There’s something I’ve noticed myself doing where writing is concerned lately, and it’s kind of killing me.
My female characters are - for the most part - extensions of myself. I write very visibly fat characters because that’s what I am; more than that, though, they deal with a lot of the problems I do: one plot centers on suicide idealization, bad coping mechanisms and numbing depression. Another is about breaking away from the elements of family and home life that hold you back because of your responsibilities. My current WIP deals with the societal expectations of poverty and how it affects the main character who’s internalized it all her life, stuck in a comfortable rut, but a rut all the same.
Every time I start plotting and discussing characters and romantic entanglements though, I may describe something as, “Oh yeah, she’s essentially me, but she’s getting wooed by a handsome prince and his assistant. Not that I would ever have that in my life,” and I realized...I shouldn’t talk about myself like that?? I do it all the time, as if the way I talk about myself and by extension, the character, doesn’t affect anything.
I mean, how can I write romances with characters like me if I don’t believe I’m worthy of them??
