I've noticed that all 3 of the central characters in my 3 books bare some striking resemblaces to my personality. I'm fairly cynical, & not real good with people (I'm a loner). And all my books, even when fun, have a pessemistic (sp?) slant. That wasn't my aim, & until recently, I was unaware that was the case.

Are your characters similiar to their creator? Do you put versions of yourself into you stories? If so, why? Is it an unconscious thing, or is it just easier to write what you know?

Later,
Chip

Some of the characters in my poems relate to me or things I've felt mostly because specific events or feelings inspire the poety. I think it's natural for story and comic creaters to use themselves as a muse. I mean, your around yourself all the time...I hope. :D

Wow, Nicotine, judging from you avatar, you look very much like one of my characters from Broken Things. She hasn't appeared yet, but your head shot reminds me alot of her.

Cool.

Later,
Chip

Well theres a little bit of me in each of my characters, it seems to make it easier for me to relate to them as an author. And, contrary to what some of my friends would say, I'm not Tabbi. >>

They say you should write about what you know before you write about what you don't know... So all my humanoid characters are connected to me in some way. It's not that they're the real me, but they're personifications of things I've noticed or thought about I think. And I sound frightfully steriotypical now, but that's the way it works.

I'm sure I put a lot more of me into them than I'll ever know. But that's for my friends to tell me.

I am all of my characters and none of my characters. I can see a little of me in all of them (protagonists, antagonists, and all the in-betweens), and all contain traits of people I know too. But they are each their own beings and act in ways fitting them. All do things that I wouldn't do -- and all of them also do things I would. Some of them are more like me than others, but as the story continues, they become more "themselves" and less me and/or my friends. (But I think I could probably see a little bit of me in any character from any story, even ones I didn't write. )

The character most like me is Alex, who is important and recurring but not one of the core characters.... It's strange, because I never based him on anyone. That's just how he turned out. It's sorta fitting, because I never consider myself the "star" of any story but rather an important supporting player. ;)

Actually My Avatar is based on me. for my comics it's other folks. like in The Zoo at Home [the] The Store owner, Amber is my little Sister, Darlene who actually owned a crazy Hamster she named Donaque. For Drewbot 3000 and a half [drewbot] Drewbot is my real life son, Drew, who acts very nutty at times. the 3 cats in the comic are all based on real cats in my house. (I guess that makes me Doctor Doctor then.)

Oh heaven forbid, never. Creating stories is partially about escapism for me, from this world and from myself, just like daydreaming. Why would I want to draw/write myself? Same reason I would never draw a comic about my day job; I'm not that sort of artist.

The only thing that reflects me in my stories is my bloodthirst gene, which I'm thinking is from my parents. Evidently my dad. My cutesy Betty Boop mom too, has a hidden bloodthirsty side. She likes action/adventure novels/movies where the good guy slaughters the bad guys with gusto. She shares my approval of Kibagami Jubei (Ninja Scroll) and Solid Snake.

I started my comic with the intention of having the central character not be like me. I went to lengths to prevent that from happening, actually. Not great lengths, but lengths nonetheless. I wanted her to be her own separate person ...and now, although not exactly like me, she's morphed into someone very much like me whom I can understand very well. And then, of course, the secondary main character suddenly becomes even more like me than the first one.

But it wasn't on purpose, and the two characters are still very different from each other. It's like one got my inner personality and the other one got what everyone else sees me as...it's very strange. It does make the writing easier, though.

my characters are definetly not me. Grigoriy(from Ogre) is my friends dad. The guy in the guilty will be punished is who i would be if I were a mob boss about to be killed by Frank Castle, which is the same as not me at all. Main characters in Love Versus are all people I made up. Labrynth has no actual people.

The Queen... hm. Lemme see.

I would say that she's what I am in my head, but not how I speak. She's pretty arrogant all around, and that's just not me.

Charna really doesn't have a personality as of now. Wise and all-knowing is how I'd describe her. Definitely not me.

Actually I just can't understand, off-hand, how a character can become like you unless that's what you aimed for right at the beginning.

When I put a character in a situation, the question I'd ask myself is "How would he/she react based on his/her worldviews etc etc?" I'd go so far as to extensively research said worldviews (I love you Google).

I never ever ever ask "How would I react to this?" It's a fundamentally wrong question!

mlai
Actually I just can't understand, off-hand, how a character can become like you unless that's what you aimed for right at the beginning.

When I put a character in a situation, the question I'd ask myself is "How would he/she react based on his/her worldviews etc etc?" I'd go so far as to extensively research said worldviews (I love you Google).

I never ever ever ask "How would I react to this?" It's a fundamentally wrong question!

