Literary Rorschach Test

Every fiction writer I know has been asked some version of the following: “Am I (fill in fictional character name here)? I have to be. I am so (fill in virtue/flaw/tragic flaw here) just like (previously named fictional character).”

There is really no way to avoid the question, especially for novice writers who haven’t found a decent writers group or workshop yet. They often turn to friends or family as first readers hoping for reassurance and encouragement. They may get that, but the reader will almost certainly see some aspect of themselves in a character, no matter how outlandish the comparison. And what they see tells you more about the reader than the writer. Your suburban-soccer-mom sister corners you in the kitchen at Christmas and says, “Is that Vietnam-vet-sniper-turned-vampire me? Because, like, who would think of a vampire who hates the site of blood? And I hate the site of blood!” Or your boyfriend’s bodybuilding-narcissist-who-listens-to-Iggy Pop-on-yard-sale-eight-track-tapes roommate catches you on the way out to dinner—“I know you modeled the Moldovan-double-agent-concert-pianist-gigolo after me. It’s so obvious. We’re both gay!”

If someone who knows you reads your book or story, they will see themselves in it somewhere. Sometimes that makes them happy, sometimes not so happy . . . “That nympho-lesbo-killer-hippie-whore is me, isn’t it? Isn’t it?! You were writing that scene right after our big fight about me being friends with Jeremy. What’s wrong with me having a guy for a friend?! You are such a jerk!” Worse than that? “How could you give a character in your book a twisted dick? How did you know I had a twisted dick? Are you staring . . . you know . . . THERE in the locker room? What is your problem, Pal?” I know some writer has suffered this: “You don’t love me. I knew it. When Kristen asks Ben on the bus, on the way home from the Vegan pot luck with the mobsters, he looks out the window and doesn’t answer her. You looked out the window of the bus when we were riding home tonight.” You protest that she didn’t ask if you loved her and you told her you loved her ten times already today. “But not on the bus. You just looked out the window like that emotionally repressed idiot Ben. And you both have curly hair.”

To be fair, perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit. No I’m not. This shit happens to writers every day. And after a while, if it won’t break up a relationship or cost you any money, you just agree that, yes, I did model Sergeant Bonecrusher after you, a 93 pound female lead singer in a punk band, because you are both “tough.” It’s easier than the long-winded truth, that everything a writer has seen or heard or smelled or felt or tasted, every breakup and orgasm and stubbed toe and gunshot wound and death of a friend, each book you read or movie or play you’ve seen or hero you’ve met or lie you’ve told or theft you’ve committed or day you spent in jail or joint you smoked and sometimes things you just dreamed while you lay half asleep on a raft in a farm pond while bluegills nibbled at your leg hairs, it all goes into a mental hopper and is mixed in and tumbled for years with genetic memory and reptilian fears and nostalgic longing for your eight grade piano teacher. And one day it comes out on the page as a character made up of so many things from so many places that you have no idea where it came from. And sometimes you just need a stock character for a minor role and you don’t want to work that hard, so you use some hackneyed filler. And that’s how it happens.

Though sometimes, that self-centered boor with one breast bigger than the other who can’t smell that she wears way too much perfume because of a head injury as a child, the one who picks her nose during sex? It is you.