Meeting My Literary Match: Discovering Your Own Fictional Self

I recently started watching a new TV cable series and had the “aha!” moment when I realized that I enjoyed the dysfunctional main character for one particular reason. She was me! There I was, in fictional form, right on the television screen! How awkward.

It was a very strange experience, I must admit. And to add to it, not only did I recognize Hanna Horvath’s physical appearance, flaws and insecurities in myself, but so did my finance which made the realization even more awkward. The fact that Hanna is an aspiring writer who is working on her first e-book just sealed my fate as the real life Hanna. The best line in the show goes something like this as Hanna is talking to a random stranger at a NYC party. She is explaining to him that she is writing an e-book and he states. “An e-book? That’s like not a real book, right?” Ha! All of my writer blogger friends can have a good chuckle at this as I did.

In all seriousness, I have discovered finding your literary version of yourself can be a self-defining experience, or re-fining for those of you out in the world that have a solid sense of self and who you are as a person. I was never one of those people. It of course started as a child being self-conscious of everything about me. As a result, I grew up to be an insecure teenager who had trouble making decisions and deciding what I liked or disliked that would define me as an individual. I tended to be an easy-going, wishy-washy type of person. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties and early thirties that I realized these characteristics in myself and now I am more conscious to define and express my views and interests so that I know who I am. This may sound foreign to those of you out there who have always had a strong sense of self. I was never one of those people and always hung in the background, following the leads and interests of others.

So as a result, when I meet this Hanna on TV, I realize that she helps me to redefine myself even further. I see additional characteristics in her that I have as well, but ones that I never had identified with earlier. And in reverse, I see characteristics in her that are most definitely not me, and that in turns defines my self further.

I am not sure how common it is for people to find their real life characters. For one it is difficult to not only find someone that looks like you, but also acts like you as well. Nonetheless, it has been an interesting experience as a writer and I would love to hear from others on this topic as well!

 

Help me….I’m losing my high!!

I knew it was inevitable. I just thought it could last a bit longer. The euphoria. The excitement.

Yes, unfortunately the reality of trying to squeeze writing into my already over-scheduled life is creeping her ugly head around the corner. I know what I need to do. Everyone says the same thing. Schedule, schedule, schedule. Oh….and goals, goals, goals. My general resolution of writing in 2013 I guess is no longer “cutting it”.

So, again to help hold myself publicly accountable, here are my schedule and goals. I need to blog everyday, but I just honestly don’t think that I can come up with 365 witty posts- it just seems to be too much to ask even of the most intellectually superior beings. So I have revised my goals to blog every day- three posts a week and commenting on others the remaining four days. Three posts a week will hopefully keep my followers loyal. I may develop some sort of interactive writing activity the other days as well, I will work on that as well.

As for the writing of the novel, I want to have my outline complete by the end of the month. I will then shoot for writing one chapter a month. I ideally want to write more than one novel this year, but I figure to switch things up and actually underestimate my goals instead of setting unrealistic goals as I typically do. By doing it this way, I will hopefully pleasantly surprise myself.

Ok, ready, set, go me!!! 🙂

Awkwardness??!!!

I hope that I am not alone when I say if I hear the lyrics to “Someone That I Used To Know” by Gotye one more time, I may actually attempt to stab my eyes out.

But with this said, I can’t help to think of this song as I develop the characters for my new novel. I have received great advice from veteran writers that suggest basing writing off of your own experiences is a good way to develop your characters, setting, and plot. So here is my question that perturbs me as we attempt to base characters off of people we know (or used to know).

When your family and friends read your novel, isn’t it most awkward when your sister says, “Hey Kim. That character Timothy in your novel. The one that is a drug addict? Did you create him based off of our cousin Phillip?” Or this one…..your boyfriend asks you, “Hey what sexual experience did you base that sex scene off of because it most definitely wasn’t with me.”

Ahhhhh, yes. Awkwardness.

So these are my fears about creating characters based off of people that you know. I am understanding that there is a fine line between using your own experiences and mingling fiction with fact. Or I also see switching and swapping personality traits among your “pool” of people that you know as a plausible option.

How do you choose and develop your characters? Do you base them from people that you know or completely fictionalize them or do a combination of both?