I'm afraid to say I don't become them in real life. I suffer terrible anxiety and so would never be able to do such a thing, no matter how much I might want to.

I used to have this habit when I was younger...when in a difficult situation, I'd pretend I was one of my characters, just mentally (I wouldn't act out so others could tell), to make things easier. If I was upset and crying about something, I'd become one of my characters who is better at dealing with emotions. If I had to wait in the cold for the bus, I'd become a tough soldier character who is used to such things...etc. And handling such situations would become much easier for me. I'd recover more quickly, get through things more easily.

Unfortunately, I told myself this was a bad habit and to stay in my own head, so I've lost this ability to cope with things through my characters.

I also used to pretend to be my characters all the time, especially when I had a best friend who was interested in my writing, but those days are long gone. Sometimes though I'll find myself slipping into a character's mindset when imagining things, but again, I show no outward signs; too embarrassing.

I very easily become my characters when writing them.

I also used to pretend to be them on audiocassette. Haven't done that in years but it was fun when I did.

I miss all these things.

I always turn into the characters I'm writing about. I start thinking and talking differently so I can enter their state of mind, but I don't do this deliberately; it just happens spontaneously. On several occasions I've gone so far as to pace around the room soliloquizing a certain characters thoughts and acting "really weird," according to my mom. My older brothers actually think there's something wrong with me... heck, I sometimes think there's something wrong with me...

I'm not drinking blood ... yet.

Interesting thread,

I do tend to act like my characters on occasion, but i've always viewed myself as having multiple personalities. I just call them 'aspects'

for instance, you aren't the same person with your boss that you are with your girlfriend that you are with your parents that you are with your college roommate that you are with you nephew that you are with...

We all have multiple faces we put on (to a degree).

But what astonishes me is the depths at which I can pretend (in my head of course) of being that other character, how I can feel the emotion, pain, pleasure, guilt, rage, etc as I become the character to which i'm about to write.

I recently wrote a story about a super dick asshole that was so much of a prick that he was actually funny and likeable. Once I created his persona, I was amazed at how the dialogue and scenes just flowed. I was writing snappy lines that I had never heard before but seem 'natural'.

I'll have to think more on this. Wonder if, as artist, we start to blur the line a little bit between sanity and insanity, between our own personalities and those of our imaginery characters....


Another intersting thought would be to what extent do non-artistic people do this?

Mel...

Hi, I'm new to posting on absolute, but I have been reading them for a while. I have been enjoying this thread. I too, find a part of myself in all the characters I'm writing about. Sometimes I think I live vicariously through them.

Willow, I absolutely agree about living vicariously through your character. I write exciting/fun/passionate/scary scenes for my characters, sometimes things I wish would happen to me. By the way, welcome to AW and if you'd like to, you should post an introduction thread in the newbie forum.
I find that I insert myself a lot into my main character, mostly in the ways she reacts to situations and rationalizes things. But in meatspace? No, I definitely do not take on her personality. I don't think it's because I'm incapable of doing this. I just don't want to. In a lot of ways I like myself better than my MC. (I'd say that's proof that she isn't a Mary Sue, by the way.)
She has self-confidence issues, she often doesn't know what she wants, she can be selfish and inconsiderate of her friends, and she has some crazy violent tendencies...
Not that I don't exemplify all of those traits to some degree, but I'd rather not be as bad as her.
That isn't to say that she doesn't have qualities I admire/envy. She can be more reasonable and temperate, more cheerful and calm, more captivating (of course), more observant and calculating, and there're a lot more things.
But overall, she's a lot different from me, but not at all better.
So, I typically don't ask myself, "What would my MC do in this situation", I just do, well, what I would do.

<<< My screen name IS my character's name, so...

They are all me - the good guys, the bad guys, the femmes fatale, the gay men, the kids, the dogs, the good & the ugly, the bad & the beautiful.

Whether it's a mystery, science fiction, romance or simply unclassifiable, I'm the protagonist, the antagonist, the supporting cast, the MC and all the other Cs.

