There’s also the opposite path – writing about people that you dislike! What revenge could be sweeter than immortalising that horrible person you know by using them as a basis for the enemy of your hero…you know, the one that gets pounded into the ground at the end.
Of course, there must be people that I love – whether I’m related to them, or they are some of my closest friends – that probably haven’t even thought about it. I’m sure the majority of them would be astounded if they knew I had smiled at some of their jokes…and then used them within my book. Or noticed a way that a female friend pushed her hair behind her ears, a habit which I have definitely included in a character.
And it wasn’t until a new friend asked me how I envisioned my protagonists that I admitted to her (without naming names) that whenever I wrote my first book, I tried to imagine it, with a very close friend playing my female protagonist. Does this close friend know that I tried out dialogue through her lips? No. Would I ever tell her? Definitely not.
Why is this? I’m not ashamed to use my friends and family in this way…am I? After all, the majority of what I write comes from my medieval historical research, and my imagination. Perhaps it’s because I’m afraid of being accused of ‘cheating’ by other authors – does it count as my own work if I’ve kind of borrowed it from my brother?
Films and books now include a phrase similar to the title of this post. But can we as authors ever truly write a book without any influence from our nearest and dearest? I challenge any author to say that they’ve never been inspired by someone they met once, or saw across the train, or had breakfast with.
Because the way I see it, everything I do and everyone I meet ends up, one way or another, in my work. And I hope my friends and family wouldn’t have it any other way…
