The Problem with Writing Characters From Real Life

There are many advantages to writing characters who are based on real people. The most obvious are that you don't have to think them up, and you can finally give them the endings those people/actions really deserved. (Yes, I am assuming most people write as wish fulfillment. Just me? Really? Well, me and all the other romance writers out there at least.)

However, today I want to talk about the difficulties and problems of using real people to base your main characters on. (You can continue to use them indiscrimentently for minor characters, that's completely fine by me.)

The topic comes from my recent efforts producing my brother's book for publication: Tom Grafton Vs. The Environmentalists (available any day now on Amazon in hard copy! Just waiting for it to move over from Createspace).

The main character, Tom Grafton, is based (unsurprisingly) on my brother. I make no judgement about this, as nearly all first works of fiction are autobiographical in someway, which is why my first creative writing subject at Uni was called 'Autofictions'. However, while reading it, I came across some of the problems that occur when you develop a character from a real life person, even one who you know as well as yourself.

1. They don't always make sense.
In real life Dave acts based on a set of motivations developed from years of different experiences. Therefore, when Tom is faced with a situation he simple does what David would have done in that situation. However, for the reader it sometimes doesn't make sense, because they only know a little bit about Tom, not all the factors that have led David to act as he does. Even the most complex character does not have all the intricacies of a human being and why we act as we do. (Have you ever noticed that bad guys in real life are rarely as satisfactory as in stories, because they are generally not as clearly evil or predictable?) With too many motivations, desires and backstory, people are not going to be able to connect with the character within the space of one book.

Therefore, to create stronger characters, you need to narrow down on just one or two aspects of your personality that you really want to gift to your character, and pull out the backstory and current desires which support that.

2. You have both done things the other hasn't.
In Tom Grafton Vs The Environmentalists there is a really good scene where Tom goes deer hunting for the first time, and Dave records the emotional impact that making that first kill had on him. This gave me a very interesting insight into Dave and his love of hunting. However, I had a slight problem with it for Tom.

Tom, unlike Dave, had been in Iraq, and in a series of short stories, he had gotten into gun fights with terrorists and fearlessly rescued a captured ally, killing those who had taken him hostage, and saving the day.

The fact that he had no emotional reaction to killing a number of human beings, but then goes on to have this revelation while killing a deer caused certain problems for me. Now some of it is the difference between an action short story and a more serious novel. However, the fact remains that in any fiction story, by the end the characters should have gone through something you haven't, so you need to make sure they react appropriately.

3. All because it happened, doesn't make it a good story.  
Often we base scenes in fiction on things that really happened, because they were important to us or seem easier to write that way. However, often we also need to put on a different ending to follow the appropriate narrative arch. As a hypothetical example, imagine that you liked a girl who in real life ended up knocking you back. However, you use some of the dialogue and situations between the two of you for the romance in the book. As it turns out, this makes for pretty dull writing, because the reader keeps thinking 'wow, that really doesn't sound like she likes him that much!'

Or the other extreme is that you put all your wish fulfillment fantasies into her mouth, and it sounds even more unrealistic than if you had just made up the character to begin with. So be wary, very wary.


4. Always keep in mind that fact is stranger than fiction. 
All because it happened in real life, doesn't mean that someone is going to believe it if they read it. This is sad, but true. This isn't a trap that Dave has fallen into, but one that I've seen other people succumb to. When you give such writers feedback about it they always get defensive and argue 'oh, but that's how it really happened.'

Well, I don't care how it really happened, unless you are writing a memoir. I only care about whether it is a good narrative feature, and in this case, it isn't. It makes no sense and turns your reader off.

So, writing characters from real life can be great, but in my personal rule book, only minor characters should be exact copies of people. Major characters can contain certain elements, but don't one-for-one try and copy a person into a book. It's lazy writing and comes across as such (or takes so much work to do well, you would have been better off just starting from scratch at the beginning).

