I started writing fiction to escape and criticize. To create characters who were a little dramatic, a bit obsessive, maybe even slightly emotionally avoidant.
Totally not based on anyone I know. Except… they all kind of started sounding like me.
At first, I thought I was just really good at writing flawed characters. Turns out, I was just writing my own flaws. Oops.
My emotional projections (they’re all named)
There’s Hel, who pushes people away before they can leave — love her, she kills.
Ilana, who mistakes silence for strength — a personal favorite.
And the one who says they’re “fine” but clearly planning a poetic breakdown — hello, Midnight Killer. Wrote some of my best lines there.
While I thought I was building fictional people, I was actually leaving behind emotional fingerprints in every single paragraph.
Oops, my trauma slipped into chapter three
You don’t realize how unhealed you are until your fictional characters start making the same choices you do. Over and over. In different fonts. Across different timelines. A little toxic, a little tragic, a little too real.
Writing became this safe space to admit the things I hid from myself. Like maybe I’m hard to love because I make it hard. Maybe I ghost people emotionally before they can ghost me. Maybe I was the red flag… in lowercase italics.
And yes, I’ve written villains I kinda relate to. No, I won’t be murdering anyone in the foreseeable future. I won’t be taking questions at this time.
The climax of self-awareness
Honestly, the only reason I even realized this was because someone told me “you always victimize yourself in your books,” and it was like stripping me naked in a stadium.
Here’s the thing about realizing I was the problem: it sucks ass! And it’s freeing.
Because once admitted, I get to heal from the nightmares. I get to give my characters what I never gave myself: clarity and a second chance.
Fiction lets me hold a mirror to my chaos, but it also lets me rewrite the ending. And the middle. And okay, sometimes the beginning, too.
So yes, plot twist: it was me. But at least I turned the mess into a narrative arc.
And if you read one of my books and think, “Wow, this character needs therapy,” don’t worry. I already gave her a journal. And a knife.
— Montse
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