How do you avoid offending people who are going to read your novel and then say, “Good Lord, that character is me!” We’ll answer that thorny question today.
Sarah posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:
How do you create characters that are enough different from real life that they don’t offend your friends – or your enemies?
I like to observe real people then twist their situations around into humorous fictional stories. (Like the clueless postal worker who faithfully follows every postal regulation–in the wrong order.)
My problem is, I do this even when I think I’m writing purely from my imagination. (Like the cow who burns a batch of cookies. That happened to me at age 11.)
I’m afraid that if I invent really uncouth or evil characters, people I honestly respect will think I’m making fun of them, or getting back at them, or trying to tarnish their reputations.
I would never exploit anyone in that way. Not on purpose.
So, how do you do it? How do you make realistic personalities that are *unreal* enough to be inoffensive?
Randy sez: There is one sure way to never offend anybody: Quit writing.
I don’t recommend that. If writing is in your blood, then you can’t do that, because nothing I say could possibly make you quit writing.
The flip side is that if writing is not in your blood, you’re eventually going to quit and nothing I say could possibly make you keep writing.
Listen, if you’re going to write fiction, then you’ll probably offend somebody somewhere along the line. That’s just the way it is. There are unreasonable people out there, and you can’t do a thing about them.
The only real choice you have is whether you’re going to write in a way that won’t make a reasonable person believe that you’ve based a character on them.
My rule of thumb is to take no more than a third of a character’s traits from any one real person. Often, I’ll just take one major trait from somebody I know. Then I’ll combine that with a number of other traits taken from other people or just made up.
There are a couple of legal issues that you should be aware of. Standard caveat: I’m not a lawyer, so nothing I say here should be construed as legal advice. My understanding is that you have two main things to worry about if you base a character wholly on a real person:
- Libel. If you publish something about a real living person, then it had better be true and you’d better be able to prove it’s true. The libel laws in the US are fairly lenient, but I’m told they’re much stricter in Europe. Libel laws don’t apply to dead people.
- Invasion of privacy. Even if you publish something true, you can still be sued for invasion of privacy if you reveal embarrassing information about a private citizen. (Public figures are fair game, here. If you want to reveal embarrassing true information about the President or anyone else who lives in the public eye, then you can.) Invasion of privacy does apply to dead people — their family can sue you for invading the family’s privacy.
The above apply even to fictional characters, if the character is clearly based on a real person. So it just makes sense to not base your characters on real people.
I’ve only ever had one person ask me if a character was based on him. My answer was no. I had taken one of his major traits and used it for that particular character, and I told him that. But I also said that I don’t ever base a character completely on any one person. I take a bit of this and a bit of that from different people, and a lot of it I just make up. And usually, each of my main characters gets at least one major trait from me. That ensures that I can write that character realistically from the inside.
In the past, I’ve had friends ask me to name a character after them. At a biotech company I used to work for, several of my friends kept asking me to do that. So I changed the names of certain minor characters in my novel DOUBLE VISION to be close to my friends’ names. But I didn’t base the characters on them in any way.
I’ve heard of novelists killing off characters who resembled people they didn’t like — an ex-spouse or the Other Woman or whatever. Personally, I’ve never done that, but I can see why a writer might enjoy that.
I don’t recommend basing a character entirely on some real person. When you do that, you’re just asking to offend them, and then you really don’t have any excuse. I’ve heard of a novelist basing a character on her own mother and being scared to death that her mother would be horribly offended. As it turned out, the mother read the novel and loved it and had some harsh words about that character, but she never dreamed that the character was based on her. So you might get off the hook, but I wouldn’t count on it. Mix and match traits from several real people, and you should be just fine.
What do my Loyal Blog Readers think? Have you ever based a character in your novel on a real person? Did you get away with it? What happened when the real person found out?
If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.
I think everyone has to draw a little bit from real life. It’s impossible not to – but I do know that people remember things about themselves. I certainly do. I remember things that I’ve written, I remember things that I’ve said. If someone uses it later, I know it was me.
Probably not everyone does that. I know lots of people that are similar to characters that I write, and a lot of times I write down bits of their dialogue to use for whatever character later. I agree with you, Randy. People are going to be offended. We can’t please everyone. If I ever become a published author, I’m sure that there will be lots of people mad at me, because in the Primitive Baptist circle, magic (Harry Potter, Narnia, LOTR) is frowned upon, and that’s the kind of stuff I write. But that’s really their problem, not mine.
Sorry. I’m a scatterbrained commenter. 😉
One character who probably won’t sue is oneself. Base a character on yourself if you wish. The key word is “base.” I wouldn’t try to put all of me in it, for sure.
That’s one way to get inside a character’s head.
I use the method of putting a bit of myself into each of my main characters (and quite a few subcharacters as well).
A friend and I have a long-standing co-op book series we’re writing in which the two main characters are based very closely off myself and herself. 🙂 It’s worked wonderfully.
Some traits and actions are common to many people, so in those cases you don’t need to worry about people seeing themselves in your book (in fact, it’s one way for readers to connect with your characters). For example, you mention burning cookies. Everyone who’s baked a decent amount of cookies has burned a batch. Your experience will only help your writing as you remember details to include.
And some friends will actually like you using their traits as you create a villain – a friend of mine loves the female villains in Disney movies, so I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me using some of her traits in a villain I create.
If you still worry about a particular character matching someone too well, ask a mutual friend to read what you’ve written and see if they notice. If not, you’re in the clear, especially since most of us aren’t aware of how our own behavior looks to someone else.
This is an excellent topic and it directly applies to a dilemma that I will be facing when I release this book I’m working on. I hope that some of you can give me some advice.
