Writing Who You Know...Cautiously

I was reading an interesting document the other day and there was this paragraph about libel. For those of you who don't know what libel means, its where a writer creates a character, portrays that character in a bad way...and then SOMEONE reads your work, sees that fictional character as this real person that the writer knows, and has the right to sue you - for slandering (in writing) this very real person.

Slander = verbal
Libel = written

Now, most writers I talk to say their characters aren't based off of real people. I think they're fibbing just a little. We write what we know, or who we know, inadvertently. You may not immediately remember who you're crafting a person off of, or you might be creating a character off of a singular moment of a real person's actions, but there's something very real to every character who comes off the page as 3-dimensional. If the character is flat, yeah, I'd guess there's no real-person-backing.

But then there are some of us - me included - that knowingly create our characters off of real, living, breathing people. And anyone who reads my work can see that.

I have to be careful because even though I may not mean to portray someone maliciously, someone else could interpret it otherwise, using the knowledge of our past relationships, our past interactions, and how they think I feel toward this person.

Perception is really 9/10 of the law.

Have any of you gone to Harassment Training? No, it's not where they teach how to harass, it's where they teach you what real harassment is. It's phenomenally...I'm just going to call it like it is, stupid. If you're joking around with someone and someone else walks in and is offended by it, or offended for you, they can file a harassment charge. Seriously? What happened to the world of the grown up? Are we supporting a world of babies?

I guess I'm seeing this as someone who's had to pave her own road the HARD way. You don't get offended because someone's having a hard day and telling you that "just because you were born with [girl parts], doesn't mean you can be a [girl part]". That's a very valid statement, for which my immediate rejoinder is usually, "even though you have a [butt part], doesn't mean you have to be a [butt part]". I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.

Well, libel is very much like that, only they're looking at your printed words and they can take that into the courtroom, show the judge, bring all their friends, family, coworkers and whathaveyou, and tell the world that you were harassing them via fiction.

This is a very fine line. The best fiction is laced with truth. The better, the more heart-wrenching the truth, the more awesome the fiction is.

But you have to keep in mind that the most heart-wrenching truths are brought about by people - people you may not like, but people who have feelings just like you who could be hurt if they saw what you really, really feel or think about them.

So, do yourself a favor, change your character. Make him look different. Give him sisters instead of brothers. Give him a husband instead of a wife. Make him Chinese (like really Chinese, not just a white guy in Chinese armor, please, for the love of Pete) instead of Caucasian. Change it up a bit. Make it different. Throw thim in a different state, a different country. Send him to a different school. Give him a different career. Put them in a completely different societal upbringing.

Keep the parts that matter, the things that tug at the heartstrings, but do NOT make your character exactly like someone who the world knows you hate, even if it's more of a love-but-having-a-hard-time-liking-you thing.

It's a matter of legality.