When I write fiction, I like to picture real people. It helps as a launching bad to have a real person serve as a placeholder until the character is developed. Not that my characters are always based on real people, but I might still aspects of them or their lives if it fits the story. And maybe not even change their names, like just using their first names. In nonfiction, it's always about the people in my life, but I do try to be careful with their identities, though, often it's unavoidable. I use my lover's middle name, and I will change names if people feel more comfortable with that, but I have found most people don't really care, especially if I'm only using a first name. These are for essays NOT news stories. I publish both short stories and essays with some regularity. But I have found that even when you tell people you're writing about them or you based a character on them, they're still not in any sort of rush to read your stuff. So, I just steal pieces of their lives and write whatever I want. I'm not saying I don't have ethics when it comes to this, but this is my job as a writer. Aren't we all recreating reality on some level as writers?
@Homer Potvin and/or @Lifeline -- Maybe I should have posted this in general writing. Wanted to know if you think it should go there. Maybe it's a silly or stupid question. I had thought it could be an interesting discussion, though. Who knows?
Nah, it's fine in character development. We've moved thousands of threads OUT of general writing in the past, so we're not looking to import any, haha.
Usually it's only small things but I did use my uncle in a story as the main character's uncle. I changed the name from Greg to Garfield because I like it better. Character was not only 100% him but I even used an exact situation. He's quite the character.
I do it all the time but out of name, physical description and personality i normally only se one of the three.. inserting recognisable people can cause problems
In one of my short stories I named a character "Lauren" because she fit the physical description of a Lauren I knew years ago. Then I found out that the very unusual and specific skillset my character had (only 75 women in the world were tandem jump instructors at the time) was one that she shared with another person named "Lauren." I had to change her name to "Laurel" because I didn't want to risk any negative associations with the real Lauren (if you're writing a book about a fictional Black American president and "Barack" springs to mind, well...)
I'm sure someone, somewhere has the names I use, but I have no clue who they are and they all just came out of my head.
