Avoid directing yourself.
Really.
Unless you’re tangling with an autobiography (in which all your actions should be past actions and therefore inarguable… Revisionist history? Ha! Never.), don’t cast yourself in your novel.
Really.
It’s not a matter of you not being interesting or colorful enough to thrive in your fictional wherever-land. No, it’s a matter of distance, or lack thereof, to be exact.
An author must have some distance from his/her characters. Objectivity is key in keeping a storyline moving and grooving. Plopping yourself in the middle of the dance floor and boogying down with the whole gang leads not only to stark embarrassment but writerly headaches. Big ones.
Really.
Thackary in The Hushing Days is more me than any character I’ve ever written. And while he’s only a supporting actor, keeping him in line with the rest of the cast has been, um, difficult. (Apparently, I’m a very head strong personality. No wonder I’m not married.)
In short: putting yourself in your story is not worth the time nor the aggravation.
Really.
Until tomorrow…
Chloe
My own blog is my autobiography, so its inevitably ‘me centric’, but I completely agree with you when it comes to writing fiction. One aspect of writing that I enjoy, is to put myself into the characters shoes and see the world from their perspective. This is reason enough to have characters that are very different from me, so that I learn something new from them. Mir xx
An excellent point!