Is It Me? Is It?

Every writer’s first stop when looking for source material is of course their own life. They have years, maybe decades of experiences to draw upon when looking for stories and characters to use as the backbone of their creative writing. Even when the main body a storyline is triggered from an outside source many of the details that flesh it out might come from things that the writer is familiar with. “Write what you know” is the old adage that each budding writer is taught as soon as they can hold a pen (or boot up a laptop).

So we all write about events, places and people that we know, whether we do it consciously or otherwise but at what point does that kind of writing become too intrusive? Should people that the writer knows and loves ever be able to recognise themselves in the prose, however disguised or complimentary their appearance in the text may be?

I’ve made no secret of the fact that many of my fictional characters and situations are taken from real life examples. The facts are stretched, often to the point of them bearing only a nodding acquaintance with what actually happened, but there’s a kernel of truth in many things that I write. It’s the same with the characters who populate my stories. Some are fictional versions of people I’ve observed in a coffee shop or on a bus, others are much close to home.

I try and disguise the people involved as much as possible, combining character traits and taking minor personality qualities from one person to fit onto another but still people occasionally claim to have recognised themselves. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes it’s just wishful thinking on their part. I always try to be coy and enigmatic about it, never giving them a denial or confirmation; I think that in cases like this people want to be right more than they want the truth. I don’t know if their believing that they’ve recognised themselves or someone else that we both know is a good thing, a bad thing or an irrelevance but it can be fun for all involved.

But there’s a problem with this approach. If I base a character on, let’s say, my Beloved then I already have a fixed view of that character. I’ve lived with her for decades and can make a reasonable guess at how she’d react in any given situation, just as she could about me. Writing a character like that wouldn’t bring any surprises at all; it would be difficult to write ‘her’ from a fresh point of view. That character wouldn’t be able to surprise me in the direction that she’d end up taking in the story as I’d have a very fixed view as to what she’d do. She’d probably end up reading as if she’d been shoe-horned into the plot.

That old maxim “write what you know” is fine to a degree, but we’re talking about writers: they’re supposed to be blessed with an imagination.