If you’re an avid reader of my blog, first of all, hi and thank you, but secondly, you might remember a few weeks ago I talked about using real experiences in writing, and I said I would come back to when real people are influencing your characters. Well, here is that post.
Before we get into the dramatics, I want to start with talking about how I, as a person, influence my own characters. All of my female main characters are an extension of me, to some degree. For example, Tessa in “Love Through Agony” is very similar to me, since I was writing about my experiences with endometriosis, and wanted that to feel as authentic as possible. Catherine in “I Hate My Roommate” loves video games, which is something that I’ve loved for years. You get the gist. I think adding pieces of myself to my characters makes them more real, and I have no intention to stop doing that any time soon.
Something else I’ve been trying to focus on a lot more recently is making side characters inspired by my friends and family. Nora’s mom in “Healing x3” used to bake with her a lot as a kid, which is something I did with my mom. Finnley’s best friend in a novel that is very new to development is heavily inspired by my best friend. Not only do I think that using real people in my life to inspire side characters flushes them out more, but it also helps me feel more connected to the characters, since they’re extensions of my favourite people. And, side characters are incredibly important as they influence the main character, and my favourite people have heavily influenced me.
Now, onto the dramatics: when a real person influences a love interest. Let me tell you before we get into this that the only love interest inspired by a real person is Jack, and I knew that going into it. Did it make my real emotions really complicated and confusing? Absolutely. But, I really loved the experience of writing “Cora” and the sequels to it, and I wouldn’t change that. But as I mentioned, it really complicates how you, as the writer, feel about the character, and the person that inspired it. They kind of blend together, and when you’re writing romance, it then feels like you’re writing out your fantasies. Which I have done, and I think is actually a key part of writing romance, however, it gets messy when the character is consistently the same real person. And, if you don’t have feelings for the person that inspired the character when you first started writing, it can get really confusing as to whether or not you’re falling for the character, or the real person.
Don’t even get me started on when you stop talking to the person that inspired the character, but you’re still writing with the fictionalized version of them. Personally, it got to the point where I started missing and craving the character’s presence, and not the real person, which is a weird thing to work through.
Now, this is not to say that you shouldn’t take elements from the personalities around you, because I absolutely do that and think it makes your characters better. What I am saying is that you should be careful how closely you tie a character to someone, because it can get messy. And if you do want to write a character closely inspired by someone, just be prepared to feel a lot of complicated emotions.
That's all for now, folks!
-C
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