Ian Soto

The Characters of Me

There is one thing a writer of fiction can never wholly avoid. Almost every character they make is some extension of themself. From the noblest of heroes to the darkest of villains, writers can’t help but take inspiration from themselves to liven up the characters they’re bringing to life. Not even the best writers can avoid infusing their personalities into the characters they create.

In the book and movie The Shining, the antagonist, Jack Torrence, is meant to be a reflection of his creator, Stephen King. For a character as deranged as Torrence, it was surprising to learn that the character that inspired the villain was King himself. Torrence was a writer who struggled with alcoholism and slowly lost his mind over time. Torrence was a representation of Stephen King in his earlier writing career when he drank heavily, struggling his way through writing stories which took a toll on him physically and mentally. As a writer, I became curious about how much of myself I put onto the page and how much my fictional characters represent me.

I rummaged through the mountains of paper and flipped through dozens of old notebooks, skimming through each page to see if anything was interesting. A good portion of what I’ve written down was cringe-inducing and embarrassing. I pulled out a piece of writing titled ‘Mac Attack From Outer Space,’ and I was immediately hit with nostalgia and embarrassment remembering the context of this story’s origin. I was about 17 or 18, working my first job at McDonald’s when I wrote this short story. It’s about an unnamed character who was transferred to the first fast food joint on Mars to be one of its first human representatives:

This douchebag alien told me I got his order wrong. I told the customer that his order was correct, but I found myself getting into another pointless argument with another alien having to explain to them that napkins aren’t a part of the meal.

“Look at this! Look at this!!!” the alien cried out. The alien opened up the bag of food I gave him to show me there were no napkins in there.

“How am I supposed to enjoy my food without the napkins? That’s the best part of the meal. A native Martian wouldn't have made such a stupid mistake like you humans.”

I was on the verge of telling the alien that he could go shove his meal up his ass, but I was worried he would take my insult literally.

“Sir, I’m gonna be honest with you; I have no clue what the hell you are nor why you care about napkins so much, but I’ll be happy to give you the napkins you desire so much.”

I grabbed a stack of napkins with about the same thickness of a dictionary and handed it over to the alien. The alien grabbed them from my hand and began putting several napkins into his mouth to eat.

“Hmph. Thank you, human. Please don’t make such a foolish mistake again.”

When the alien turned around and began walking away, I stuck out my hand to give him the middle finger while he wasn’t looking.

“God, I fucking hate working here,” I muttered under my breath.

I despised working at McDonald’s and one of the ways I vented my frustrations was to make up goofy stories about things that happened on certain days on the job. I chose the setting to be on Mars and the customers to be aliens because I felt that stepping into McDonald’s was stepping into another world. I believe this passage was loosely based on a customer who

complained about not having enough napkins in their bag even though they already had more than enough and I couldn't help but poke fun at the situation. I found another story in the same series, and I believe it was written after the first time I had to unclog a toilet in McDonald’s:

I entered the bathroom I needed to clean and I noticed there was a note taped to the stall door where I presume the crime happened. I read the note aloud to the other people present.

“To whom this may concern, I was on the verge of shitting myself on my way driving from work. I thought I was going to lose my battle until I came across McMartians. I wrote this note to apologize for the atrocity I committed to the toilet you’ll have to clean. My sincerest apologies go out to you and may whatever god or gods you believe in have mercy on your soul. P.S. 10/10 would shit here again!”

I was panicking realizing this would be my first time having to unclog a toilet an alien used and I felt like I was going to tear up out of sheer fear of what I may see when I opened the stall door. While I was having a crisis, my friend Juan was walking to the bathroom, sprinkling holy water across the place, holding a cross in his hands, and muttering prayers in Spanish.

“Padre, bendice esta habitación y líbrala de todo lo que es malo e impío.” “Juan, what are you doing?”

“Saying our prayers just in case we die cleaning this mess.” “Oh, quit being dramatic. We’re not going to die—I think.”

“Sure,” The skepticism coming from Juan’s voice was palpable. I sighed when I placed my hands on the stall door preparing to open it. It was days like today where I began regretting all the life decisions I’ve made that have led me to unclogging alien shit from a toilet.

