Raiding your friends, relatives, coworkers, and acquaintances for characters?

[MorningGlow]

Whaddya think, fiction writers? Do you mine your collection of "folks you know" when developing your characters? Do you steal just a few of their traits and quirks, or do you put them on the page exactly as you know them? And if you do, do they know it?

I'm in the middle of a novel with characters that are compilations of dozens of different people I know, either very well or just a little bit, but recently I spent a week with one of the most infuriating people I've ever met, and I have this overwhelming urge to make him a character.

We were both helping out with our local Cub Scout pack during day camp. The whole time, this guy was Mr. Personality--dynamic, larger than life, energetic, funny, caring, supportive. The boys LOVED him and would have followed him off a cliff if he asked. I thought he was a great role model and admired his dedication.

And then camp ended. The very minute the flag was lowered on the last day, he deflated. It was like watching an android power down, I swear. He became quiet for the first time all week, and just...sat...on the bus on the way home.

I thought he was just tired--hell, we all were. But when we piled out of the bus, back at our local elementary school, and he headed straight for his car to put the gear away while his son played on the playground, I directed MG Jr. to say goodbye to him and thank him for his help. I went with MG Jr., who tends to be a bit shy, and I witnessed an exchange equivalent to the penultimate scene of Willy Wonka (I'm thinking of Gene Wilder in the chocolate factory's office, being rude and dismissive to Charlie)--this guy was cold, distant, standoffish. Barely acknowledged my son as he was trying to thank him as I had asked. So I chimed in as well, thinking maybe he hadn't heard my soft-spoken son, but he was the same with me. He just turned away.

When I got over being furious at his narcissism (I realized that he's always "on" only for as long as it suits him--as long as he can collect a fan club), I became fascinated by him. I want to pick him apart, understand him, get to the bottom of his need for adoration--and put it all in a story of some sort. I don't know if he's going to be the main character or if I'll just "use" him in some form somewhere down the line yet, but I can't stop trying to psychoanalyze the hell out of him.

Can't wait for the regular Cub Scouts season to start up in the fall. Looking forward to getting more material. :eyes:

Anyway, what say you? Acceptable to lift character traits or entire characters from people in your life, as long as you change the names to protect the guilty? or not? What are your personal ground rules?

[SheilaT]

1. I have no problem with that.

Sometimes you might want to ask permission. For example, I've written a short s-f story (not yet published) which uses the personality of my older son, and I even use his surname as the name of the character. I have shown him the story, and told him I'd change the name if it bothered him. He said it was okay.

I often find that I'm thinking of someone specific when I'm figuring out character traits of a character in something I'm writing. That's just fine, I think. You might need to be careful to make sure it's not so totally obvious as to amount to character defamation.

Other times, I find I seem to be making up the character completely, with no connection to a real person.

[BanzaiBonnie]

2. What a piece of work Mr. Boyscout seems

Of course we draw inspiration from people we meet, know or just have acquaintance with.


In the old days, when I used to build puppets, I began to look around for good faces to characature. I began to see people as puppets all around me. I decided that was not a good way to connect with others and quit looking at them like that.

[Ineeda]

3. Only once...

and it was wonderfully cathartic. Of course, he fit into my story perfectly. This person's behavior had degenerated into the realm of unforgivable during an extremely painful period in my life. I didn't disguise him, either. I gave the character the same occupation, physical appearance, narcissism, sexual orientation, alcoholism, relationship to a secondary character, and even his very distinctive laugh. I named him a diminutive of his real first name and his fictional last name, translated from German, meant clown. I worried that he would somehow read my work, and being a litigious sort, would sue me for libel. But I thought, screw it! (He isn't a reader.) I found it tremendously satisfying -- it was my secret revenge for his unbelievably destructive actions.

[sybylla]

4. I borrow bits and pieces all the time.

It's kind of like Mr. Potato Head for me. I assemble the characters I know from the people I know.

There are few people I know who are perfect fits for a story, but there's something interesting about everyone. Maybe a character can be based on their physical attributes, or maybe they have the same character flaw or fixation or habit as a friend or family member. I think building characters out of people I know helps me as a writer to see the characters in the story as real people, to imagine their actions and reactions, and to give them internal motivations that are hard to craft believably without an example to work by.

Because I only borrow bits and pieces and because my characters are almost always a blend of people, they are hard to distinguish as anyone I know. When I'm done with a story, I rarely see them at all as the people I built them from but instead they have become a whole new person to me - a new friend.

The problem with borrowing too much is that it's hard to flex the character into the story in a way that lets the story follow it's natural course. It tends to push me to fix the story around the character I know instead and I risk ending up with characters who fascinate me, but a totally blah story.