More Than Meets the Eye
...when a character ain't just a character
THE REALITY
There’s a running joke amongst writers—particularly mystery writers—when they talk about their works-in-progress. “Hey, kill anybody yet?” someone will say. While sometimes it’s asked in the hopes of startling a listening passerby, generally it’s asked in all sincerity. However, it’s not about real murder or even killing off book characters. It’s about modeling the doomed player after a real person in the writer’s life, someone so profound or annoying or interesting, they fit the writer’s blueprint for a role in the story
Some find it scandalous; using real live people in your books. Some think it lazy—after all, a writer is supposed to make up stuff. Well, sure, but, like any other art, having a model who exemplifies the points you want your art to make, is a too handy to resist.
The point is, a lot of writers use real people in their writing. It helps them channel their inner emotions in a productive direction. And it keeps them out of jail!
THE HOW AND WHY
Family circumstances can provide premises for whole novels. What makes your Aunt Daisy tick? Why is Uncle Barry always telling boring stories at reunions? And what makes Cheryl think she can hit on you all the time?
The guy at work who’s a pain in the neck—especially at office parties—can make a great model for a similar character in your corporate world novel. And yes, the absolutely gorgeous yoga instructor you work hard not to be jealous over can provide you with a believable description for the pageant beauty in your romance novel. When she expounds on her personal yoga philosophy, you might even get a bonus character trait.
There is no end to the affirmation of personal observation over book research. It’s like taking a breath of fresh air after leaving a library of musty tomes.
It’s not just about individual character development, either. Observing those around us reminds us—even educates us—about the vagaries of human interaction. Why does one person react inexplicably to another? Can you figure out what motivates that? Can you transfer that motive into your own story? Such machinations help a story develop complexity. Our own circles can be rich sources of inspiration and information, near to hand and ripe for the picking. A harvest that can add real emotion and pith to your writing.
There can be added personal psychological benefits for the writer as well. Dissecting your own emotions, interpreting life, laying ghosts to rest, resolving anxieties, or celebrating joyous moments by reliving them in your story; these are often side-effects of collecting observations of the people in your life. On the other hand, the practice can also create more anxiety: “Could I get sued?”
Which raises the importance of not making the whole thing true to life (unless you’re special; see below: Pat Conroy). I mean, we all want to avoid court costs. But it’s not only that. The real world is ugly, messy, and uncooperative. Even if you want to write about ugly stuff, fact rarely provides the thrill the way you want to write it.
The real detective zigs when you want him to zag. The arrest is made and you have no dramatic shoot-out or final scene of the protagonist narrowly escaping death to slap cuffs on the villain. The mother doesn’t make her scathing reply that chills the abusive husband. Your feisty, never-say-die team loses.
A writer steers the story. Granted, character-driven tales (my personal favorite) are —well, driven by the characters, but these are characters as created by you, the writer, not real people as created by…whoever you attribute that feat to. Real life is very messy. So.
For the fiction writer (as opposed to the historian, the memoirist, the documentarian, etc) the second part of the task is either onerous or delightful. Write. Take what you have observed about people from those around you, toss it around in your brain, and create a character that—although you may call them by name in your head, isn’t really that person. Choose the parts about the real person that are critical, isolate them. Then add other traits and physical characteristics that augment the character to be what you want. Build the character that is ideal for your purpose, composed of these parts of real people. (I apologize for the Frankenstein motif here.) Then place them in the situations you devise and the world you create. You will know these characters’ origins, but your readership will not. Probably. Not enough to build a case, anyway.
PAT CONROY
America’s Southern writer Pat Conroy famously wrote novels based on his family and their lives. The Great Santini, Prince of Tides, and Beach Music, in particular. In the end, the practice developed into his literary style. I heard him speak some years back at the Southern Festival of Books, held annually since 1989 in Nashville, TN1
When asked about the wisdom of using family and friends as a basis for a story, Conroy did not back down. Despite the fact that it caused conflict and even a rift in part of the family, he stood by what he’d done. He explained it in part by saying that writing that way allowed him to observe and explore human relationships and how people thought. It was, in essence, a resource right in front of him. His family agreed that he wrote truth in his works, and that truth helped them to process the reality they’d lived.
Later he said something else, and to be honest, I don’t remember his exact words. It was part of the larger discussion. But it was to the effect that a story develops a life, and like any living thing, it has a right to live to its full conclusion—wherever that takes it. That ending might or might not jibe with reality, but it is true to the story. It finds its own truth.
THE AMALGAM AND THE TRUTH
So what—or who— is the end result?
Well, we hope the end result is a great book. But the important thing is not to confuse the characters and story you created with the human parts and material you gathered to build the whole. You are creating a story, not retelling history. (The caveat is if that is a specific intent; biographical fiction does exist.) For regular fiction-writing, the story must be new and different than the sum of its parts. It should have a life of its own, its own truth.
But, back to Pat Conroy. It is the essence of most fiction to uncover some kind of human truths—be they factual or psychological or something else. Every written word is due to and about humanity. Every written word is put down in pursuit of understanding and translating the human condition. Sometimes the words become transformational. Sometimes they are merely explanatory, or confirming.
Stories are stories, factual or otherwise. The best fiction blends and weaves the insights you collect into a tale from which your readers can glean their own insights. Insights readers will use to understand the truths around them in their own lives.
IMPORTANT FOOTNOTE: Southern Festival of Books is a program backed by the Humanities Council of Tennessee, whose funds are now being threatened by DOGE’s ignorant, chaotic actions. Cuts to NEH would abandon all states’ humanities councils, and if this happens, the Southern Festival of Books, which began in Nashville in 1989, would be no more. You can learn more about this (and how to help) at the Humanities Tennessee website: https://www.humanitiestennessee.org/support_advocate/advocate/).