This title was going to be "writing a beautiful character as an ugly person," but that sounds a little too on the nose, don't you think? Everyone that writes, if they write fiction, writes characters that are very far away from themselves or their own lived experience. Incidentally, if you're interested, this is what I'm listening to right now.
My characters tend to be ideals of some kind, each one of them, especially my protagonists. One is a recent college grad - a young, pretty American woman of Japanese descent living in California who decides to go on a road trip in a motorhome while still managing to work remotely (hashtagvanlife sigh). A conventionally pretty - if somewhat ordinary - moon goddess that I churned out after a conversation with a friend. A quirky, sarcastic, tired immortal woman that's perpetually stuck at the age of 25 and hates it. A middle aged man that's reached the peak of his career and decides to retire and spend every day by being a new person's ideal date. They're all ideals. A bunch of attractive women with brains (and usually magic) behind them, and an attractive dude that pointedly does not seek to fuck his way through life - these are the examples I've chosen for your perusal. That's all a super simplistic way of summarizing those characters, but what better do you know, and what do you care?
The last several years have fucked with my psyche a bit, and while I'm in therapy for it, a lot of my writing of late has been a way to help me work through my self-worth issues. I'm crass, and unconventional, and generally an unattractive person; I like to think that I'm realistic as well, but fear that my realism may swing somewhat to the pessimistic and that in itself is a turn-off for friends and potential lovers alike. I think that this comes out in the protagonists that I choose to write; partly, those characters create themselves, but I enjoy writing these protagonists because it requires me to take me out of myself, to do research, and it's just fun to play with people that can surprise me.
Of course, it also allows me to escape my own predicament for a short time, while the story flows through me. Feeling particularly lonely and stuck in the "I want to be wanted but who would want this" rut, and I write a complicated romantic situation in for one of my characters. Feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I write a character that's free to go wherever he wants to, whenever he wants to. Feeling ugly, write a beautiful person. Feeling like the universe is one pointless accident, and write a short story about how it's raining jelly and children are superhumans. That last one does exist, and it's weird.
It does feel hypocritical, a bit.
Comments