Rereading this fictionalized moment of my life was delightful and somewhat cringeworthy at the same time. The emotions of the sheer terror I felt preparing to unclog a toilet in the real-life situation were captured well in my story. The humor was a bit childish, though, and the writing could have been better. I was a teenager at the time, so I forgave myself for the manner of writing I engaged in at the time.

I sifted through other stories looking for something more recent and I found a fun little snippet where I let myself leak into a character’s personality. It’s from a story I titled ‘Lost in Riches,’ and it’s about a man named Mr. Solin who comes into sudden wealth and integrates himself into high-class society. In this scene, Mr. Solin finds himself alone in a fancy party lingering in his thoughts:

I was never much of a party person, nor was I ever a social butterfly. I have remarkably little to talk about, and bullshitting my way through conversations feigning interest in whatever is being talked about is tortuous. I don’t get invited to parties often. When I do, I stay secluded like the hermit I’ve always been since I was shat out into this world.

Drinking alcohol is another form of socializing I despise. I can’t stand the taste of that bitter piss water. Wine and champagne seem fancy enough for the people in this party, adding some fruity flavor to their alcohol, but adding a fruity flavor to piss-water doesn’t make it taste any less like piss. Also, if I have to be drunk to enjoy a party, I wholeheartedly believe that party sucks by default.

This is just my thoughts infused into a character of mine. It was written in my early college years when I started going to parties more often. The parties weren’t entertaining or

stimulating for me, and I’d be off in a little corner, writing in a journal and petting whatever dog the homeowner had. Everyone else was having fun drinking their alcohol and getting drunk, while I became the little hermit I tend to be. It’s funnier and more amusing to write about someone going through an awkward situation rather than being part of one myself.

Flipping through the pages of fiction I’ve written was like looking through a little timeline of my life, and I came to a portion where I remember I was going through untreated depression. I sketched out a drawing of an unnamed character on the back of printer paper. The character I drew was depicted gritting their teeth, eyes shut, and with tears streaming down his cheeks. Beside the character were the thoughts I gave the character:

I gritted my teeth, knowing all I’ll ever be is a failure. I’m a waste of life on earth. My life is a cycle of synchronized failure and rejection. The more I think about the life I live and how pathetic it is, the more I feel like I deserve to perish in fire.

The passage and drawing were made as I was in the middle of college before COVID-19 hit, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with my life. I projected myself onto the fictional character I drew and made him feel the same depressive emotions I felt at the time. I probably did it because I didn’t want to feel alone with the dark thoughts that were swirling in my mind. Looking back at my writing and drawing now, I realized I was far too harsh on myself. It was a point in my life where I felt hopeless about my future, not realizing that the stories I had been writing the whole time hinted toward what I should pursue in life.

Life has improved after I got the help I needed, yet there is still part of me that is uncertain of my future. I’m naturally pessimistic, expecting the worst outcome of most

situations, but there’s a hint of optimism that gives me the feeling that all will turn out well. This feeling was captured in my most recent story titled, ‘Buried Memories.’ One character named Herod wants to own land and become a lord one day (the fantasy setting takes place in the medieval Gothic era). The other character, Enki, is a succubus who has hopes and dreams of falling in love in the near future:

“You're a succubus, and you want to fall in love?” “Yes,” Enki said without a hint of being a joke.

“I want a man to call my own, and I want to be the woman he loves,” she added. “You want to practice monogamy?”

“Yes.”

“Yeesh. You are certainly different.” “Is there anything wrong with that?” "No, not really."

“Not really?”

“Well, If I'm going to be completely honest with you, Enki, I think your goal of falling in love with someone as a succubus is as achievable as my goal of owning land and becoming a lord.”

The pessimism leaked out of Herod's mouth like water dripping from a rusty pipe. Enki was unbothered by Herod's negative attitude, though.

“Is that so?” she asked.

“If that's the case, then I hope you're right.”

Herod was confused, wondering why Enki seemed so happy after he expressed his pessimistic view.

“Hmph. You're an optimist, aren't you?” “There's no reason not to be,” Enki responded. “You're setting yourself up for disappointment.” “Hm. You're a pessimist, aren't you?”

“There's no reason not to be,” Herod said in a somewhat mocking tone. “Hah. You're setting yourself up for failure, Herod.”

“I think the way I do because I live in reality.”

“Oh, do you, now? Don't you imagine yourself becoming a proper lord one day?” “Yes.”

“And are you a proper Lord yet?” “No.”

