A Person You Know

Don't write about people you know (unless you're writing nonfiction, in which case you can do whatever you want). 

Don't do it. Just don't.

And I'll tell you why.


Writing about people that you know, in fiction, tends to get a little boring, and you'll have to get special permissions from that person in order to publish the work. Even if you rename them in the story, you're going to want to get something in writing that says you can publish this and that they're okay with it. Trust me.

I digress.

I do that a lot...

Anyway, the point of the matter is this:

When you're writing about people that you know, you're not using all those lovely creative juices in that crazy brain of yours. Things get much more interesting if you create characters and places, if you bring them into the realm of fiction, and do something unique with them.

Yeah, yeah, there's realism too, I'm getting there.

If you're a realism writer, I'm not saying that you can't draw from people that you know. What I'm saying is, if you do draw character ideas from a person, don't make the character exactly like the person.

We all have different facets of ourselves, fighting to control the body at any point during the day. So if you're going to base your character off your brother, pick the best facet of him to base the character off, and then tweak it.

Never make it exactly like the person you know.

For example...

One of the minor characters in Telekinetic is loosely based off my best friend's wild side. I'm not going to tell you who the character is, because people have been guessing for a long time and still haven't gotten it right. And that's exactly the point.

When the character is tweaked enough that not even the person you based it off of can find themselves within the character because you've put so much depth into them, that's when you've created the best character, completely based off an actual person.


How about all of you? Have you written characters based off your best friends, and if so, could they tell?

Happy Wednesday!

{RD}

P.S. I guess we could also allow it if the person is very annoying... But then you really have to hide the duality between real person and character...