Quick update on me since I last posted:
1. I finished the thorough edit of my Christian YA, Sally Hunt Vs. God, and sent it off to a publisher who had shown some interest. Fingers crossed. (The website said they would respond to submissions in 3-6months, so have got a while to wait. Hoping for a nice Christmas present, though that is pushing the timeframe a bit).

2. I re-wrote the first section of The Nice Guys' Guide To Online Dating Profiles, made it less academic, and quite funny, if I do say so myself. That is now with one of my editors getting a thorough red-ink workout (or Word track changes, as the case maybe). Am still open to suggestions on making the title snappier, by the way.

3. I've started (/continued after my failed attempt earlier in the year) to write my first theology book, The Great Divide, a layman's guide to the fundamental differences in concepts of knowledge between liberal and conservative (Protestant) theologians, and how to protect against them. This is my morning writing workout, for 2+ hours a day. I can't guarantee this one is going to take two weeks, as it is a bit more challenging than historical romances :D

4. I am currently spending my afternoons re-writing A Little Bit Of Leaven, the book my great grandfather wrote.



(So, either I've been quite prolific, or I just haven't posted for a while. I'm going with the former.)

On the nomadic side of things, I've finished house sitting for my parents in Woodend, as they have come home from America. I am now squatting at my brother's place in Sunbury for the foreseeable future. It's working pretty well, as he leaves for work before I get up, so I have the house to myself all day. Then he comes home, we eat dinner together, then he does his own thing and I can do another few hours of work. We'll see if that is enough to get a number of things out by Christmas!

By the way, on request I've created a new cover for Tom Grafton, which is being used on the print on demand version (only tell me if you like it, as it's too late to change now. The old cover is more appropriate to the second book in the series, as it turns out, because it has the girl and guy together (spoiler alert!)).

Anyone got any really good examples of characters based on real life that totally blow my theory apart? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Integrity in Writing and Online Dating: Part 1

On Saturday night I joined up to an internet dating site. I’ve decided there is no use denying it, might as well embrace it and pretend it is all a bit of a good joke and that I don’t care about any possible rejection or laying myself so bare to unknown people. So, on I went. 

In my light hearted mood, I confessed my adventure to some of my work colleagues, thinking it might liven up the discussion and maybe even make me feel more normal about my decision.

One of my friends at work then suggested that naturally I should blog about the experience. I’m a writer, I write about experiences in life, and this is a life experience.

Simples.

Not so simples I came to find. 

My thinking on this has actually led to a two part blog post. I was trying to write it all in one, but it got confused, and I was going around in circles, and I couldn’t work out what I wanted to say. I finally worked out that I had gotten myself into a never ending loop between my personal desire to deflect unwanted attention and deep scrutiny and my conscience’s subtle probing that protecting myself by putting the attention on others was maybe not the ‘right thing to do’.

So, I’m sorry Jasmine, this is not exactly a post about my amazing adventures in Internet Dating World. It is first a discussion on our rights as writers, and then in a separate post, our obligations.

I am a writer. Want to be, emerging, whatever… I have the heart and soul of a writer. I look at the world differently, I listen to how things could be described in sentences, I notice characteristics, tics that give away deeper personal natures. I am an observer. 

But does that mean I have the right to write about anything that happens to me or that I perceive? Are there times when we are meant to be just people, are being conversed with or enter into some sacred rite with someone, invited as another participant, and are expected to lay down our pen and paper and just experience?  Or is everything free game?

Let us take, for example, John (not his real name). We sent a few messages, and then spoke on the phone and finally met in person for coffee and cake. During this time he released little bits of information, little snippets of his past but also of his self-perception, his previous hurts, and also little glimpses of his hopes and desires.  They were pushed forward across the table, one by one, to see how I would react to them, to see how much I could accept, and where he should stop and hide the rest.

These morsels gave me hints to histories, to emotions and wounds that I have not experienced. As a writer I wanted to gobble them up, take them from him, scoop them into my arms like a pirate finding treasure, and look over each one, analyse it, hold it up to the light to see how it glittered, and see which ones might be useful to me.