“So, you imagine yourself as a proper lord, but you aren't one yet. I'd call that optimism, especially if you're putting effort into achieving your endeavor.”

“I could imagine myself as the richest man in the world, but it doesn't mean I will be even if I put the effort into it, now does it?”

“No,” Enki responded. “I rest my case, then.”

Herod sat down on his chair, acting smug after hearing Enki agree with him.

“You could put all the work and effort into something you desire and never achieve your dreams. I've got plenty of reasons to be pessimistic.”

Enki was unfazed by Herod's argument. After she took a sip of the milk in her chalice, she took on Herod's argument head-on.

“Let's reverse the argument and think like a pessimist. You want to be a lord, but you think that it is unlikely—no, you think it won't even happen. If you honestly think that your odds of becoming a lord are insurmountable, then why even bother trying to become one?”

Herod paused to think of a sufficient rebuttal, but only one honest response came to mind. “Because I still think there's a chance I may become a lord.”

“Exactly. I rest my case.”

Enki sat down across from Herod with an equal amount of smugness as Herod had felt earlier.

“You have a seed of optimism that'll grow into reality. You being pessimistic to the point of becoming inactive will get you nowhere.”

I talk to myself through my characters, which is one reason why writing fiction is so enjoyable to me. Herod and Enki personify my current life predicament, where I feel hopeful and hopeless about my future in writing. The back-and-forth banter of the two arguing allows me to see my inner thoughts from an outside perspective, and reading this passage back to myself through the eyes of flawed fictional characters is a fulfilling and insightful form of entertainment.

I’m no different than any of the writers before me who represented themselves in one way or another through the characters in their stories. I look back at my fiction writing, and it’s like a literary time capsule of who I was and who I’ve become. As much as I can tell a story

through characters I’ve made throughout my life, I’ve realized that those characters can tell a story about me.

Fiction is how I’ve almost always communicated with myself, but there was one small moment in my life that changed the way I looked at writing. I was in my college guidance counselor’s office scheduling for my next semester, and I remember there was only one class that I truly cared about getting a seat in (every other class was just busy work to me); the creative fiction writing class. Fiction is all I’ve ever written for pleasure, and I never bothered to partake in any other type of writing. Unfortunately there was one issue:

“It looks like all the seats for the creative fiction class are taken,” my counselor told me. “Taken? Like, all of them?”

I didn’t want to believe the only class I genuinely wanted to take was all already filled up. “Yeah, it looks like it. Maybe I’ll check again and see.”

“Oh. Yeah, could you make sure because I was actually looking forward to taking that class.”

I hadn’t been in college for about 5 years and I came back with two things on my mind: I’m going to earn a bachelor's degree in something I like, and I was going to take the creative fiction class I’ve been desperately wanting to get into.

“Nope. There’s no seats available, unfortunately.”

“Oh. I was actually looking forward to taking that class.”

That killed the modicum of enthusiasm I had for returning to college. For a second I genuinely contemplated just leaving college altogether and waiting for the next year, but I shot

that idea down because I didn’t want to delay earning a degree any longer. Possibly sensing my disappointment, my counselor offered an alternative class.

“Well, it looks like the creative nonfiction class still has seats available.” “Creative nonfiction? What’s that? Is that like journalism?” I asked my counselor. “Uhmmm, I guess it could involve that. I’m not entirely sure.”

My counselor was uncertain what the class was like, and in my mind, several questions kept repeating themselves. What the hell is creative nonfiction? How can you be creative with nonfiction? It’s not like I can make shit up to make the story more entertaining. It wouldn’t be nonfiction then, now would it? The concept baffled me and I was ready to just dismiss the class and not take it.

“Do you want me to put you in the creative nonfiction class?”

I was tempted to say no but I thought twice about this decision because nonfiction writing is still writing. It may not be as fun as fiction writing, but I’m sure I’ll still learn something.

“Yeah, I’ll take it,” I said, not thrilled about signing up for that class. I left my counselor's office disappointed and upset.

I remember coming back home that day and my family asking what classes I was going to take. I listed out the classes I didn’t care for first, and then I told them I was taking a creative nonfiction class.

“Creative nonfiction? What’s that?” my dad asked. “I’m not sure. I’m guessing it’s like journalism.”

