by Anna Scotti
When I work with new writers, the first thing I tell them is, “expect to be published.”
It’s notoriously difficult to find a traditional publisher, especially for short fiction. Yet writers do find publishers, every day. And time after time I see writers panicking because their story––or poem, or novel––has finally sold, and it has just occurred to them that their friends and family will recognize themselves in fictional portrayals that may not be––ahem––particularly flattering.
The most asked question asked of writers is “where do you get your ideas?” And the answer, of course, is from the people around us. The tender mom in the story? We learned how to portray her from the way Mom held us tucked up tight with one hand, and turned the pages of the picture book with her chin. From Dad, too––the way he shouted the house down when he slammed his thumb with the hammer and the way he tossed us, shrieking with joy, into the lake. We get our ideas from the furious guy who wants a refund at the corner market; from the mean girl at the lunch table; from the kid who slams a handball against the wall for six hours a day, starting at dawn; from the old man who waves hopefully at every passing car, and from the people who almost never wave back. We get our ideas from the lives we lead. Most of us will never be astronauts or prima ballerinas or professional hit men. But to make characters with unusual lives believable, we have to use details from our own lives and from those of the people around us. From you.
My most successful series character, the “librarian on the run,” has very human habits and foibles. She has to, in order for the reader to be willing to “suspend disbelief” long enough to relate to her. After all, few of us, even those unfortunate enough to end up in witness protection, will encounter and solve a murder every few months. That Cam, as she’s sometimes known, likes strong coffee and body surfing, that she drinks too much white wine, has crushes on a series of completely inappropriate men, and has to manage life on a tight budget, lets the reader sympathize with her and believe that they might end up in some of the predicaments in which Cam finds herself.
Cam looks like me, when I was younger, though she’s stronger and fitter than I’ve ever been, and she has a tattoo, though I despise them. She has my mother’s independent streak, my father’s rather bitter sense of humor, my sister’s passion for science, and she loves the ocean almost as much as my daughter does. Cam’s lonely, like a lot of people I encounter in real life and online. She’s kind, though she probably wouldn’t describe herself that way, and erudite––she frequently utters quotes snatched from the mouth of my high-school lit teacher, Mrs. Linder, and from the hard-drinking, Shakespeare-spouting English filmmaker who’s married to a woman I once worked for.
You get the picture. None of these people––so far as I know––ever solved (or committed) a murder, yet every one of them has contributed in some way to the fullness and believability of the Cam character. And it’s not just the major characters we steal from life, but the bit players, too. The handsome detective whom Cam nearly falls for? His prototype is a Russian cop I met in San Francisco three decades ago when I dialed 911 to report a break-in. His wife? She has my sister-in-law’s warmth and practicality, my mother’s core of iron, and the good looks of a salsa dancer I modeled with years ago.
Do my friends, family, and colleagues see themselves in these characters? Probably not, because I take care to mix it up––especially with their less appealing characteristics. If a character is obnoxiously condescending or pompous, I make sure that his fictional iteration is of a different age, ethnicity, or gender than the prototype––maybe all three! If a character is still pathetically pining for a lover from years or decades back, you can bet she’ll have more than dark glasses and a mustache to disguise her by the time she hits the pages of Ellery Queen or Black Cat Weekly. And I recommend the same to you, writers, most heartily. Because stories are wrought from real life experience, but no story is worth the pain and embarrassment that could be caused when the inspiration recognizes his or her fictional iteration––nor the stress you’ll feel wondering if they might do so!
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The little, realistic details make a character seem like a real person—and are the reason readers care enough about them to keep reading. Great article!