Have you ever fallen in love with one of your own characters?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Partridge, May 31, 2017.

  1. TheDankTank

    TheDankTank Member

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    No. The vast majority of my characters are really terrible people.
     
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  2. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    Not REALLY. I can get pretty attached to my characters, and to be fair most of my main characters are female characters that I as a man find intellectually interesting - i.e. all of them would be people I'd potentially crush on if they were real. But I don't really have that reaction to them on the page - it feels more like a parent-child relationship.
     
  3. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

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    My best friend for 10-11 years and I have a platonic play-romance going on.

    Most of it started just because rumours went out that we were lesbians (at a uniformed, strict religious private school) and instead of constantly contradicting, we staged fake breakups on the quad and were always fighting or jealous or assuming the other was cheating. In our high school class photos we kissed (innocently—nothing I wouldn't do to my sister) and unfortunately our classmate was too tall & blocked her out of the shot, but it did capture several people's reactions which is priceless.

    Anyway, we threw ourselves our own romantic prom, just the two of us. We go on play-dates where we get done up and treat each other specially. We do couple costumes for Halloween—last year was Princess Bride & she was my Buttercup and I was Wesley, and this year I've got a vintage bridal gown to be Sarah & she's my Jareth.
    IMG_6803.JPG
    We've gone on weekend trips together with matching couples pajamas, and basically do all the fun bits of a relationship with no physical stuff (outside cuddling & hugging & pecks on the cheek; again, things I'd do with my own sister).

    It's actually all a lot of fun. Also it makes it easy for me to rescue my best friend who's deer-in-the-headlights for creeps & stalkers. I just tell them back off-I'm not sharing aggressively, they leave us be—or wait till I'm out of the country visiting family to force themselves into her home & refuse to leave until she agrees to love them.

    Only issue is some of our friends' girlfriends think we're actually in a relationship and the boys won't correct them–we suspect so they don't have to explain their hanging out with straight female friends until 5AM in their apartments. But honestly—what sort of bad girlfriend do they all think I am? If I was in a 11 year relationship with her, I wouldn't be flirting with every pretty girl the boys bring home—in front of said girlfriend. I can flirt with other girls BECAUSE we aren't a real couple.

    Just hetero-life partners or something.

    Anyway, not derailing thread: loving your own character.

    Definitely do that. I haven't fallen in love with my own—although I have fallen for fictional characters.

    Like Mr. Darcy is over-rated—Mr. Tilney (Northanger Abbey) is the greatest man who ever didn't live. He's confident, kind, playful, a bit snarky at times, and will sternly but gently put you right when you've one wrong.

    Definitely in love with him. Wish I wrote him.

    But then I agree with Tenderiser that my characters are more my children or something. Would feel uncomfortably incestuous.
     
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  4. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    No, can't say I have. For me it'd be like being in love with myself... somehow. I don't know. The characters I write don't feel that real to me. (Maybe I'm doing it wrong?)
     
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  5. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, I don't get it either. The characters aren't real. In fact, the more vibrant or lifelike they become the more inanimate they appear to me. I might like them or find them amusing or something but don't care whether they live or die or find happiness or tragedy. That ain't how it works. I'm god and they're supplicants at best. If one of them ever tried talking to me they would end up slapped around and hogtied in my closet until they learned the game.

    Funny thing is I'm the opposite way with other people's characters in books and movies. Different deal there.

    Naw, most successful authors would agree with you. They tend to snicker at the "characters write themselves" baloney. That would make for a tough story. The characters only exist to do the writer's bidding. If you start treating them like people your story will suffer.
     
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  6. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    I don't think this counts...

    In my universe, an all-powerful writer controls the world. His name is the Rishnaran, which means writer. He's me.

    There is another being of similar importance who is mentioned but doesn't make an appearance (well, neither does the Rishnaran, actually, until the end.) Her name is the Irvanira, which means muse. Much in the same way I am the Rishnaran, she is the Irvanira, and I used to be in love with her. Though not at the time I came up with the idea to put a Rishnaran and Irvanira in my story.

    Like I said, I don't think it counts.
     