“How can you be creative with nonfiction?” my brother-in-law asked. “I don’t know,” I responded.

No one else around me could comprehend what it means to be creative with something that is nonfiction. I felt like I may have made a mistake, but I didn’t want to give up before at least learning what creative nonfiction is and attempting to write it.

The first day of class came around and there were about a dozen other classmates in a small room where a sole rectangular table resided. The professor came in starting class and one of the first questions he asked was:

“What is creative nonfiction?”

I remember asking the burning question in my mind because I needed to know what being creative with nonfiction meant.

“The only thing I could think of when it comes to being creative with nonfiction is journalism. Honestly, I don’t know how you can be creative with nonfiction.”

I don’t remember my professor’s exact response but he said something akin to this: “Creative nonfiction could include journalism, but that’s not solely what it is. When

you’re writing creative nonfiction, especially if you’re talking about yourself, you have to view yourself as a character and construct the world around you as you experience it.”

View myself as a character? Why the hell would I do that? I’m not an interesting person.

I can’t just make stuff up about myself. The idea of viewing myself as a character temporarily broke my mind because the only way I could envision myself as a character was through fiction. It's what I’ve done all my life up to that point. I voiced my thoughts, asking another integral question.

“I guess what I’m confused about with creative nonfiction is that I can’t just make stuff up to make the story more interesting. I usually write fiction and if I want my character to do or say something I can just write something down and make up what I want in my story. How am I supposed to tell a nonfiction story creatively when I don’t remember the exact details of the past and that I can’t make stuff up?”

“You’re right that you shouldn't make stuff up and that you should reconstruct your stories to the best of your memories. However, if you don’t remember exact details of something from your past, what’s important is that you reflect in your writing the general feel of the moment and try to accurately reconstruct what was most likely said or done. It could also be helpful to let the reader know that you don’t remember certain moments in your life well and that you may be paraphrasing what was said.”

Hearing that made writing nonfiction seem more doable. The tough part about the class was finding moments in my life that would capture an audience’s interest. I took two semesters of the class and I learned valuable lessons in writing. Taking creative nonfiction was one of the best decisions I made in my college career, but this class made me wonder one thing. What am I like as a character? It came easy to me to create entertaining stories out of fiction and expressing myself through my characters, but how did I portray myself being my own character?

I sifted through my nonfiction writing because I wanted to know how similar or different it was to my fiction writing. The first story I found was the very first piece of creative nonfiction I wrote which talked about my experiences with my first car. In one passage, I wrote about how I made a significant dent in my car which I wanted to fix. An odd remedy I found online mentioned I needed to pour boiling hot water on the dent and pull out the dent using a toilet plunger, and finding no other better way to fix the issue, I decided to give this remedy a shot:

I was armed with a pot of boiling water and toilet plunger moments before I went outside to “repair” my car. I made sure I did all this at night because I didn’t want to be seen by anyone during the day having to explain why I was carrying around a toilet plunger and boiling hot water out in the open. Even at night, I checked if anyone was in my eyesight because I knew I would’ve looked like some sort of maniac somehow trying to pull off car theft using a toilet plunger and using the boiling hot water as a potential weapon.

When the coast was clear, I headed over to my car, where I poured the boiling water on the dent and proceeded to attach my plunger onto the dent trying to pull it out. I pulled and pulled, and pulled, and… nothing happened. The wound I gave to my car was far too great to be healed with internet remedies. I went back inside my house, a failure, having to accept that my car had a goofy-looking dent. I tried to rationalize this issue by lying to myself. ‘Well, it doesn’t look that bad.’

Rereading this passage made me notice I'm more interesting as a character than I realize.

A fiction author could have written a story exactly like this, and while it would have been a funny scene on its own, the fact that I actually tried to fix a dent using boiling water and a toilet plunger makes this scene funnier. That’s the beauty of nonfiction. Sometimes real life can be just as interesting and entertaining as fiction.

I wrote about how I had visited the place of my birth, Puerto Rico, and how I hadn’t been there in 13 years. Despite knowing English and Spanish, I kept to myself for most of the trip.

