Are Your Fictional Characters Based on Real People?

Posted by David Duhr in Strategies      18 comments

May
20

TL;DR version: I’m writing a novel with characters based on real people I hadn’t seen in decades. Then I saw them. It was weird. So this week I’m wondering: Do you base your fictional characters on real people? What are the benefits, what are the pitfalls? What tactics do you use to observe the people around you, and how do you translate those observations to the page? Let us know in the comments below.

I’m writing a novel about a group of former co-workers of mine from the late-’90s. These are people I haven’t seen in nearly two decades. At least three of them have died.

But when I write, I can close my eyes and envision their manners of speech, their physical attributes. I ask myself, “What would [name of the real person] do or say in this situation?” Sometimes the answer to that is appropriate for the fictional scene, sometimes it’s not. But even when it’s not, that train of thought usually leads me to the right station.

It seems to help me move forward, basing my characters on real people and then slightly altering the details.

For the moment, I’m even using their real names.

Your turn: Do you base your fictional characters on real people? What have you found to be the benefits, and what are the pitfalls?

Meeting Your Characters

Last weekend I had cause to see some of these former co-workers again. I had conversations with two of my main characters, in fact. It was… odd. I’ve been working for so long on their fictional doubles that it’s almost as if the real people had ceased to exist.

But before long, the real people regained control of the narrative, so to speak.

One of them has among the most distinctive laughs I’ve ever heard. I’d tried to replicate that laugh in words, but after hearing it again, I knew I had to work harder to do it justice. (And I’ve already found a way.)

Not only that, but at one point, while talking to the second guy, I had a flash of the room we ate lunch in, and forgotten details washed over me.

I don’t know if I’ll use them, but at least I now have access to them.

Your turn: If you base your fictional characters on real people, do you spend time with those people? Again, what are the benefits, what are the pitfalls? If you can’t/don’t spend time with them, do you wish you could? Or would that only muddy your waters?

Watch & Learn

Those quick conversations reminded me that I am writing about real people. And while I do have, and take, plenty of so-called artistic license, I’d do well to be as true to those real people as possible.

(Not as a rule! But for the sake of this particular story.)

Now, not every writer bases his or her characters on people drawn from his or her life. I know a lot of you who would balk at the very idea.

But in one way or another, every character you create, and every word they speak and action they take, comes from your life in some way.

This doesn’t mean you can always (or even often) draw a direct line from fictional character to real person. But it does mean we should try to keep this in mind whenever we interact with other humans.

I’m not saying to treat every conversation as if it were research for a future fictional character. What I’m saying is, keep your eyes and ears open as often as you possibly can.

Your turn: Do you consider yourself a successful observer of people and places? Are you always on the clock, or do you sometimes turn off your writer brain and just exist?

Be Curious & Take Note

Because you never know where inspiration will come from.

We’re told as writers to be observant. I don’t know about you, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve forgotten to do that. I float through life without really taking internal notes on human behavior. As if I feel I’ve learned everything I need to learn.

Seeing these former co-workers reminded me of a time when I was still actively curious about people. When I was an eighteen-year-old kid painting pipe in a factory and eating lunch daily with an intimidating group of grimy middle-aged blue-collared men, never did I imagine that twenty years later I would write a book about them.

Never did I imagine I would write a book about anything.

But I studied them: their mannerisms and speech patterns, the way they laughed, the way they smoked and coughed and smoked some more, their various dyads, what they wore and how they wore it. The way they walked slooooowly to the bathroom and sloooooooooowly back, and the way they almost sprinted to the lunchroom when the whistle blew and then when it blew again walked sloooooooooooooooooowly back.

And then I became a writer, and forgot to take note of such things.

WriteByNight co-founder David Duhr is copy editor and fiction editor at the Texas Observer and writes about books for the Dallas Morning News, Electric Literature, Publishing Perspectives, and others.

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