Hello everyone!
I must apologize once again, life seems to get in the way far too often. Work piles up, papers and midterms need doing, relationships ending, all the usual time killers. It’s become more difficult to consistently write new chapters and, while writing during my commute to school and work provides some writing time, it has unfortunately put me way behind schedule.
But luckily school will be done soon and I can commit to just Work and Writing rather than having to focus on Work and School.
But personal life aside, I wanted to share something I had realized a few days ago. While I was discussing my story with a fellow writer, it dawned on me that the tendency to include one’s self into a story is almost unavoidable unless the author specifically thinks about it. My friend, who has read a significant portion of my story, made a comparison between me and one of my characters. At first I laughed it off, but now I can’t help but feel that the “Mary Sue” (In this case an author insert as opposed to an idolized character) may be an unintentional thing that many authors, myself included, have a tendency to do. As a result I did a slight re-write to certain aspects of this character.
But then I thought that having a character similar in personality to myself may not be such a bad thing. As long as this character isn’t written in a way that is needlessly idolized (best of their class, always courageous and strong with no faults, etc.) then there may not be any issue at all. It would allow the author to insert themselves into the situation and think about how they would feel confronted with those problems. In a way, those feelings could be more genuine than ones the author would have to make up for a character.
Hope this reflection may have helped in some way to look at character development in a different light.
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 