How to stop projecting yourself into your writing?

I suggest taking a few steps in order to abstract your identification with the character by one level:

First, define the character by their traits and backstory (which may contain the reasons for said traits). Make note of differences between them and yourself.

Second, look for connection points between their experience and yours. Even if you're very different people on the surface, most writers can't help but find something of themselves in every character they create. If you struggle, find partial parallels to guess what a situation might be like. For example, if you've never been beaten up, but you've felt physical pain, have been verbally attacked and have felt pain and panic, you may be able to assemble an approximate feeling for the situation. These are the entry points for you to empathise with the character.

Third, try to apply the character's experience to yourself by not just imagining what the current you would do or feel in a situation but how having had their relevant experiences would change your feelings and decisions.

This way you can leverage your ability to project yourself into a situation in order to improve your character writing, or at least that's how I usually do it.

posted about 7 years ago

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Pahlavan‭

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There is always a temptation to be didactic. At least, that is always a temptation for me. Having got your character into some sticky situation, there is a temptation to treat them as you would a child, to advise them on the sensible course of action that will get them out of the sticky situation with the least damage or loss. But novels are not about sensible behavior. They are, to one extent or another, about folly.

The cause of this folly is not usually foolishness, but passion -- the extreme attachment to some particular value -- that causes the character to choose folly over sense. The author needs to suppress their inner dad voice and focus on reportage rather than modeling good behavior. (Assuming their purpose is not to write a specifically didactic novel, of course.)

An autobiographical author can, of course, record their own descent into folly and its consequences. But they are only in a position to recognize their folly after the fact then they have grown more sensible. And this means that their autobiographical novel must necessarily be a confession of personal folly. No wonder there is a temptation to have the character behave more sensibly, since the author doubtless feels that the reader will see them in the character and will judge them.

To suppress the dad voice, and the apologetic self, I believe, you have to focus on the passion. What disordered (or perhaps laudable) passion drove the character into this situation? Their behavior will continue to be driven by this passion until the crisis, at least. The train is going to jump the track, the engineer's hand firm on the throttle to the end. You can't stop it without derailing your novel. You can only weep for it, and tell the tale in all its folly and pain and doom.

posted about 7 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

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