“I don’t ‘make characters,’ I break myself into pieces and give them names.”

When it comes to the main protagonist—let’s be real—aren’t they all based on ourselves? Please don’t tell me I’m the only one.

I’m going to be so utterly real with you guys. My second novel, Unattainable Reality, started as a fan fiction about me and a certain celebrity I am not going to name. (And no, it’s not Taylor Lautner. This was after that whole Twilight fan-fic binder was written and I had moved on.)

In the first huge edit of that story, I legitimately had to do a “find and replace” for mine and the celebrity’s name. Yeah, that really happened. (Shh, don’t tell anyone… I promise it’s a good story.)

In the novel I’m working hard to get published now, I originally based the two main characters on myself and my crush at the time. But like I outlined in my post about it, the longer I dove in the writing journey, they more the characters molded into their own people. They didn’t exist in the real world anymore, and that was the way I liked it.

“When you become a writer, your heart and mind become divided between your many selves.”

Either way, I write in first-person because I like to live in my stories. I consider myself the protagonist because I want to be a part of it myself.

Growing up, I always wrote to escape into my own fantasies. I still do that. I still create worlds I want to live in, people I want to interact with, stories that are mine.

That’s the point of first-person, I think. For me, for you, for everyone to become the protagonist. Just because in the original penning of the story it was me… doesn’t mean it can’t be you. I want it to be.

After all, that’s the whole point.

Who are you? I’m a girl in the apocalypse, a girl falling in love on an island, a girl who lives with a robot. Hell, I’m the girl on fire. (Even though I didn’t write that one. ;))