Yourself as the main character?

Nope. A piece of advice. You are probably a very nice person, but nobody can write good fiction about themselves.

Woah, that is a big big statement. What about "Big Blonde" by Dorothy Parker? One of her sharpest short stories, and widely acknowledged to be autobiographical. Plath's "the Bell Jar", Isaac Bashevis Singer's "In my Father's Court", Keroac's "On the Road", Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers", I mean, "David Copperfield" for god's sake. You really think none of those were worth writing?

Oh, autobiographical is one thing, but writing a book about yourself is another entirely. Writing about a past self is fine, because you can maintain a level of detachment and objectivity, but writing about yourself as you are presently is a bad idea.

Master_Yoda wrote:Oh, autobiographical is one thing, but writing a book about yourself is another entirely. Writing about a past self is fine, because you can maintain a level of detachment and objectivity, but writing about yourself as you are presently is a bad idea.

But, like I said, there are many T.V shows (and a few movies) where the creator and/or writer has a character who is basically a representation of him or herself. Look at shows and movies such as Louie, Curb your Enthusiasm, Adaptation, and any Woody Allen films. I think it is possible to pull off this sort of thing in a book. Stephen King did it (sort of. Okay, actually he just put himself as a character in a horror story, so I don't really know if that counts).

Hate to contradict, but many of those weren't strictly autobiographical, but taking elements of the author and extending them into a fictional character, often to work through something the authors were experiencing at the time. It takes tremendous courage, Dorothy Parker wrote fictional characters that went through abortion, the disintegration of a relationship through war, alcoholism and attempts of suicide while she herself was experiencing them. You are right in that it does take a level of detachment, and that takes a lot of courage to achieve in something fresh and raw, but is not unobtainable. Likewise, what distinguishes a past self from a present one? How much time would you need? Aren't most people more likely to romanticise their past selves, removed from opposing perspectives? The most successful Mary Sue franchise is Twilight, and that was the author's surrogate in highschool, not as she currently was, an adult mother. Would the books be any good if it wasn't so Mary Sue? I don't think so. I'm not saying there hasn't been awful stuff written using characters with traits of the author, but the same goes for any method. There is no failsafe formula, everyone ekes out their own practise. I think if someone bases a character on themselves and writes it badly, it's because they wrote it badly. They could be too close, they could pull their punches, but not everyone does, it's not a given.

I am not trying to demean writing based on personal experience. I myself try to write based on personal experience most of the time.

The question is ultimately whether you can trust yourself to be objective about yourself. I don't think anyone can do that until they have dealt with their present issues which they may or may not be aware of.

To clarify unequivocally, my claim boils down to this: when writing about yourself as you are presently, it is impossible for any writer of sound mental capability to obtain enough of a disconnect to portray themselves as a protagonist in a piece of their own fiction and still maintain the objectivity necessary to write great fiction.

Mary Sue syndrome is only one example of this lack of objectivity, and writing about yourself is only one way of losing objectivity.

Time is not the determining factor in distinguishing a past self from a present self. The emotional distance is. For different people and experiences the time gap will need to be different. Human nature is to distort reality to set emotion at bay, and so the disconnect needs to be present.

And there is no fail-safe formula, but their are sure formulas to fail.

Of course this only applies to people who are subject to the normal failings of human emotion. A sadistic, psychopathic serial killer on the other hand might be able to write a great piece of fiction about himself. I have no idea.

I'm not sure, but I believe it was Orson Scott Card who suggested that aspiring authors should write several short stories to get the autobiographical tendencies out their system. I think his point was similar to Yoda's. A writer can write better when he is able to view his characters objectively. However most writers tend to view their main characters as themselves, especially starting out, so he suggests getting it all written out so you can graduate, so to speak, to more variety and complex characters

I don't know if that makes sense. Sorry if it doesn't. My mind is fried and it's almost midnight. Hope it helps somehow.