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| Tips & Advice Share your tips, tricks and advice. |
11-11-2007, 10:00 AM
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#1
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Writer
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 34
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"real people" characters?
Do you base your characters on real people? do you change names and if so do you try and find a name similar to the real person?
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11-14-2007, 04:33 AM
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#2
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Melbourne Australia
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,065
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Sometimes I base my characters around famous people I like, and draw inspiration to my own characters from them, but I don't find a name that's the same as them.
__________________
'Beauty stands and waits with gravity to start her death-defying leap. And he, a little charleychaplin man, who may or may not catch her fair eternal form spreadeagled in the empty air of existence.' - Laurence Felinghetti, 'The Acrobat'
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11-14-2007, 05:21 AM
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#3
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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 288
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I would avoid same names as people may think your work is non-fiction. Plus there is legal issues. Just make up a name. Many great novels have their characters inspired by real people. Nothing wrong with that.
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11-14-2007, 08:52 AM
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#4
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Mentor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,627
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Ray Feist used to pick popular actors to base his characters around, because they generally have specific mannerisms. Think of Brad Pitt and the way he moves his hands when he talks.
I used to say I never did this, then just recently I've based a car salesman in my latest bit of writing on an actual car salesman I dealt with once. But as far as I can remember that's the first time.
I have based characters on people, in terms of their physical appearance, but I'm not sure that's what you're asking. I have a character named Emily Locke that I have based around an Australian dancer named Kim Johnson, just in terms of what she looks like. And that's really just because I think Kym Johnson is Hot As.
I've based another character on someone who rides the same bus as me, again, just because I neeeded a physical frame of reference.
__________________
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Gohn
Never take what Talia says seriously.
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11-14-2007, 09:26 AM
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#5
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Wordsmith
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: South-east UK
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,844
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All my characters are based on me.
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11-14-2007, 07:41 PM
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#6
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: AmbientArtists
Gender: Private
Posts: 3,867
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike C
All my characters are based on me.
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I'm not copying... he said what I wanted to say before I could say it! 
__________________
My hopeful book:
Crap! Haven't posted it anywhere yet, darn!
"Only tyranny cloaks itself in shadows. The light of justice can not be hidden."    
www.theoddvillepress.com
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11-15-2007, 01:43 AM
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#7
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Wordsmith
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: South-east UK
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,844
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilasir Maroa
I'm not copying...
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No, you're not. All fiction is more or less autobiographical because all the characters' actions and reactions are filtered through your own experience and expectation. |
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11-15-2007, 02:58 AM
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#8
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Fernando Poo
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,433
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My characters are based on a bunch of old men at a bar I used to hang out at.
...filtered through me, of course.
__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.
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11-15-2007, 06:25 AM
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#9
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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 288
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Some people go for the semi-autobiographical slant, its probably the easiest thing to write at first, but if u reveal some of your secrets in the book you may not want others to read it.
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11-16-2007, 08:14 AM
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#10
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Mentor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,627
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Look at this:
I disagree with this:
Quote:
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All fiction is more or less autobiographical because ...
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But I agree with this:
Quote:
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... all the characters' actions and reactions are filtered through your own experience and expectation.
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I'm conflicted. I think its the term 'semi-autobiographical' which is bothering me, because it implies a level of consciousness to the filtering of your experience. I don't think that's true from the perspective of creation, although obviously from an analytical perspective it is.
Now I'm just confusing myself.
*wonders away mumbling to himself*
__________________
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Gohn
Never take what Talia says seriously.
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11-17-2007, 04:25 PM
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#11
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Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 8
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I always base characters off of real people. It helps me keep the story real.
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11-18-2007, 04:29 AM
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#12
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Ink Slinger
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Here, usually
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,049
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I sometimes base characters on other characters from movies, book etc, but only in apperance and/or behaviour. I never base characters on me or anyone I know from real life. I want my characters to have a life of their own and do things and react to thing based on how they feel, not on how I feel.
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I have traveled across the universe through the years to find her. Sometimes going all the way is just a start. (Meat Loaf)
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11-18-2007, 05:16 AM
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#13
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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: New York
Gender: Female
Posts: 279
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The main character in my current novel is based on me. I usually take attributes from characters in real life, in texts, and those in my head.
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"The vivid tulips eat my oxygen."
-Plath
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11-19-2007, 04:59 AM
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#14
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Addict
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
Gender: Male
Posts: 149
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In my current work, the three main characters were influenced by friends of mine who went the wayward side of addiction. Though, they are not carbon copies, just templates. The mannerisms, characters and attitudes are completely different. In a way, they are all a different version of what I could be; the self-pitying drunk, the apathetic junkie or the self-destructive binger. Between my personal problems, battles of addiction and amount of drugs I've taken in my life I could be either of them. I'm not because I have will power, something none of my characters have. While they, like my friends, were helpless I stood strong.
The other characters I've created for this work (only a few) serve only at catalysts or a reflective surface in which my characters to view.
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