One for the fiction writers, current and aspiring

[adderslj]

I posted this to my blog, but I suspect people here will be interested, too:

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Is it really all about me?

Adiemus - The Dagda - Adiemus IV - The Eternal Knot

Comments

[nerd-king.livejournal.com]

I can see a lot of myself in that.

I was thinking about this a while ago - all my main characters are me. One is an angrier version of me, another a bitter reflection of what I could be like if I had fewer friends, another an idealised sophisticate.

All the other characters are people I have met, or bizarre hybrids of people that I have met.

But personally, I don't think a writer's job is to invent characters unlike any he has seen. Rather I think a writer's job is to interpret the world he sees around him in an entertaining or thought-provoking way. Both, ideally.