Traits of Us in Our Fictional Characters

Dear Wal,

I come to you today with a post I wrote in the truck on the way to a session with my natural horsemanship instructor (my, that sounds incredibly official doesn't it?). It's very scribbled in my twirly cursive because of all the bumbling about the truck was doing. I'll do my best to translate.
Let's face it-we all see parts of ourselves in our fictional characters. Sometimes they can be grossly exaggerated, other times toned down until they're barely noticeable. Fiction can sometimes tell us more about ourselves than anything else. I've come to think of my work as a fantastically twisted dark mirror of myself in many ways, one of my reasons most of my writing is so deeply personal and I can barely let those closest to me read it, no matter how ridiculously brilliant or terrible it may be.
Bits of me tend to creep into my characters. Jason, for instance, from my Batman fanfic (those of you out here who understand what the implications of Jason, kudos to you) has my tendency to swing from perfectly happy to flying around in a boiling rage, only multiplied tenfold. Usually, he's very plucky and completely hilarious; he drives those around him nuts he annoys them so much, but then there are times he swings to the opposite side of the equation and broods in the depths of despair. At those moments he's violent and dangerous, usually that's when I call in Supes or some other super BFF of his to cheer him up. His arch nemesis I'll call Elliot here so I won't spoil anything if for anybody who might have skipped over to Batman: Shadows and read the pitiful scraped together tatters of a story I started. The revision is coming. Script frenzy is coming. Prepare to be wowed. Anyway, his nemesis is one of my greatest creations, the pride and joy of my madhouse of characters. Elliot's intelligence is borderline genius. He's merciless, cruel and with a morbid sense of humor to boot. No, I'm not talking about a slightly different version of the Joker. This man is no Joker. He's something else entirely, I would even dare say he's something more. He manipulates, tricks, guides tenderly his prey into a spiderweb of his grandly simple design, wrapping his secrets so thoroughly the poor fly doesn't even know when it's been ensnared until it's beyond too late, until the final blow has already been dealt. Jason only ever knows what Elliot wants him to know of the truth, partially because he really doesn't want to find out but mostly because Elliot has so fastidiously covered his tracks. It's one of the best plotlines concerning an archenemy I think I have ever written.
Back to the point. The major similarity between us is that we both get bored really easily, and then we start getting crazy ideas. While his are usually along the lines of What would happen if such and such were to mysteriously vanish? He is very much fascinated by the idea of tipping the first domino and seeing what monster the inevitable chain reaction morphs into. He may even take up a just cause once in a while because of some ridiculous idea that popped into his head when he was sitting on a porch in a rocking chair or wherever he happens to rest his musings. My ideas, however, usually culminate in some grand new story line or the rough sketch of a new character or some mad-cap endeavor like this blog. I think that I think through him to pose new challenges to the heroes of my fanfic, because one thing I know how to do and do well is topple a domino in my DC universe.
Now for the differences between me and these two crazies. Jason is very much controlled by his fear of his past, and his fear in general, it's not something he ever really conquers. I have conquered my fears, and I've worked my butt off doing so. Besides, one of them was never the fear of what might be hidden in my past. What, my parents are secretly vampires? Ew. It took me a long time to understand his fear because I had never felt that kind of fear, and it's hard to just leave it be and not help him overcome it. I understand it as a part of him, and I also have come to understand that his past isn't important. It doesn't matter in what he's doing as Batman in the here and now. Besides, it means that I don't have to fiddle with the complexities of trying to make the original Jason Todd's origin work with mine and actually come up with interesting details that actually make sense. I dislike writing origins. (Put a pen in that-expect a future rant.)
Sidenote: Hey guys! You know what's awesome for developing characters? Those 'I am' papers we've all done in eighth grade, only in the form of 'I am afraid of..' or 'I am not afraid'. Yes, Eminem is good for something. Knowing your character's fears can really tell you a lot about them and help you create a deeper character.
The most obvious reason between me and Elliot is that I'm not going around shooting people or enacting some vast scheme for the heck of it, but their is one detail of him that I have never understood about him that may not be apparent to readers for the reason that I never found a way to write it. He knows something about how the world works, how people think, that I can't grasp. It's his little secret, and he keeps it well hidden from me as he does some detail of something in my fanfic stories. I wrote a conversation between he and I once where he tried to explain to me what he knew that I didn't, although it was mostly about his origins, and it was completely fascinating. He didn't get his point across, sadly.
Sidenote: Another good technique for developing characters; write a conversation between you and your character. You may discover some interesting things about them, and it certainly makes dialog between them and other characters easier.

/endrant

P.S. Wow, that was long. You know, I didn't even use anything from my first draft. Not a word. Wrote all that completely from scratch. Hmmm.