But as a woman, I was terrified. I wanted him to stop, to push them all back at him and say 'keep them'. If you show me yours, you might want me to show you mine.  And I’m not going to.  A this stage, I’m not going to test the waters with how he will react. I’m going to be perfect, witty and brilliant, and then once he’s completely smitten, will decide whether to share or not, whether or not to put my own heart on the line.

But what about him? Is he expecting the woman but seeing the glee of the writer, and thinking the woman approves? 

But he is saying it, he's putting it out there, surely I must be allowed to take it, use it. I'm a writer, the world is my oyster.

I might not tell you John’s exact stories, or even his real name. But even if I just take his reaction, the emotions provoked, and translated them, is that still using him? 

I think what I'm trying to say here is whether there's a time when as a writer you should move from saying 'can I capture this person's emotions?' to 'this person has shared this with me, do I have the right to capture it?' 

As writers, if we take from the world, but refuse to give back, are we being unfaithful? 

Even if we create great art? 

When are people people, and not objects to be observed?

In the next blog I will look at me the person versus me the writer, but for now, what I want to ask is:

Should I blog about the men I meet?

A Writer's Recreation

I have to admit that occasionally I feel like saying to you all 'yeah don't bother reading my blog, just read Dorothea Brande's book' because of the number of times I refer to her. I am still working my way through it slowly, just reading a few pages before I start writing every few days. Having said that, in my insane writing craze I can definitely tell you which parts are most important to take note of, and this is definitely one of those parts.

I'm now in my fifth week of writing 3-4 hours a day, roughly 6 days a week, along with working 6 hours a day 4 days a week in a job that requires me to read large amounts of information and summarise it into key points. I'm also trying to follow Stephen King and others' suggestion that as a writer you need to read a lot (which is completely true and what I am going to say in this section does not negate that.) For the past four weeks, the only time I have basically not been reading or writing has been when I've been asleep or at the gym (where I do sometimes take a book). 
 

At the end of last week and the beginning of this week, I was finding more and more that I had to pause in my writing and just sit back because my mind felt totally dry, like I was trying to suck water out of a desert.

Then Dorothea came to my rescue and pointed out my mistake.

A writer works with words. Therefore, a writer needs recreation which is wordless. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But the truth of it has much more depth than you would think. Dorothea challenges her reader to test this out. Try to spend some time with no words: do not pick up a newspaper or magazine to read it, or even turn on the radio. She appears to be including even spoken words into the equation, so no TV or nattering away to friends. Try and be completely wordless for as long as you can. And very soon, she argues, you will find your mind overflowing with words again. It can get drained of its words if used too much, but quickly refills to overflowing if given a chance.

And I have tested this unintentionally myself while away at a retreat. We were given the challenge of not speaking from the end of dinner to the end of breakfast, while staying in a group. It was strange because you were constantly interacting with people, but had to just smile and nod and not say a word. Much more quickly than I would have thought possible, I could not shut my mind up from having conversations with itself. It made me realise that I would never find peace in silence, though now I think I could find writing inspiration.

So, on Wednesday, when Jenny came over to stay the night, I was explaining this concept to her and we started thinking about the variety of activities that you could do that were wordless. Dorothea notes a few writers who practiced this, citing one who started off lying on his back looking up at the sky for two hours a day, until he found his family saw that as an invitation to disturb him because he was obviously not doing anything important, so moved to sitting on a bench in the park feeding the pigeons. Another she referred to used to knit, rather like Penelope in the Odyssey, using the same piece of yarn, and when she got to the end, if she hadn't solved the problem in her story yet, she would undo it all and start again.

Unfortunately for me, I have finished knitting my two large throw rugs and need a new project that will take longer, as I cannot bring myself to unweave them and start again. I am also working on a rather large cross stitch, which I am less than halfway through, and probably has a couple of hundred hours already dedicated to it. But it does take more concentration which is good at times but not at others.

Jogging, rowing, swimming, those repetitive actions are meant to be great for releasing the mind. I have found at the gym if I watch TV while doing them the mind freshening properties are lost but listening to music is completely fine. Perhaps it would be even better if I listened to music without any words, but I haven't tested that theory yet and see some problems with doing so.

