Don’t Judge Me by my Characters …

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

When I write, I don’t want to have to worry about what my characters will say.  I write, I let them be themselves without worrying I’ll be judged for what they do, say.

My characters have their own distinct personalities.  Some are very nice, some are ugly, some are bitchy, and just downright nasty.  Some of them will say things that I don’t want to reflect back on me, the author.

I am writing this not to apologize for my characters when some of them talk, act ugly.  I write this to ask you to not let my characters … reflect on me.  Don’t judge me by my characters.

It would be like your adult child showing his ass … and everyone think bad of you.  Or, your uncle goes crazy in a bookstore, shoots everyone … it isn’t fair for someone to look down on you for their actions.

I get caught up in writing not thinking about what my readers are going to think of me.  Once in a while like at this moment, I become aware of how one of my characters thought, spoke … in my last story … while writing her.

Did you read my story ‘God Told Margaret To Help Others On Their Way … She Did’?  Well, Margaret said a few ugly words in that story.

At this moment as I become aware of how she spoke … I think to myself I hope my readers don’t think I’m like that.  So … every once in a while I stop to tell my readers not to judge me by my characters.

I can’t write to please everyone … and there are times when I write, there are going to be several ‘ugly’ words.  It’s not me … to write many ugly words.

I have several I use that most people use daily.  That’s when I’m … me.  That’s when I’m my own … character.  I’m a good person who will say an ugly word or two, but never meaning them in a bad way.  Well … not usually.  🙂

I can’t predict how my characters in my stories are going to act, talk.  When I am in their world … I am painting with words what I see, hear.

Sometimes, I am typing words so fast that lots of time goes by before … I come back to my own world.  I begin reading what I’ve written, seen in … their world.  Sometimes … I cringe when I see what a character has done … said.

I couldn’t be true to myself if I began trying to clean up my characters … making them into something they aren’t.  They wouldn’t be anyone I knew if I did … so, how could I write them?

I write what I feel as I see the world through my characters’ eyes.  I find myself tearful, or laughing … angry, happy with … for them.  I become … them.  I don’t like sometimes what they say or do.

I stop now.  I wrote this to my readers so, they can understand me.  I am my characters sometimes, but … not all the time.  Some of them I don’t like at all … wouldn’t associate with.  I write this to ask you … don’t judge me by my characters.

Photos/my written note to my readers … are owned by me. Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee