I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between fictional characters and those who create them. I find that I often write the same type of characters. (Maybe I’m just not that creative.) I think it’s common for writers to repeat common themes or character traits in different works, but it makes me wonder, what the characters we create say about us as writers.

A Sad Realization About the Characters I Create

I’ve noticed a consistent theme with the majority of lead characters I write. They tend to be miserable bastards. Many are alcoholics. A lot of them are sad, depressed people, and quite a few are just pricks. Why do I write these types of characters? I think a lot of it comes down to the strange fact that the kind of people we don’t enjoy in real life are highly entertaining in fiction, hence every I’ll Murry character. Assholes have the best lines. Furthermore, the depressed drunk struggling through life is a lot more interesting than reading about the guy who lives a boring happy life. But do these characteristics go beyond interesting storytelling? How much do character traits reflect the writer?

Do Most Writers Like Their Creations?

I find that my opinion of the characters I write changes as I get to know them. When I wrote (shameless plug) The Suburb Psycho” Murders: A Memoir, my main character quickly made an impression. That impression, however, changed as I wrote. In the first third of the story, I pictured a man who was almost a voice of reason speaking to a deeply flawed society. A short time later, as he spoke more, I was like “This guy is kind of a condescending prick.” By the end, I kind of liked him again. I even addressed my conflicted feelings about the character as he questioned his own possible hypocrisy.

I have to wonder, if I question who my character is through my character’s voice, is his voice mine?

Learning From the Reader’s Perspective

As I read through feedback on Suburban Psycho, I noticed something interesting. Multiple people praised me for how I captured the voice of this snide, condescending personality. The more I thought about it, I feel like it didn’t take a lot of effort to capture the voice of my story’s narrator, because his voice is very similar to my own. There’s something about writing from the perspective of a character you identify with but don’t necessarily want to, that makes you introspective. This introspection goes deeper when you read feedback about the character’s vitriol for people, condescending personality, and possible jerkness (I know that’s not a word.) So, I have to wonder, is the way people perceive my character reflective of how they perceive me? How much of the character is my creation, and how much is it a representation of myself?

What the Characters We Create Say About Us and What We Can Learn from Them

In ‘Writing the course Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques,’ James Hynes says something interesting about works written in the first person. He says that these works reveal a lot about the author in terms of how they see the world. This really resonated with me. Do I write characters that are sad and bitter because, on some level, I am sad and bitter, or do I write these characters because that’s how I view the world? Maybe my characters are jerks because I think people are jerks? In Suburban Psycho, there is not much, if any, good humanity to be found. In my horror story anthology, there are supernatural terrors around every corner, but still, the people are deeply flawed and often villains to some degree themselves.

Is writing a form of escape or a form of expression? Do our characters represent our desire to create a world separate from our own or our desire to comment on the world in which we live? Personally, I think it’s both. Our stories are a safe place to speak, to question, and to play in a sandbox of ideas without the judgment of the real world. While fiction is not reality, it does have the power to show us things within ourselves that are very real. I recommend taking a moment to read through the stories you’ve written and see what your characters have to teach you about yourself.