Jenny pointed out the usefulness of gardening in this respect: it is productive and healthy, and can take hours without people complaining for you to do something else. It is, therefore, a pity I live in an apartment.

I understand that for some people cleaning and ironing probably have this value, but they are strange, strange people.

I do think cooking works for me, and my sister suggested it might work even better if I didn't use a recipe. As long as she is prepared to eat the disaster at the other end, I'll try it on Wednesday and report back.

My other hobby which I have not done at all since I started writing (and actually for about year now for various reasons) is painting. My verdict is still out on doing another creative pursuit like that, which works on a lot of the same fears I have about writing (that I will stand at the canvas and won't be able to produce what I see in my mind, or that I will stuff it all up etc. etc.) and draws on a lot of the same will power to get myself going. I hope at some stage to take some classes, because I think actually knowing what I'm doing might help a lot. But until then, I might put it on the back burner to my writing.

Another activity which I used to do, which was very strange, but was satisfying beyond all measure of its usefulness or creativity was going through magazines and cutting out pictures of houses, furniture and gardens etc. that I liked and sticking them into folios. (As a habit it used to drive my mother mad, who would open her house magazine to find large gaping holes, but what use was it just lying in a magazine anyway?) How this had the ability to make me so happy, I don't know. I assumed it was through the recognition of beauty and the search then ordering of it. So, I might try that again.

But for now I have decided to try and rearrange my schedule just slightly. It takes me 30 mins door to door to get to work if I train. In just under an hour I can walk it. It's also a very nice walk, most of it along beside the river. I have been put off this recently because of the cold and the wet, and the fact that it was already getting dark by the time I left work. The times that I did do it, I took it as a chance to listen to podcasts on writing and sermons etc. I now realise this would be a perfect opportunity to factor in some wordless time everyday. No one disturbs me as I walk (except for cyclists who think it is cool to zip past as close to you as possible) and I have no other obligations than to arrive at the other end. Also, added bonus, it saves me a train fare, which is a hot chocolate a day (as well as having burnt the extra calories for it. Win-win!). The only downside is that it means finishing writing 30 mins earlier each morning and starting 30 mins later each night. But, if I am more refreshed and have the words bubbling out of me, it might be worth it. So will try walking at least one way, with no podcasts or lectures to listen to, for this week and report back on how it goes.

As to my own writing. On Wednesday morning I did probably only 1,000 words, and then realised that I really was just worded out. So I spent the rest of the afternoon doing my cross stitch and then some cooking, Jenny came and we went to the gym, and I never got back to writing for the rest of the day. Thursday morning I got up and had only 40 mins to write because I needed to get to work early. Was a bit depressed that it was Thursday and I only had 5,000 words written. Was meant to be tutoring Thursday night (which is why I had to get to work early) but college cancelled at the last moment, which meant I could come back and write. Managed to get just over the 10,000 mark by the end of the day. Compared to the weeks before, I should have done a lot more than that, but compared to the few days before, it was a big improvement.

Friday morning just could not get myself out of bed until I was already running late to work (had to buy breakfast at the train station I was that sort of late), and didn't get to sit down to write until after 8pm because I went out for work drinks. However, just over two and a half hours later, I was just over 15,000 words.

Today I sat down for three hours in the morning/early afternoon, and then 2.5 hours this evening, and have added another 10,000 words. So, feeling it is slowly coming together. Am writing from beginning to end at the moment. The other thing I learned today which I will share quickly is to trust your characters for help.

Had one character which I really didn't understand, couldn't work out why he was acting like that or what his motivation was. So just got one of my other characters to ask someone else saying 'I don't get him, why does he act like that?' The other one replied 'not really sure, but what if it is because this and this happened to him?' And from that came out a beautiful explanation of this character's motivations and a possible part of the ending for the book. Glad someone knows what I'm writing about!

If you have any suggestions for wordless recreation, please feel free to share, unless it's dirty, then just keep it to yourself.