The introversion I expressed through the character of Mr. Solin became fleshed out in one scene of my other creative nonfiction story:

We were at a party in the house of another family friend. The host was making dinner for us, but in the meantime, there were dozens of people having conversations only in Spanish, and all I did was sit in a chair, either looking at my phone or looking around the room, awkwardly observing people and listening in to their conversations. I didn’t go about participating much in this party because I was shy and because I felt like I didn’t belong there. I was lonely despite being surrounded by people, and I felt like I was just a tourist who was observing Puerto Rican people and their culture rather than a Puerto Rican person coming back to where I came from. The party was enjoyable because of the food I ate there, but nothing else made me feel connected to my homeland. I didn’t push myself to engage with new people.

It's fascinating to see myself in fiction and nonfiction. I mask my insecurities through characters like Mr. Solin, but that’s not a luxury I’m afforded with nonfiction. Being my own character means letting the reader know who I really am.

Like Herod, my past pessimism leaked into my nonfiction writing. In an essay where I talked about my struggles of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I felt pessimistic about my future because I felt like I had to pick a generic stable job I know I’m not passionate about:

I thought about being some sort of engineer, but it didn't take long for me to find out how much painstaking math I needed to do to pursue it as a career. When being an engineer was out of the question, I thought about being a computer programmer. I went to a trade school called Tech Elevator, where I spent a month struggling to understand the concept of how to code computers. The course was supposed to last three months and I only lasted one. I dropped out

feeling like a failure, but I kept trying to play the game of, 'Let's move on to the next thing I know deep down I won't like doing.'

“You could put all the work and effort into something you desire and never achieve your dreams. I've got plenty of reasons to be pessimistic.” This thinking is why I never took becoming an author/writer seriously. I can’t become an author. I won’t become a writer. I can’t make a living off of what I’m passionate about. My dreams were out of reach and out of sight.

My sister proved this sentiment wrong. Earlier in the same essay I mentioned how my sister did poorly in school and often got in trouble for her lackluster performance. She didn’t take school seriously and I ignorantly thought that she wouldn’t be successful in her life. She focused on her passion for animals, specifically dog grooming. After several years of hard work and perfecting her craft, she now owns two dog grooming salons and she did all this before the age of 30. Witnessing her be successful taught me a valuable lesson I wished I had learned earlier:

There was a path that I should follow that I shouldn't stray away from like I've been doing for most of my life. My sister served as a glaring example of this idea, and yet it has taken me several years to apply the lesson I should’ve learned long ago: Just do what makes you happy.

The answer was right in front of me the whole time. I found myself most content in the dozens of notebooks and journals I filled out with my writings and stories. I need to embrace the fact that there is one truth about me that has stood the test of time and that I shall pursue with all my heart from now on: I am a writer.

“You have a seed of optimism that'll grow into reality. You being pessimistic to the point of becoming inactive will get you nowhere.” I’m slowly learning to think like Enki, realizing there is a future for me following my dreams.

Foreshadowing is a literary tool an author uses to give hints to the reader of what might happen later in the story, and there is one moment in my life where I hope foreshadowing could also work with my nonfiction writing:

I was sitting on a park bench at Cleveland Public Square one day, minding my own business. I was reading Stephen King's On Writing when I felt a random person place their hand on my shoulder. It was a woman I’d never met before.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

I didn’t respond immediately because I was baffled as to why this unknown woman would even care about what I was reading. I turned over my book to show her the cover.

“I’m reading Steven King's ‘On Writing’,” I replied.

“Good,” the woman responded. After she heard my answer, she walked away, leaving me utterly bewildered about what she meant by her response.

“Why did you ask me that?” I said aloud. She never responded to my question. The woman simply kept walking until she was out of my sight. I was trying to puzzle together why she bothered asking her question and why she didn’t answer mine. The most satisfying conclusion I came up with was that she was a time traveler. What if she was on a mission to make sure I was reading this book to secure and save the future she came from? It was a dumb and funny thought to entertain, but that’s what I’d like to think. I indulged in this idea because I wanted to believe that a random woman was making sure I was on track to become an author.

This moment in my life reads like fiction. It’s almost like something people see at the beginning of a story and where the audience hopes it will come to a satisfying conclusion by the end. Rereading this passage like it was fiction, I thought, man, I hope it all works out for this character. Only time will tell whether my omen will be fulfilled. What I’ve realized after rereading the two genres of my writing is that much like how I work to give my fictional characters interesting lives and satisfying conclusions, I should also work to give the nonfictional character behind those stories an interesting life with a satisfying conclusion.