As I'm assuming that was directed at me:
You know how some writers say that they like to let their characters act independently, without directing them? Like, the characters are doing everything interesting and the writer is just recording it, maybe throwing in an event here and there to see what happens? That's kind of how I feel. People change in real life, and they should be able to change in fiction.

All of my characters have changed since the beginning, and they've all gone different ways. Two have happened to be more like me, possibly by chance, possibly by the fact that I spend more time with them (...writing wise/in my head). If a character evolves, it has the chance to evolve in any direction, so I don't think it's that odd if they happen to evolve in the same direction as their creator.

Well, all that and the fact that it's been two years since I started and I've changed, as well. There's always the possibility that I've become more like my characters, rather than vice versa.

In my comic, none of my characters are me. Often times they get into adventures and similar situations to things that happen to me, or they mention things I'm thinking of at that time from their points of view. I did have a character who was me: a nasty white rapper who everyone loved and hated at the same time. I think I ended up over using him, and am neglectful to use him now. It was basicly a parody of how webcomics (like Chronic Sonic) want to have the narrator come in and be baddicus assigas with a lether jacket and chains and the ability to shoot lasers from their eyes or pack the ultima weapon or anything else lame that you would find an author character doing. Instead I was a lazy eyed moronic dopey looking guy who was generally retarded and contributed nothing interesting to anything.

Just to butt in on mlai and Miruku's conversation:

It can easily happen, especially if you don't ask questions at all. I know most people talk about asking themselves "how would ___ react to ___" but that's not the way my mind workes.
It goes something like "___ would do ___!" and I can accept that or restructure the whole person. Said in another way, I work from a kind of instinct and I can influence it, but in the end my, characters will have traits in common with me.

Besides, there's no danger in sharing traits, as long as you share negative as well as positive. Let me come with an example: I've got a character named Aidan. He shares some of my ability to think a lot, but I've exxagerated this. At the same time he's got my fear of offending people. Other people probably won't notice all the things about me I knowingly "give" them because they see me in a different way than I see myself, but you can't argue that he shares a few traits with me just as he doesn't share a lot of them. And the fact that he's tecnically several houndred yeas older than me and have wings won't change that.

I hope I wasn't too confusing, and I'm really sorry if I was.

the way your described how your comic turned out sounds really familiar, cs3ink. Pessimism is just oozes out of all my stuff. :D

As far as mlai's comment I have to say that, from my experience, if a writer is in total control of their characters (like knowing exactly how said character will react or develope), then the characters & plot very often feel contrived & inanimate. For me personally, the best writers are often surprised by their characters, & the actions & reactions of those characters.

I prefer to write characters that are as close to alive as possible, not lifeless contructs I push & pull where I desire. Sure, I'm directing the plot, & have to excercise some control over the characters & situations (or I'll end up with a meandering, disinteresting mess), but it I don't give the characters some freedom they become dead things.

I actually often ask myself what a character would do or say in the situation or dialogue I'm writing that would surprise me. If it works for the character I will sometimes use it. This often fleshes out the story in such wonderful ways. IMO, if a writer's characters don't surprise *them*, they'll very seldom surprise the readers. In other words, the story will become hollow & boring.

I recommend to any writer, even you mlai, that you let your characters surprise you. It will make the experience more fun for the writer & reader alike.

Later,
Chip

In Viva Life! the main character is based on myself, except I don't wear as much pink. :P

cs3
I recommend to any writer, even you mlai, that you let your characters surprise you. It will make the experience more fun for the writer & reader alike.

"Even me"? But I haven't uploaded my comics yet, so how can you make that comment? XD Don't put me on an imaginary pedestal yet; for all you know I could suck. lol!

(This forum needs a serious expansion of available emoteys.)

Anyways, I agree. Whenever I jump on my completed script to edit something (which is often), it's because I brainstormed a better/alternative way a character would handle a given situation. So even though the script/story is already finished, the characters continue to surprise me.

Oh and, your art ROCKS. I mean specifically the one that looks a little like Mignola. I love that style.

You spoke as a creator, so I included you. You may not have posted anything yet, but that doesn't mean you haven't created anything. I said "even you" because you'd indicated you were in total control of your characters. I was recommending a different approach.

Glad you dig my art. That is very kind to say.

Later,
Chip

At first I was a lot like my character Puff, but rather than me saying "Wow, ew, no, I have to change her!" I sort of changed over time. Not BECAUSE I was like my character... I guess it's just some RL Character Developement. :b So at first I was more like Puff and less like Andy, nowadays I'm more like Andy and less like Puff.