I try to write about the Human Condition, no matter what the story is otherwise about - so it is all facets of me. Writing is a good way to expand your understanding of humanity, and yourself.

Me and Spidey have this conversation a few times now, He took up a bit of writing on this one because i wrote several very personal scenes along with what would be my characters reaction. Well after finishing up writing for the night one night and not going back to it for a few days Spidey and I were talking and i told him that the story is personal to me and was quite frankly friggin depressing the crap out of me. So i started some new idea threads and let him take the reins for a bit while i cleared my head on this and realized somewhere along the way i was writing something good, if it was affecting me, being the one creating it. As an earlier poster said every character i write, good or evil, suave or clumsy, badass or coward, there is a piece of me there, that piece is a seed that helps to create that person.

I'd like to think creative people have a form of controlled insanity, I think spidey would agree with me being that we have both worked extensively with "insane" people. (and not in the way that guy in your office is insane, like supervised visits with imaginary friends insane). I think its amazing that it exists in our minds when everything around us for the most part is trying so hard to kill our creativity, to fit us into a mold and give us a number. My writing is my lashing out at the system and saying that i wont be contained to a life of mediocrity, that even if no one but friends and family see my movies or read my screenplays, I've accomplished something that most people inhabiting "the real world" as a friend likes to describe it when telling me to get a real job, would not do because it takes time from their schedule of consuming, procreating, and making money doing something they hate so that way they can perpetuate the cycle to their kids and teach their kids that this is how people are supposed to live, by a standard set by people who would never dream of living by the standard they have set for YOU. I think we, using our creativity is our way of expressing these desires, be they different from mine or not, and giving the "real world" a big fat middle finger.

End of rant.

As usual, I'll be the oddball here. I have to place myself in the skin of my characters when I'm writing them, but that has no bearing on my real world. My real world is full and interesting, as is the world I make up for my characters (at least to me). But it's a one-way reliance. While I rely heavily on my experiences and observations to create my characters, I'm not them in any way. They are still made up. My real world is just that--real.

To give a nod to the OP, though. The increase in confidence may very well be writing related. There is nothing like the confidence boost from doing a good job at some creative activity, whether it's writing, music, restoring a '57 Chevy, or fixing that damn leak under the kitchen sink (which required a bit of creative plumbing). It doesn't necessarily mean your character is impacting your life, though. It means YOU are impacting your life through your creative activity. Give yourself a high five (pretend the other hand is your chracter if you want).

I'm kinda the opposite. I tend to put myself into my fictional settings, rather than becoming my characters. Well, not so much in my WIP but more my role-playing games. I think to myself, well what would I do in this situation? Heck, I can't even talk about my gaming characters in first person unless I"m actually the role-playing session. I also talk about them as if I was talking about a character I read from a novel, rather than something I'm playing, if that makes sense.

Ucla_sb said:

I'd like to think creative people have a form of controlled insanity, I think spidey would agree with me being that we have both worked extensively with "insane" people. (and not in the way that guy in your office is insane, like supervised visits with imaginary friends insane). I think its amazing that it exists in our minds when everything around us for the most part is trying so hard to kill our creativity, to fit us into a mold and give us a number. My writing is my lashing out at the system and saying that i wont be contained to a life of mediocrity, that even if no one but friends and family see my movies or read my screenplays, I've accomplished something that most people inhabiting "the real world" as a friend likes to describe it when telling me to get a real job, would not do because it takes time from their schedule of consuming, procreating, and making money doing something they hate so that way they can perpetuate the cycle to their kids and teach their kids that this is how people are supposed to live, by a standard set by people who would never dream of living by the standard they have set for YOU. I think we, using our creativity is our way of expressing these desires, be they different from mine or not, and giving the "real world" a big fat middle finger.

End of rant.

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I LOVE your rant!

And it isn't just a rant, it's a manifesto. A cry for those of us who have stepped of the mediocrity-go-round to find their gold. It's that search that makes life worth living (at least for me it does).