  7. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Well, I've done it backwards ...deliberately. I based a character on a guy I loved, back in my younger days—great qualities, warts and all, but a totally different background history. I thought it would help me to focus the feelings of my main character, who falls in love with him. (This is not a Romance, by the way, but there is a love story as part of the plot.) I felt that the tactic worked for my story. However, what was interesting, is that this replica of my old lover changed some (not a lot, but some—he evolved) from what the real guy was like. I don't know if my old friend would recognise himself. On the other hand, he knew me so well... :)
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2017
  8. ddavidv

    ddavidv Senior Member

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    (raises hand) Yeah, I sort of did. Wrote a blog entry about it: https://davidwittlingerauthor.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/my-first-love/

    Now, I can separate the fictional world from my own. However, my Annie character became so entwined in my mind through all the 'conversations' I created while coming up with the book that she became very real. In reality, Annie is a bit of a train wreck. In our world she would definitely need therapy. In my pseudo-fantasy book, however, I can ignore her mental problems and dismiss them as 'part of the story'. All of the other stuff about her I just love. Yes, she is some sort of ideal woman to me. I wrote her during a period of my life when I had lost a good deal of faith in my marriage, so she became something of a alternative to the life I was unhappy with.

    My next female MC Brianna I have great affection for but it is more like that of a child than a love interest.

    So yes, I do believe it is possible to have deep feelings for characters. They are real to you as a writer. You see them so clearly, sometimes knowing them better than the real people in your life. It is hard not to develop some sort of...love?...for them.
     
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  9. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    But characters are people too!

    Also, I've never written my dream guy. Then I'd have to write a character who's a clone of my husband and that'd be weird since I write together with him... Plus everyone would be like, oh my gawd what a gary stu. :rofl:

    I guess my point was, when I'm writing, I'm having conversations with myself, and while I'm okay with myself -- like I don't want to throw myself off the nearest cliff or wish for a meteor to fall on my head -- I don't like myself that much. So I don't quite understand how one would feel attracted to let alone fall in love with a figment of their imagination, but it's possible my personal definition and perception of love differs.

    When it comes to fictional characters that aren't my own creations, I can love them, but even then it's like how I love Nutella or sunsets.
     
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  10. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Gary Stu/T Trian? He'll be so pleased.... :)
     
  11. TheApprentice

    TheApprentice Senior Member

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    All of them. They're my children, goddamnit!
     
  12. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Haha, yup. :love:
     
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  13. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Infatuation no. More like the best and most badass bunch of friends
    a guy could ask for.
    Keep me company, when there is no one else.:p

    Never had a thing for any of the fictional characters I create or read
    about. Care about them sure, but not in a romantic sense.

    I am mad, but not that mad. :supergrin:
     
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  14. Rosacrvx

    Rosacrvx Contributor Contributor

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    Fall in love in the romantic sense? No, never.
    They're not all terrible people, far from it. I could get along with some of them in real life. Some others I'd scream at, some of them I'd despise because I know all their intimate, secret flaws. I can see how we'd end up clashing if the relationship progressed to something more and...
    Wait. This is like real life. The problem is not them, it's me. ;)
     
  15. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    In the romantic sense? No. But they are people in my head, and I guess knowing someone that well, from deep down, is understanding and feeling for/with/as them. Kind of an extension of myself, which would be creepy as hell if not for the fact that I, as a person, am not these people. I only am them when I go deep in writing and thinking about them.

    There's one character which if I'd meet him in real life he'd piss me off royally, but when I'm writing he is me (or the reverse). Is that love? I don't think so.
     
  16. Caveriver

    Caveriver Active Member

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    Yes, I have to admit I am guilty. I am a romantic sort, and even though I love my husband, we are far past the days of exciting romance. I miss that desperately, although not enough to consider leaving him- it's just the evolution of our relationship. So channeling those feelings into a character is my outlet. And I like to think this makes reading about them feel more authentic: no emotion in the writer, no emotion in the reader, as it were.

    I do take certain authors as cautionary tales, however. (SPOILERS) Take Roth, who kills her main character out of the blue in her last book. Now tell me she didn't do that because she had fallen so far in love with Four that she wanted Tris out of the picture. A little disturbing, if you ask me.
     
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  17. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    Fall in love is too strong. Admire some and sometimes lust after, yeah. The latter is no surprise, as they're specifically drawn to be what I find most attractive. Far stronger than any of these feelings, is the drive to make them better. In which case I see them as projects more than people.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2017
  18. Odile_Blud

    Odile_Blud Active Member

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    Haha! I've had crushes.
     
  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I'm with you on this - the whole character write themselves thing is just romanticizing around the fact that characters develop as you write because you think of new things while you're writing them.
     
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