Real People in Your Writing

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Published by: jazzgirl on 10th Oct 2009 | View all blogs by jazzgirl

If truth be stranger and more curious then fiction I'm finding it very difficult indeed not to write real people into my novel. I mean just how do you do it? Please help! How do you create characters that are nothing like the people you have met in your life? It's impossible surely? I guess you do the obvious of course-you change names and descriptions. And you should steer away from real conversations you have had. But that's one of the hardest temptations I'm having to resist-conversations. Some real conversations I have had would make great dialogue when put into the mouths of my characters. There's one particular character in my novel who is based on someone that I once had a bit of a fling with in my youth. In real life the sex was OK-nothing earth shattering but if I make him in my novel out to be an absolute sex God would I be forgiven for using the odd bit of conversation? I'm being a little tongue in cheek here but maybe it could be about a question of balance. Many first novels have an autobiographical element and mine is no exception. The Mother of my protagonist is very like my real one. She's of a similar background with similar life circumstances so how the hell do I write without offending my own dear Mother?? I'm finding it so hard to separate my characters from real people which is probably the sign of a bad writer but maybe with a bit of practice and some advice from you guys I can avoid an expensive law case but most importantly not upset those I love and care about.

Comments

9 Comments

by Aiyla 2 years ago

Hello,
you must make your characters seem real to the reader so using snippets of conversations heard on the bus or whilst standing in a queue is a great idea and nothing wrong with basing them on people you know; that can only enhance their realism. You'll probably find that if you had a character who resembled your mother in some ways, your mother probably wouldn't recognise herself. And between you and me, I believe that the characters we create ARE real and that they HAVE existed at some time or another and on some planet or another but please...don't tell anyone I said that. Good luck.
by Barb 2 years ago

Hi jazzgirl,

I got some great advice on this topic when I raised a similar question. It is posted here: http://www.thewordcloud.org/forum/topic/1342

Cheers,
Barb
by mike 2 years ago

Your writing is a product of your imagination and it might well be that neither your mother or your you ex-lover would recognise themselves. But would they sue!!!!
by CyprusRachael 2 years ago

I am starting a first novel, and found that I had a similar dilemma. I got around it by changing characters' genders -- by putting one personna into another's skin, by cutting and pasting, by changing the story from the 'real' framework that I am basing the novel on and adding or amalgamating characters. YOU are the only one that knows the whole deal; it may seem obvious to YOU where you have lifted conversation and put it into others' mouths, but it will not be obvious to others if it is out of context. Hope that makes sense.
by Spangles 2 years ago

I think as you continue to work on your novel you will probably find that the characters based on real people start to gain an identity of their own. So, for instance, the woman modelled on your mother may begin to behave in ways that make you realize that the background you created for her doesn't work any longer and needs to be revised. So she becomes less like your mother as you continue to write, until in the end she gains her own set of characteristics and bears little resemblance to your mother after all.

Actually, I've just read about Evelyn Waugh's thoughts on this dilemma, as he used many friends and enemies as templates for characters in his novels. He said that no one will mind spotting themselves in a novel if it's made clear that their character is wildly attractive. So if your long-lost ex were to read your novel and recognize himself, but then discover that he's a sex god, he will be chuffed to bits. He may also try to get in touch with you again to give you another dose of his sex god techniques, but that is a different hazard!
by Weens 2 years ago

Most of my characters started out resembling people I knew, but the more I wrote, the more they started to build their own characteristics and they became much 'rounder' characters. Don't forget your characters are shaped by your plot. What are they reacting to, how do they react? That in itself will shape your characters.
by Kate.J 2 years ago

I've beaten to death someone I intensely dislike but I think - hope - I have disguised him enough not to be sued. Make amalgams of characcters, give them a unique trait, make changes in the person's age, appearance, name (obviously - and resist the temptation to put in translatons eg turning john Black into Johannes Schwartz), profession, race etc. There's a strange anomaly in English Law that puts the onus of proof on the defendant in a libel case, so just make sure that the character isn't rcognisable. As for not offending mother, I'm still trying to work that one out!
by lennich 2 years ago

When I'm imagining characters I tend to start with stereotypes and grotesques and then add and subtract details which modify those extremes into something more sophisticated. The details might be inventions or taken from observations when I'm out and about. I deliberately avoid basing anything on anyone I know, not in case I offend, but because that would make me uncomfortable in some way that I can't accurately define.

Once a story gets going and the characters inhabit it they flesh themselves out naturally.

And will anyone recognize himself in your writing? I can't answer that, but when I was at uni I wrote a few pieces for the student newspaper, as usual not basing any characters on anyone I knew. This did not save me from a confrontation with a friend who was in a rage because I had 'made him look stupid' in one of my stories.
by AlanP 2 years ago

I am not a great literary success (yet) so any advice from this quarter should be tempered by that knowledge. Essentially I make stuff up. By which I mean that I largely invent the situations in which I place my characters. The characters I try to draw will often share personality traits with people I know. I suspect that everyone does that. After all we can't invent a whole now species - unless we are in the sort of genre where that is the norm, eg sci fi, horror etc. So we base individual reactions on our personal experience of people, which inevitably includes people we have met.

Isn't your issue not so much that you are using real people in your writing so much as that you are using real experiences in your writing? This inevitably must include some portrayal of the real people who shared those experiences with you and will always carry the risk that they will identify themselves in your work, regardless of changing their names and some of their characteristics, because they shared part of the experience with you and know that it's you writing.

In reality personal experience has produced some of the finest work, also a lot of that type of work contains much of the author's own personality. One example, rather than a list, consider Graham Greene.

Finally, placing my tongue firmly in my cheek (as you did), I should say that if an old girlfriend of mine were to portray me as a sex god I would probably offer her book a glowing endorsement.