I need to fix that, because I sure am grouchy and sarcastic lately. D:

My characters surprise me all the time. My friends tell me it's funny cause I always talk like I just found something neat out on a tv show.

Many of my stories I have had to scrap or totally change because the characters will take their own path and mess me up. Or given the circumstances they act differently than normal and throw off what I thought I would have happen.

As for if any characters are me? Nope. I do pick a characteristic of myself or my friends to establish many of my main characters but I build off of and tweak that aspect of myself/them so much it isn't me/my friends anymore.

Sally comes from the part of me that wants to be totally good and church going and my shyness I have at times.

Fenny has many drives I have. She wants to be seen doing good things. She also has some characteristics of how I have seen popular girls acting. A bit "better than you" attitude. Wanting to be conservative and show off her figure at the same time... she's kind of like my conflicting sides. Wanting to be good but knowing there are things you can do to get ahead that you probably shouldn't take advantage of but will.

Though since they are friends their personalities can at times be a bit similar. Later characters will be much more varied.

Have you ever had a villain that started on the concept paper as an archvillain, but later morphed into a good guy?

Or a villain that starts as a villain, but turns out to be a good guy, but then morphed back into a villain again?

Now that's surprise!

Yup, yup. Usually it happens more with characters I make to be the good guys though o_O

I also had characters that I thought would become a couple and then I go more in depth and find out they already married or something. Sometimes when I realize a character will be more prominent in the story I figure it is time to sit down and make up their back story. Then I find out all kinds of things that make me look at the character totally different.

And now their mentality will reflect the things I discovered more.

I also find out more about my own character's personality as I draw. Sometimes I may draw a picture wrong but the expression brings out another aspect that I decide to keep.

"Have you ever had a villain that started on the concept paper as an archvillain, but later morphed into a good guy?"

Most definately, though I prefer to make my villians & heroes more multi-dimensioned, so that they're capable of more varied behaviour than their cliches normally allow.

Later,
Chip

Character romances! That's always fun because it's so unpredictable, if you're the type that gives your characters "freedom."

You try to push 2 ppl together, and no matter what it just doesn't fit. An example from an old comic of mine would be a couple which was conceptualized to be this sappy paragon of true love, but as story editing progressed, turned into a tale of betrayal, hatred, obsession, and ending in mutual destruction! But it was still so romantic, sob lol!

And then there's always the case of "What- how the heck did these 2 get together!? Oh well might as well run with it!"

Well, when I say villains... I mean villains in my story. Looking from the main character's point of view.

And character romances side track my over all story more than ANYTHING! Cause then all of a sudden characters stop acting like they always do. Sometimes you lose total control of them when you give them too much freedom.

The worst part about doing this is having multiple characters doing multiple things and at times the story is supposed to mesh between them so you have to always try to keep track of what they are doing and where they are. You have to give them plenty of time to do their stuff and hopefully get to your story advancing point.

That's why I try to keep a few chapters ahead of myself in story draft. I can spend hours trying to decide how things will work like I want them to as characters keep screwing things up.

You know... that would be a good idea for a comic about GOD =P

i am kid and kid is me

I think a writer ends up puting a bit of themsleves into a protagonist without really meaning to. I like to put in bits of my friends' personalities in characters to make them seem a bit different from me but there's always a bit of me in there. How I try making characters different is keep the resmblances vague or small and differences obvious. Thankfully, I think that sort of happens on its own, in the case of Cricket she lives in a very different place than me, has had very different life expirences so concequnetly has a very different worldview than me. It's not so much that I don't want a character that's just like me it's that I'd prefer characters that are distinct and different from one another and I can't do that if I write myself.

I try to avoid making characters too much like myself, because I'm worried about the accusation of writing Mary Sue characters.
Problem is, people often assume that what a character, a good guy, says in a statement is a reflection of the creator's ideas. When Subo says 'Lager isn't beer', I get loads of comments like 'what's the difference between lager and beer? Why don't you like Lager?' I don't even drink beer! Lager, bitter and ale are all types of beer, he was speaking in the sense of saying 'sprite comics aren't comics' or 'American manga isn't manga' or whatever. People assume he's saying something I would say or want to say, but he's not. He's saying something that HE thinks is important, because he doesn't want his friend drinking any old can of lager, he wants him to drink proper old fashioned ale, because HE thinks it's better.
I'm totally sympathetic towards the feelings and goals of my characters, but they don't always meet with mine. Walking Fortress is a mum, who cares about her family and walks around in a big suit of armour being an anti-government terrorist because of it. I've never experienced doing anything like that, but I understand why she does what she does, and sympathise with her when I write her.
Half the time, the characters seem to write themselves. I just know what they would do or say in any given situation, without really needing to think much.