Real life character or to make one up?

For my vacation to Neptune story, I want my main character to have a Queen. And someone to tag along with him throughout future stories.

I want to use a real person (I don’t know the person but saw her on a YouTube video). She’s an honor guard captain for the Chinese Military (or was since it’s from 2014). Should I go that route or create a totally new character?

Does going with the former make me a lazy writer? Or make me look unmotivated? I know bridging real life to fiction can be tricky.

 

You could start with the image you got from YouTube and allow the literary character to develop from there.

 

The question of motivation perhaps might be approached by asking how many words of the novel the OP has written since the other thread about Chinese soldier ladies on Nov 22nd

 

Chinese soldier ladies is a thing, I get it.

Doesn't mean your reader will be as intrigued by them as you are.

 

Have brainstormed with notes but I can’t make up my mind on the plot. I’m trying to be more creative.

And I guess that’s when it falls back on me to make it interesting

 

When you say "use a real person", what exactly do you mean. Do you know this particular Chinese lady soldier? Do you know anything about her aside from what she looks like and maybe her name? What her likes and dislikes are? What her personality is like? What her views on dating non-Chinese are?

 

This is an interesting question, and something I think a lot of writers struggle with. There is nothing inherently right or wrong about modelling a fictional character after a real-life person. There's a spectrum, of course. Creating a character based on someone you don't really know, but saw on YouTube for example, is perfectly fine in most cases. You'd more so be creating the character based on your impression of the YouTuber, in this instance, rather than on intimate details of their personal life. On the other hand, if you based the character off of your own mother, with the same name, birthdate, etc, then that could be immoral, depending on how your dearest mother feels about it.

It's really individual, every scenario and character will be different, and how you handle it as a writer is what's important.

 

https://qz.com/1036701/chinas-female-pla-soldiers-are-flying-fighter-jets-but-its-state-media-would-rather-focus-on-their-dancing-skills/. One of the few times fiction would prove more interesting than reality.

 

I'm just a struggling newb when it comes to writing, but for me I stick with "Write what you know."

I create a character from bits and pieces of folks I know and/or have met, or base characters on historical figures and imbue them with appropriate characteristics from people I know. Then I build up a background/life story.

In my current WIP I have two opposing military figures that I have very loosely based upon Patton and Rommel. If the history had been different, they might have been friends, even compatriots, as they had tremendous respect for each other - despite the fact that they were trying to kill each other.

 

Going to answer y’all’s posts, thank you everyone for helping. Really means a lot to get help from others on here and I appreciate it.

Is there I way I can incorporate a Led Zeppelin Song into a Neptune scene? You’re approaching and descending into the planet and you play this song... how do you make the two go together (the scene and imagery plus the song) in writing?

 

Sounds like a brilliant idea--- only you'll have to get permission from whomever owns the copyright to incorporate the lyrics. The title you can safely mention, but the minute the words get in there, you're looking for a world of legal hurt if you just grab them and use them.

Some people would discourage you from going there at all. Me, I say look hard at your idea. If you think it's worth it, start researching and contacting the people required. It may work out. It may cost more than it's worth. You won't know until you've tried.

 

Well I don’t want to publish the piece but I see where you’re coming from. The plot I STILL can’t figure out... I only know the story will be a side story of a big one that involves the main character being the king of his own land.

I don’t know anything about her but she does exist. I can even post the YouTube video here. Maybe I could condense the story to just a journey to Neptune with her. Where there would be quite a bit of dialogue and then romance.

Well put. Gives me something to think about. Should I go ahead and do it anyway? I know I’ll never know this person but I think it makes for a great piece.

 

Hmm I did not think about that. What if you only said “and then the song ‘In The Evening’ by Led Zeppelin came on the Sirius FM radio” or just write the character is listening to and mention Led Zeppelin?

 

Then you're not using a real person. You're basing a character on what you've learned about her from a video.

How can you say your character is her when you know nothing about her or how she would react to a given situation? I could call a character Prince William but I have no idea what the real Prince William would react to any situation I would put him in. It's just a character who happens to have the same name.

 

It’s her in every way minus not knowing her traits such as personality and so on. What I’m trying to say is that when I imagine the exact story itself, it’s her in it, not someone else based on her. I realize I don’t know the key stuff but it’s her. Maybe this makes no sense, I can’t spit out what I’m trying to say

 

It's perfectly kosher to take the image of a real person and write a story around what you think such a character might be like, going on their appearance. Writers do it all the time, choose photos that look like their characters and use them as inspiration. In the same way, writers base characters on people they know. But it's going a bit far to say we're writing stories about the subjects of the photos themselves, using their real names, professions, etc. I would argue it's invasive and creepy. I'd hate to find out somebody got hold of my image and the barest hint of my biography and made me over into what he wanted me to be. It's bad enough when fanfiction writers do that to the canon characters in published works. It's even worse in real life.

Sure, be inspired by her picture and what you know about her. But give her a different name and leave the real woman her integrity as a human being.

 

You could, if you thought it would communicate. In my W.I.P. my heroine is at a bar and a popular song comes on the jukebox. She takes note of the title and the band, and thinks how perfectly it expresses how she feels. But the title is evocative enough to tell the reader something by itself, even if he or she doesn't know the words. If you think the song "In the Evening" is well-known enough to your target audience, go for it.

 

I want to draw the attention to one key piece that has been already suggested but to me is, in fact, key--the use of personal details about someone to create a character, even if you don't personally know the person but can infer information from what that person has posted online or is represented by media.

To take the image, video and information posted online as inspiration to get a start of a character in your mind and let your imagination go to form a full character -- YES.
To copy all details from a real person, making that person into your character--NO.

I would say that use of the general features, like a uniform style or way of speaking that belongs to a group of people rather a single person (sort of wanting to describe a category of people), also is ok if used with respect for the group.

 

For any rock fan who knows the classic stuff, it immediately evokes the sound and the feeling.

I don't know why I replied to @Catrin Lewis —I meant that to go to the OP.

 

For me personally, I would never use a living person in a story without their explicit permission. It just opens you up to a host of issues that are rather avoidable. What you can do is base your characters on real-life people. Most of the characters in my WIPs are either based on people I know in real life, composites of multiple people I know or based on historical characters that I have thoroughly researched.

An example of a real person being translated into a fictional character is Long John Silver from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. R.L.S. admitted openly that the character was based on his friend W.E. Henley.

I decided to take an admired friend of mine, to deprive him of all his finer qualities and higher graces of temperament, to leave him with nothing but his strength, his courage, his quickness, and his magnificent geniality, and to try to express these in terms of the culture of a raw tarpaulin.

 

Very true. The Thought Police haven't gotten that powerful yet.

 

I guess I'd better keep that story about me and Natalie Portman under wraps.

 

And the ones about me and Davy Jones. His children would be devastated.