I am sad to report that I've been so stressed out lately, I can't even think about writing. Ok, well apparently I can think about writing a blog post about being too stressed out to write. How weird is that?
But coming back to my blog dashboard for the first time in over a week, I was quite elated to see that I now have four followers! Welcome everyone! I know it is terribly gauche of me to acknowledge this fact, but it makes me happy.
Now back to the regularly scheduled blog post.
Author agent Nathan Bransford recently asked in his daily blog post whether personal angst was helpful when it came to writing. After a few minutes thought, I decided that it was absolutely necessary. At least for me. Back when I first started 'The Enemy Within,' I could only work on it when I was depressed. Which happened to be my whole freshman year of college...very convenient. I think at first Julienne was such a dark character that I felt like I had to get into character to write about her. Fortunately, I have since lightened Julienne up a little, and she's taken on some of my more eccentric qualities (sarcasm, independence, etc.)
Perhaps my characters are a little too like me. I recently made the discovery that all of my female characters lose their fathers. I am a child of divorce so I have to wonder if that plays into the relationships that my characters have with their fathers. I'm sure that I would be a brilliant case study from some Freudian enthusiast!
So, do your characters reflect your personal experiences and traits, or do you prefer to create totally independent beings?
Good question! My characters don't tend to be much like me...little facets here and there, maybe. They do tend to be people I would hang out with, though :) And I'm sure I draw on my own experiences to color theirs--though they might be completely different experiences, the emotions and responses might be drawn from something I've lived through.
ReplyDeleteI used to base my characters on people I knew too! When I was working on my first "novel" in middle school, my crush was the romantic lead. It somehow got out and I thought I would be a social leper, but instead, everyone wanted me to write them in. I remember being astounded.
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