I’m writing based on a specific time period, and I expect many of my larger works will be of similar nature. As a result, my characters are heavily based on actual people, however I am trying to “fantasize” them as much as possible.
However, that said, this period of time involved a group of people that all knew each other very well. As a result, even the slightest character resemblance and actual experiences included are likely to suggest who the character is based on. I’m pretty sure that the people I knew well during that time (and there are quite a few) would be able to put the pieces together and figure out who is who.
On the other hand, this period of time occurred almost 10 years ago now, and it’s virtually impossible for anyone who was not there to figure out who the characters represent. So, I think I might be safe as long as I can remain ambiguous with character painting and definitely not present any obvious characters poorly.
Of course, most of my friends I’m going write in a positive light anyway, but at the same time I would like to highlight flaws I’ve noticed.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to best tackle this issue? I do want to bring out the personality of my friends from the past, because they are all unique and interesting people and I would like to emphasize that.
Any comments are greatly appreciated!
You got me thinking about the “Invasion of Privacy” aspect. Right now I’m ghostwriting a story for someone. It’s his personal life and he’s sharing some fairly personal stories with me. I’m going to need to investigate the legal ramifications.
Thanks for bringing it up for fiction. I can see how that would be an issue.
I used my kids names for a series of novels, used some of their characteristics, but took them well enough into the future that they still don’t really mind.
I’ve had a friend who was insulted when I told her that I hadn’t based a certain character on her. (shrug) You can’t win.
My WIP, my first as a writer, has a main character with certain traits like me. This trait, so powerfully evoked in my daily life, seemed befitting for the kind of protagonist I wanted for my novel. However, this trait has been so beautifully masked that I doubt anyone who knows me would be able to track it back to me. That’s what I think, anyway.
Basing characters on people we know is a good way to create realistic, believable characters. Just make sure they don’t know its them!
This is an excellent topic and it directly applies to a dilemma that I will be facing when I release this book I’m working on. I hope that some of you can give me some advice.
I’m writing based on a specific time period, and I expect many of my larger works will be of similar nature. As a result, my characters are heavily based on actual people, however I am trying to “fantasize” them as much as possible.
However, that said, this period of time involved a group of people that all knew each other very well. As a result, even the slightest character resemblance and actual experiences included are likely to suggest who the character is based on. I’m pretty sure that the people I knew well during that time (and there are quite a few) would be able to put the pieces together and figure out who is who.
On the other hand, this period of time occurred almost 10 years ago now, and it’s virtually impossible for anyone who was not there to figure out who the characters represent. So, I think I might be safe as long as I can remain ambiguous with character painting and definitely not present any obvious characters poorly.
Of course, most of my friends I’m going write in a positive light anyway, but at the same time I would like to highlight flaws I’ve noticed.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to best tackle this issue? I do want to bring out the personality of my friends from the past, because they are all unique and interesting people and I would like to emphasize that.
Any comments are greatly appreciated!
When real people traits are coupled with imagination, very interesting characters appear. Taking a person’s every trait completely, kinds of defeat the purpose of writing FICTION. If real life were so attractive for a person he generally keeps away from reading and is more happy in company of friends and politics 🙂
@Andrew, It is lot better to take all the traits you like from the persons and then modify them by using your strong imagination. That keeps u away from Libel, etc. and also makes already interesting characters more interesting. If you are having trouble with fictional character creation, read read read, other people’s novels as much as you can, and read variety, learn and keep writing writing writing and improving till you feel you are doing it right according to YOU. Then is the time to send it to publishers 🙂
kinjalkishor,
Thanks so much for your reply. This article and the comments along with it have been very very helpful. This is an amazing site and I look forward to visiting here often!
@Andrew, You should visit this site at least 2 times a week at 3 days interval as new topic comes up in 3 days. Also save all the pages of this blog by going to previous entries. Also save the comments of topics you like after reading. They have incredibly useful information. I have done the same and it is helping me very much. I am telling from personal experience. Also sign up for randy’s e-zine. It is free and very helpful 🙂
Taking the traits from real people in your life, then putting them in extraordinary situations is what good fiction is about! Most of my friends would be offended if I didn’t base characters on them!
I’m writing my first novel about a situation that broke my heart and left me abandoned, homeless, and very broken hearted. I love writing and my therapist that I’m seeing to recover from all the nonsense I went though said it was a good idea to rewrite my experiences in a ficitional format to process things in my head and in my heart. I relive the experience from outside the box. The character I created based on the girl that left me is VERY much like her. If I were to ever be published, the people that knew us would know it was obviously her, plus a couple of different characteristics. The names are changed of course, and so is the setting. It’s in an entirely different state. Honestly, I don’t believe this girl deserves an opinion of what I write especially if I change the names, locations, etc etc. She abandoned me. And this is my first writing attempt that I stuck with because I’m so emotionally engaged with what I’m writing. I don’t think she can necessarily sue me for writing about her. She probably won’t even know the book exists as I would get it published in the local scene. Who knows…? Thoughts?
Do you recommend having the people who inspired some of the character sign some sort of “model release” form?
What if you wanted to honor a deceased family member by making them a character in your book, leave just one or two traits in and knew, for sure, that they would feel honored and there was nothing embarrassing?
What if you got permission from a group of people to base characters loosely on them? Or more to the point; what if you use anecdotes and stories involving them they all know, but keep the characters distant from the people themselves? Will they still see themselves as those characters? Is it okay to do it if they agree?
Good article, thank you. We should ideally know enough people that when we syntheize their traits, they are unrecognisable as a character, yet still ring true.