Stephen Chbosky, as most writers do, used many aspects of his life as influence to his writing of this award winning novel. This stretches to the characters he creates and the struggles the main character, Charlie, faces. While creating these characters Chbosky admits that he did not use specific people as basis for his characters. Rather than for example, Mary Elizabeth being a specific person, she was the accumulation of several people Chbosky had encountered in life. He had began writing a different novel while in high school after a break up with a girl friend he had at the time and based Perks of Being a Wallflower off of, and it is easy to make the connection between the themes in the book, the setting, and the situations in the book to that fact. Even the writing style of first-person can be directed back to the humble beginnings of this book. By writing in the first person and journal like manor that Chbosky did while writing the book he based Perks of Being a Wallflower off of he established the best way to relate to readers old and young. From being able to relate to this book to feeling nostalgia, every reader of this book can find a way to love and cherish it. As one could guess, Stephen Chbosky based Charlie off of his own likeness and personal struggles. He himself was unpopular and described himself as a wallflower throughout high school. Being a person of that position lead him down a path of depression and self doubt. These traits are prominent traits of the main character Charlie. Although other aspects of Charlie don't directly relate to Chbosky such as the raping of Charlie by his late aunt, it is a fact that Chbosky based Charlie off his own likeness. Perks of being a wallflower was a major emotional outlet for Chbosky and the character Charlie was the greatest aspect of that.