Writing based on real life characters.

I understand what you are doing and its great. You can protect your sources easily in fiction but it is fair to them if they are aware you are extracting their stories for that purpose. Only bio's and non-fictions need contracts I think, change the names, places and some details of the story to your liking and you are free to publish. The only consideration as a writer, I think, you need to make, is deciding if the work is fiction or non-fiction. If the stories are really good then maybe non-fiction will work best as a selling point, on the other hand fiction opens the stories up to even more amazing things which is fun. It is good that you are thinking of this at the beginning.

Fiction has certain demands. And a writer of fiction is under obligation to move the story to its logical conclusion. It's not the same as writing biographies no matter how interesting the stories of your friends may be. I found out from a book and later, from writing attempts that using bits and pieces of our lives and people we know can interfere with the process of writing good fiction. How? Often, we have unresolved issues in real life. The only time they get resolved is when we die. But the major issues in a fiction story must be resolved. So what happens next? The writer, because of his/her affinity with real life characters, won't resolve or will fail to resolve the issue in fiction story. The ending becomes weak and fall short of the expectations of the readers. It is your duty as fiction writer to create characters and not pick them out of your neighborhood. In any case, imagining your characters in the person of people you know may be a good technique for making your dialogues authentic. But it should probably stop there.

I actually like making up my own characters, it's one of my favorite writing things to do lol. But making characters based on people you really know could def. have it's benefits. I would just make sure you get the okay from all of them (not sure a contract would really be necessary). And make sure to ask them if there is anything in their life they DON'T want you to bring up. Don't want to add anything that would upset them!

Hi puppynut! It sounds like you have a great book in the works! Congrats! I think that as long as you are careful and make sure that everyone you have used in your book is ok with it, it will be fine. I would definitely protect myself with a contract like you have mentioned though. It is always important to take precautions even if you never think anything would come of it. Take care and great luck with your book and potential movie!

The first thing is intimacy, if you a close intimacy with your friends then it will a great work and no need to take their consign. Again, if you have reflected some negatives of them, then you should let them know first, otherwise, it may run in court. My second novel was published on 2004 which was a real story and we were four friends including me on leading characters but they accepted all easily although i wrote almost 80% truth. All the best.

If it is fiction, I wouldn't worry about it unless you are using their real names. Some of the best novels were written by authors who based their characters on people they known.

I would imagine that if your friends have said it's OK, just to go ahead. As long as they are not named, they cannot be identified, and they may have fun identifying themselves. I don't think you need to share and potential profit with them, as you are doing the work. Back in a writing workshop I wrote a similar fiction work based on my life as a musician, from when I started gigging around in my teens until I became professional later on. All names were changed, and whilst I told some of the friends, many of them has long sinced disappeared. Incidents were similar, but so exaggerated, that I don't think that anybody would recognize themselves. Anyway, it is all academic now because whilst I sent it to one publishing house, I didn't send to any others. It's now just stored away on a drive somewhere. I enjoyed writing it and reading it in the workshop, and our teacher suggested I submitted it, but once I wrote it I just let it go at that - it was like a completion for me. I hope you all the best with your book, but I wouldn't worry too much about it's characters, especially if it is going to be listed as fiction.. _Derek

Hi puppynut, First, my best wishes for your story writing job. As per me,you can go with the idea of portrating your friends character along with your story. As your very much confident in those character,please go ahead with it because the interest in you make that characters into good shape. The readers will like these kind of real life characters than a fictional once. All the best for your book to get succed in high range.