How to use narcissism productively in writing?
I write mostly fictions. However, I am an apathetic-type narcissist, which means I cannot understand other people's feelings and thoughts easily, if at all.
As a result, all my characters who are not modeled based on myself are dreadfully unconvincing, and even I notice how improbable their motivations and actions are sometimes. However, characters who are built to resemble myself seem pretty well-developed and both reasonable and conflicted in interesting ways.
Aside from trying to improve my understanding of others, is there any way I can use narcissism productively in writing beside the character construction of the protagonist?
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I really doubt that you can. Literature rests fundamentally on the sympathetic observation of human life. Whether you are writing literature or pulp, your success depends on creating convincing characters and without the power of sympathetic observation, I don't see how you achieve that.
Writing is in many ways an odd vocation. It requires a high degree of sympathetic observation of human life, and yet its practical demands include long periods of solitary work. A writer must have great sympathy with and keen observation of human beings but also be comfortable with long periods of reflective solitude. Few writers are extroverts. They could not abide the solitude. And yet the writer much have the sympathy and sensitivity of an extrovert.
Writing, in short, requires a life live inwardly with a gaze directly outwardly. But narcissism seems to be the exact opposite of this: a life lived outwardly with a gaze directed inwardly. It seems the least apt starting point imaginable.
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