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Q&A Do authors often base their characters off of themselves?

While I couldn't give you statistics on how prevalent it is, certainly it is not especially rare. I can think of a few major, bestselling authors who have done this off the top of me head easily en...

posted 6y ago by motosubatsu‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T15:32:55Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41218
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:34:01Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41218
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T10:34:01Z (almost 5 years ago)
While I couldn't give you statistics on how prevalent it is, certainly it is not especially rare. I can think of a few major, bestselling authors who have done this off the top of me head easily enough:

- Kathy Reichs -\> "Temperance Brennan" in the _Bones_ books is an obvious one
- Lawrence Durrell -\> the narrator in _Justine_
- Sylvia Plath -\> "Esther Greenwood" in _The Bell Jar_
- Hunter S. Thompson -\> "Raoul Duke" in _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_
- JK Rowling -\> "Hermione Granger" in the _Harry Potter_ books (in fact all three of the main characters are based of aspects of the author).

I could go on (but I'm sure you'd get bored!), basically it happens a lot!

As for whether it is out of place or not see [my answer](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/41135/is-it-bad-to-project-myself-into-my-story/41137#41137) and of course the others! To the question explicitly about this [here](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/41135/is-it-bad-to-project-myself-into-my-story).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-01-11T15:28:12Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 6