From Real-life Person to Fictional MC...

StevenJ · Dec 25, 2008

Which living or dead person influenced the creation of your fictional character(s)?

Cristian Salazar, the main protagonist in my novella Salvatore House, is partially based on Stalin. Even though Salazar is, on the face of it, nothing like the Soviet dictator (Salazar is a 19c artist), Stalin's personality influenced my writing of Cristian's behaviour in the book.

Salazar is both charming and ruthless, as was Joseph Stalin. A rough example of Stalin's behaviour: he would promote someone to Secretary of Culture; while the Secretary was celebrating his promotion, Stalin would have the man's wife arrested, tortured and detained in order to guarantee the Secretary's future compliance; years later, Stalin might release the woman & she and her husband would be reunited; Stalin might then 'honour' the couple with his presence at the Secretary's birthday celebration; afterwards, he would demote the Secretary, thus placing the family under suspicion again...yet the family would continue to revere Stalin...

Ok, so the above example is off-the-cuff, but basically true - that's how insidiously evil Stalin was; and that's how Salazar is too.

Maryn · Dec 25, 2008

Interesting. I don't think I've ever created a character based on the actions or behaviors of a real person.

Maryn, not saying that's better or worse, just different

alleycat · Dec 25, 2008

I've used certain traits of famous real people, of course, but I don't think I've ever used one as fully as you describe.

BTW, I think an artist who is as evil and manipulative as Stalin is an interesting concept on the face of it. We usually think of an artist in the opposite way, even if they're a bit arrogant or roguish.

tehuti88 · Dec 25, 2008

I don't tend to base any of my characters off real people, even when I use real people's names; the characters are my own. That's why I write fiction, so I don't have to write real people. Even fictionalized ones.

I do use characters from mythology, but again, I tend to make them my own. The Ojibwa culture hero Manabozho is one of my main characters of this sort. I drew some of his personality from mythology but a lot of it just came about as I wrote him, as an individual being.

Whether Manabozho is/was a real being or not at any point is up for debate so I shan't get into it.

RJK · Dec 25, 2008

My MC is based mostly off a fictional character, Detective Mac Taylor from CSI-NY. I made him younger, and he has some other interpersonal skills, but I think of Mac when I think of my character.

Woven · Dec 25, 2008

SteveS said:
Which living or dead person influenced the creation of your fictional character(s)?

Cristian Salazar, the main protagonist in my novella Salvatore House, is partially based on Stalin. Even though Salazar is, on the face of it, nothing like the Soviet dictator (Salazar is a 19c artist), Stalin's personality influenced my writing of Cristian's behaviour in the book.

Salazar is both charming and ruthless, as was Joseph Stalin. A rough example of Stalin's behaviour: he would promote someone to Secretary of Culture; while the Secretary was celebrating his promotion, Stalin would have the man's wife arrested, tortured and detained in order to guarantee the Secretary's future compliance; years later, Stalin might release the woman & she and her husband would be reunited; Stalin might then 'honour' the couple with his presence at the Secretary's birthday celebration; afterwards, he would demote the Secretary, thus placing the family under suspicion again...yet the family would continue to revere Stalin...

Ok, so the above example is off-the-cuff, but basically true - that's how insidiously evil Stalin was; and that's how Salazar is too.

I'm really intrigued with this story you're writing! It sounds fascinating and gosh darn fun to write!

I've created only one character from a real person that I actually like. I've done others, but it doesn't usually work out for me. In college I had a huge crush on one of my English Lit. professors. I based a character loosely off him and let my imagination run wild! It became one of those "trunk novels" that is written very poorly, yet I still love the concept. One of these days I'll come back to it.

Jerry B. Flory · Dec 25, 2008

I like this fun little exercise I try all the time for no particular reason. I put Jesus Christ in a random place and time and then piece together all the reasons that any society, no matter how backwoods, puritanical or modern would kill him.
I've yet to find any society that would allow him to live.

Woven · Dec 25, 2008

Jerry B. Flory said:
I like this fun little exercise I try all the time for no particular reason. I put Jesus Christ in a random place and time and then piece together all the reasons that any society, no matter how backwoods, puritanical or modern would kill him.
I've yet to find any society that would allow him to live.

Huh. How very interesting. I would have a most difficult time writing that.

Jerry B. Flory · Dec 25, 2008

It's not hard.
Put him in modern day California.
The second he turned water into wine, Gallo Bros. would have every gun they could hire after him.
Mexico would storm California just to see Jesus Christ. I mean, you know, more than they are now.
What if he healed some movie star and reverted all their plastic reconstruction to its original form?
There's all kinds of ways for Jesus to make a great big mess in very little time in California.

Woven · Dec 25, 2008

Jerry B. Flory said:
It's not hard.
Put him in modern day California.
The second he turned water into wine, Gallo Bros. would have every gun they could hire after him.
Mexico would storm California just to see Jesus Christ. I mean, you know, more than they are now.
What if he healed some movie star and reverted all their plastic reconstruction to its original form?
There's all kinds of ways for Jesus to make a great big mess in very little time in California.

Well, these days, anybody claiming to be Jesus would be locked up, though not necessarily killed. It's still a very interesting exercise.

