Not much at all, really. For starters, my main characters are practically always girls. Plus they tend to be courageous, hotblooded and exceptionally violent. If anything they're kinda the opposite of me. Seriously, though, I think I'm the type of writer who prefers to write about characters with traits I find admirable or interesting in other people, and especially in fictional characters. I'm probably too boring to be a main character. Minor supporting character at best.
I am far from my main characters. They're often brave and travel all over the universe. I'm scared to leave the apartment and travel is very stressful. (Did not used to be.) They also get things done.
I think most writers put themselves into their characters to whatever extent. For some, it's just little personality snippets, and for others, it's a blatant self-insert. I'm not sure there's a fully right or wrong way to do it, but... A friend of mine is working on his trilogy (debut), and I've known and read various drafts of this for more than 20 years now. He never knew exactly what he wanted to do with it during that time. Was it one book? Two? A huge series? He finally settled on a trilogy a couple years ago and is about done with all three first drafts. The issue is, the MC is now 100% him and the main supporting character is based on his ex. The problem for me is it really screws up my reading experience. I've been trying to be neutral and provide constructive criticism (we all know how crappy first drafts can be), but I can't really take people I know out of the story. It's awkward. The whole thing is supposed to be this utopian, supernatural thriller but because I know all the personal backstory, to me it reads like one part romance novel, one part diary and one part news report. I swear it's because of the unabashed self inserts. He has good supporting characters and a good central story but idk if I have the heart to tell him I liked previous versions better when the two MCs were based on nobody. But that's just me. A reader who doesn't know him or his personal story likely won't connect those dots.
The only thing "me" in my characters is really their taste in music. Aside from that, they're usually based on someone or a combination of people. The protagonist of one story I wrote was based heavily on my ex-GF. But because that relationship ended badly with a lot of hurt for me, it makes a sequel to it far too painful and difficult to write.
Pieces of me are in MOST characters. NOT all. (Looking at a few historical asshats I have running around.) But for the most part, there are characters that have parts of me in them. Some more than others, but there isn't a character that is 100% me.
I just had a thought about why i dont really base a character off of me intentionally..... if I give a character an aspect about myself (lets say I give a character with a tortured past a stutter), I dont want people to think "ok, she made this character stutter. she stutters. Is the rest of this character her?" or then associate me with the actions of the character because the character is "me"
A story with me as the MC would be boring AF. I like boring. I've endeavored my whole life to make everything as boring and routine as possible. Particularly at work where not-boring usually involves fires, severed finger-tips, pandemics, robberies, and assaults. That being said, I'd add that some aspect of the author ends up in every character by default. I mean, none of us have experience being anyone other than ourselves, so that's going to trickle in everywhere. I do use people I know as characters all the time. And I rip off every crazy story I hear from everyone. My own crazy stories aren't usually crazy enough.
Yes, though it wasn't intentional. I wanted to portray how seemingly unfair life can be and how victory is still possible but it'll come at a steep price. Although I've personally never faced any real hardships, I relate more to the hardships my people have faced as a whole when "competing" against other nations so I wanted to express this geopolitical grievances through a character.
