It’s all about me. Who knew?
I was watching the Today Show while I ate breakfast, drank coffee and read blogs. My ears perked up when an author was being interviewed about her new book. I listened as Jane Stanton Hitchcock, who I’ve never heard of, talked about her new book, Mortal Friends. Then toward the end of the interview, Ann Curry asked if the Washington characters portrayed in the book were real.
And this is what Jane Stanton Hitchcock said:
“I’m a fiction writer, so all of the characters are me…”
Now that might be the party line, so to speak, but I loved it. It made perfect, indisputable sense to me and is a reasonable way for me to describe how I’ve come up with the fictional characters that grace the page of my WIP. My characters all have parts of me that I like or don’t like or wish I had or am glad I don’t.
I recently wrote a short piece of fiction about an Asian-Irish twenty-two year old. I was twenty-two once. This character doesn’t look like what she is. I grew up with people often asking if I was Jewish. They even did this as I waited to be picked up from Hebrew School.
See? That character is a bit of me.
I know that an answer like Stanton Hitchcock’s is also an exercise in the often elusive ability to CYA.
And yes, that works for me too.
What about you?
Click here for the interview with Jane Stanton HItchcock — and don’t forget to enter to win free books!
I think that definitely makes sense, but I like what you added even more:
My characters all have parts of me that I like or don’t like or wish I had or am glad I don’t.
I’m certainly not a 19yo Mexican, but he has some of my qualities.
I think there’s truth to that, but for me I think it’s more so with the main characters or certain characters rather than everyone. You’ve always got interesting things to say. Thanks for sharing your brilliance, humor, and insights with us. We, your readers, are a lucky bunch.;-)
I can dig this. I think it’s funny when I read the disclaimer @ the beginning of fictional books: “All similarities between characters in this book and people in real life is purely coincidental” or some such garbage.
As writers, students of life, & observers, we borrow bits & pieces from all sorts of different people and remake it into fictional characters. It’s like playing in the kitchen w/all the ingredients and finishing with something delicious.
Even though, I base some of my characters off of other people, you’re right. They are all me in some way or another–I love this post!
Interesting concept. I find myself creating characters that do things or act in ways that I might LIKE TO, but never would in real life. Yet I do think that dark secret yearning to do those things or act in certain ways is a part of me…just a part I would never express outwardly, if that makes sense.
I think I’m the same. Every character has a little bit of me in it, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to relate to them and portray them as they need to be portrayed.
True.
Kinda like our kids. Some things in them come straight from me and I am glad, other things I try not to notice!