Weaving It In

[Comicality]

 

I had a thought tonight about a question to ask...

 

As writers, I assume that we all draw from personal experiences from our past or even from our current lives. I'm just curious, how much of 'you' ends up in the stories you write? Your true feelings and experiences and personal commentaries on life in general. How much of your personality and true persona exists in the stories you write?

 

I'm curious.  

[Dodger]

The main character from my original story is pretty much me even the description. There's not a lot in it personality-wise, which is probably why I found it so easy to write. What happens to the character, of course, is mostly fiction. Thankfully my life was never that eventful or traumatic, so it's mainly just the personality that I've used. I didn't hold back any though, no half measures, every last bit of me has been squeezed into that character! 

[Graeme]

Parts of characters are me, and parts are the me I would like to be. Parts are who I used to be when I was younger, and parts are who I wished I were when I was that age. And some parts are nothing I would ever consider as being related to myself

 

Does that answer the question? 

[FormerMember4]

This is easy for me to answer... I've written short stories that are semi-autobiographical. Not published on here. 
Everything I post on here are poems. Everything in them is related to me and my emotions. There is always a piece of you in writing. Whether aware of it, or not. We naturally draw from experience.

[William King]

The characters in my stories are themselves, unique creations, the experiences draw on my own experiences, the histories created sometimes reflect parts of my own life. I like my stories like my coffee, strong and dark with a dash of milk, that dash of milk is my soul and you never quite know how much you are putting in!

 

[Sam Wyer]

Nope - I’m absolutely sure that none of my writing belies even the tiniest aspect of myself

OK, fine, so maybe just a little, here and there.  But (seriously) that’s never deliberate, I don’t ever set out to write anything at all based on my own life.  Of course, sometimes people I’ve met or known, things I’ve seen, places I’ve been to, they might pop up, or at least influence some part of a story.  My imagination isn’t that good.

[northie]

It varies wildly. My latest short has nothing of me. And that goes for my latest antho piece as well. Of my two serials, one has a main character who mirrors several elements of me. He's also a musician like me, so some of his generic experiences are mine  The only thing the other serial has of mine is my sense of humour. A yet unposted story starts out with the main character deliberately having a couple of my traits, but as the story develops, he becomes much more his own man, acting as he wants to. 

[Myr]

A bit here and there.

[Brayon]

I posted a status update, just last week, saying I realized just how much of myself is inserted into my stories here on GA. Brayon and Chandon are real life friends of mine, Chad is based off of another friend, and all sorts of stuff of my life is tied into Aeris, AJ and Tommy, and Brandon and Devin.

 

So, yeah, there is a lot of me in my stories.

[Hudson Bartholomew]

It kind of depends. Sometimes I'm writing something for the heck of it and it's just some old yarn I've spun in my head--those are usually shorter pieces. In those cases, I don't think there's much of me in there.

 

But when I'm working on a story that's important to me, usually something longer, there tends to be more of me. None of my characters are completely me, but they may struggle with questions I've struggled with myself, or have some of my personality traits that I wanted to delve into and analyze. It's almost like those stories are a form of self-therapy and I come out the other side with a greater understanding of myself than when I started. 

[Solus Magus]

All of my main characters are a part of me. To be specific, each character would hold a certain struggle of mine that I have battled for years. I wanted my stories to be as personal as possible. Otherwise, it may lose some realistic touch. There are always perspectives running inside of my head and I want to share how they would often clash when faced with making a hard decision.

 

Also, most of my characters are based on real life people that are close to me. So it's like a fanfiction of my own real life story whenever I get to choose who gets who. And who bangs who.

 

And because of that, my main characters will be my Horcruxes. Thus, I will always come back from the dead as long as they are alive.  

[MrM]

Well,

 

You know about Brandon already.

 

Of my other stories Snowflake is the one that has more reflections of my current personality than anything else. It also gives life to my 'dream guy' who's been haunting my footsteps since I was very young. I suppose that would be another reflection of my own personality in who I might fall in babbling love with if I met him.

 

Brian is the me I'd be if I had more self-confidence. He is also part Brian Kinney from Queer As Folk.

[Comicality]

Wow! Very cool answers on this one!

 

I want to study this some more. Honestly, I can't HELP but to let my true self leak into everything I write. I try to be more 'fictional' with a lot of stuff, but my true personality, humor, and philosophy on life in general (I feel weird calling it a 'philosophy'...but...lack of alterative words) always ends up in everything that I write. Can't get rid of 'me' when I want to. Hehehe!

 

But if you guys can detach while writing, please teach me how! I think I could stretch out even further, creatively, if I knew how.

 

[MrM]

2 minutes ago, Comicality said:

Wow! Very cool answers on this one!

 

I want to study this some more. Honestly, I can't HELP but to let my true self leak into everything I write. I try to be more 'fictional' with a lot of stuff, but my true personality, humor, and philosophy on life in general (I feel weird calling it a 'philosophy'...but...lack of alterative words) always ends up in everything that I write. Can't get rid of 'me' when I want to. Hehehe!

 

But if you guys can detach while writing, please teach me how! I think I could stretch out even further, creatively, if I knew how.

 

 

I wouldn't want you to detach yourself, Comsie. I love the little windows into 'you' that I get to 'Read Between The Lines'.

 

It's true for all authors I write. A book is the closest to telepathy we have commonly. I enjoy going into someone else's mind for a while and living there for a time.

 

I hope those that read my material feel likewise.

[Solus Magus]

4 hours ago, Comicality said:

Wow! Very cool answers on this one!

 

I want to study this some more. Honestly, I can't HELP but to let my true self leak into everything I write. I try to be more 'fictional' with a lot of stuff, but my true personality, humor, and philosophy on life in general (I feel weird calling it a 'philosophy'...but...lack of alterative words) always ends up in everything that I write. Can't get rid of 'me' when I want to. Hehehe!

 

But if you guys can detach while writing, please teach me how! I think I could stretch out even further, creatively, if I knew how.

 

 

That's kinda hard to do, but not impossible. I have been trying and experimenting on that for years. But for me, one way to detach myself is to at least see it through the perspective of those people who I am very close to. I am a person who always tries to imagine the perspective of other people and put them on my shoes. What they would do, and wouldn't do. Their natural impulses and their personality types. Knowing a close friend/relative and hanging around them too much while observing them can give you an ideas on things you wouldn't usually do.

 

I guess, the most basic is studying the 16 Myer-Briggs Personality Types. I give my main characters their personality types in my own notes so I can somehow box them in and not pouring my own personality too much. There are a lot of explanations over the net that you can check. I labeled my characters via Myer-Briggs and Gallup Strengths Finder.

 

The rule I made in my head will always be this: What would a whole neighborhood look like if every single person in there thinks and exactly like me? And my answer is: Everyone is noisy and would always be in a heated philosophical debate (and probably a lot of orgies).

 

Aside from the orgies part, that would be explicably boring. I know for myself I can be a boring person to some. That's why the clashing of different personality types really awakens my inner fanboy. I am obviously character over plot kind of author.