Interesting discussion on this particular day! Merry Christmas! (If you celebrate)

Jerry B. Flory · Dec 25, 2008

A good example of this is Casca Longinus. Allegedly the Roman soldier who stuck Jesus in the side with a spear. Christ cursed him to live "until his return" and always be a footsoldier.
So, that gives the author, Barry Sadler, the go room to drop into any war as long as it took place AD. Casca, the Eternal Mercenary, doesn't necessarily care whose side he's on as long as the money is good and he can disappear before someone tries to promote him, because promotion ALWAYS ends in a bloody "death" which takes time, a lot of time, to regenerate from. He's usually in the box, unless it's Viet Nam or a modern enough war for people to check pulses and breathing.

kuwisdelu · Dec 25, 2008

I've not used anyone famous, but I base characters on real people all the time. If you're interesting enough.

dancingandflying · Dec 25, 2008

I never originally base my characters off of real people, for whatever reason, but it always seems that traits and idiosyncrasies of real people infiltrate my characters later in the story...

d&f.

brad_b · Dec 25, 2008

It's never occurred to me to base a character on a real person. Sometime in the future I'd like to try my hand at writing a historic novel. In that case I probably would. I'm with Dancing in that traits of people I know sometimes find a place in a character; yet most of my character's traits evolve as I come to know their place in the story and have a better idea in the role they play; one might say the characters write their own development to fit their part. Sounds kind of corny when I think about it, but several of my characters came about in just that way.

RunawayScribe · Dec 25, 2008

I've never used anyone famous, nor have I based a character completely off someone else. Often I pull traits from people I know/have seen - quirks, fears, speech patterns, habits, favorite phrases, etc.. It results that many of my characters are a combination of people I know.

Morwen Edhelwen · Feb 24, 2012

Two main characters in my latest WIP, a YA dieselpunk novel, are based on Che Guevara and Eva Peron (renamed Eva Valverde). The story's set in Honduras.

flapperphilosopher · Feb 24, 2012

I've never directly based a character off a real or fictional person, but real and/or fictional people have influenced the development of some of my characters. One of my characters has shades of my ex (and I knew the character before the ex, haha); another one was sort of influenced by James Dean (though in such subtle ways I doubt anyone would ever see it, even if I told them). Definitely parts of me are in all my characters, like any writer. I named a 1920s character after 1920s film star Clara Bow [the Clara part, that is] but she isn't based off Bow in any other way. Sometimes I play with characters that have used real people as jumping-off points, but so far it's never really worked.

Buffysquirrel · Feb 24, 2012

Hmm, no idea.

richcapo · Feb 24, 2012

StevenJ said:
Which living or dead person influenced the creation of your fictional character(s)?

If I've ever based a character on a real-life individual, I did so unknowingly. I like to create as much from scratch as possible -- I purposely avoid riffing on people I know, have studied, have heard of, et cetera; just as I purposely avoid writing myself (my views, values, habits, and so on) into my characters, especially into my major characters. I like exploring new realities, not re-treading familiar ones; however, I have briefly and infrequently used real people in my stories, but that is different from basing fictional characters on actual people, and I always put some bizarre twist on them to make them more my own than they otherwise would have been, anyway. I historically revise them, or, if you will, counter-factualize them, to make them as proprietary and original as I can.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 25, 2012

Almost all my characters are based on real people, and I portray them as accurately as possible. I've never understand why I should create character from nothing , or put one together from this piece of one and that piece of the other, like Frankenstein's monster, when the world is full of real people who make wonderfully real characters.

artemis31386 · Feb 25, 2012

Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran uses real life historical figures to tell a fictional story set in the ancient Rome under Augustus Caesar

EzzyAlpha · Feb 25, 2012

I've based a character's looks on a singer I admire. Otherwise, there's not much of a resemblance, except for a guitar hobby.

My characters tend to gain a life of their own after creation so it's rather hard to base them of real people and sticking to it

cmi0616 · Feb 25, 2012

My MC is an ex-girlfriend (and currently a very good friend) of mine, who, for a period of time, struggled with substance abuse issues. Of course, the behavior of the MC in my novel is exaggerated and more publicized (she's the lead singer of a famous rock band), but the personality is the very much he same as well as the conflicts both of them face.

It's interesting that a lot of people have said so far that they don't base their characters off real people. In my experience, characters who don't have origins in myself or people that I know well lack a certain depth to them. Life and the people in it, at least in my opinion, make for the best material.

EnitaMeadows · Feb 26, 2012

I tend not to do this, but that was until I met a sincerely interesting person. IMO haha.

The character is named Mars, and his story is scheduled to be released in November as of now. He was based on a friend of mine (whose nickname was also Mars). They have fairly different personalities (my character is a total jerk, while my friend was really easy to get along with) but their backgrounds are very similar (both born into very wealthy families, both had a troubled childhood, etc.) and the story is based closely on certain things that happened to him during the time I knew him.

From Real-life Person to Fictional MC...

StevenJ

Bored Fanatic

Maryn

I Tried

alleycat

Still around

tehuti88

Mackinac Island Fanatic

RJK

Sheriff Bullwinkle the Poet says:

Woven

Jerry B. Flory

under the Milky Way

Woven

Jerry B. Flory

under the Milky Way

Woven

Jerry B. Flory

under the Milky Way

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

dancingandflying

Is it tea time yet?

brad_b

Knight Errant

RunawayScribe

It is what it is.

Morwen Edhelwen

flapperphilosopher

Buffysquirrel

richcapo

Knight Templar

Jamesaritchie

artemis31386

All around miscreant

EzzyAlpha

Unable to write straight females.

cmi0616

EnitaMeadows