Authors in Their Characters

This past Friday (July 31st) was J.K. Rowling‘s birthday. I’m nearing the end of the Harry Potter series (in the middle of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows now), and I realized with some shock when I heard the announcement of Rowling’s birthday on the radio, “Hey! That’s Harry Potter’s birthday, too!” I’m not sure why I found it so amusing that J.K. Rowling put a little bit of herself into one of her characters, but it seems I always do find things like that significant.

I’m not alone. Critics are forever comparing fiction to the life of the author and drawing parallels. This author-as-character phenomenon is sometimes disparaged by readers (and, sometimes, by other authors). We’re accused of creating Mary Sue characters and being self-indulgent in our story-telling. And, sometimes, our characters need a little disparaging, truthfully. I doubt there’s a writer alive who didn’t have some character who was a thinly veiled version of themselves at some point. Mine was a kick-ass, red-haired space cowboy in the Star Wars fan fiction I wrote in high school. (Ok, it was a pretty thick veil in that case, but she was everything I wanted to be, so she was still a Mary Sue.)

But, authors do put a little bit of ourselves in every character we create. We can’t help it. Our books come from our personal lives, experiences, and imaginations. In dream analysis, the theory is that everything in the dream represents a part of you. I guess it’s sort of the same with the books we write. Every part of the book represents a part of the author– including the villains. Does that mean Stephen King is going to go nuts and attempt to kill his family? Probably not. But it means that his villain came from some part of himself.

I can’t speak for all authors, but for me, the knowledge that every character has some of myself in it is a little scary when I put it out there for the world at large to read. What if people do compare me to my villains? Or worse, what if people hate the characters I love and, by extension, hate me?

So, next time you accuse an author of being self-indulgent or creating a Mary Sue, back up and remember that every character has at least a little piece of the author in her. The author will thank you for it.

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