What would you call...

Wasn't Memoirs of a Geisha done that way? It's fiction, but done in the first person as a memoir.

Don't be sorry! That's what we do here - knock the info loose in each other's heads.

Although sometimes when someone like Perks knocks my head, no info comes loose. Frankly, I think she's doing it for sport.

Maryn, lumpy-noggined

I'm guilty of writing a similar novel...fiction based on real events.

What legal or ethical considerations are there in such a situation? If there is the slightest chance that real people might be recognized, should they be informed of their role in the story before an attempt is made to market the book?

Yep. There are definitely legal and ethical considerations. Better to talk it out before than after, and with an attorney to draw up a release.

There is always the, "no person or events depicted in this novel are representative of real people," clause....

First-person fiction happens all the time. It seems to be enjoying an upswing in popularity, in fact.

It might be a romance novel, if the focuses are more on the romances she's had and less on the ways she's changed because of them. I'm not an expert on the romance genre, but my understanding is that first-person romances are not terribly popular.

There are no rules banning or favoring any particular style or point of view in fiction. Anything goes.

Stephania said:

so she would have to get a release for something that has to do with her life?

Next meeting is Thursday, I'll ask her a few more questions. Seems she didn't like the questions I asked the other day. Oh well.

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She would have to get a release for something that has to do with someone ELSE'S life. If she depicted the fictional character in a way that it's obvious to the average person that it's based on a particular person, then it could be a problem. That's not to say it will be, but it could---depending on whether the person is depicted favorably or unfavorably. Mind you, it happens all the time with little impact. But I'm of the "better to be prepared" camp.

Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a Western man--and done well, the movie, not so much.

Once you write the label--novel--that categorizes whatever inside as fiction. Memoirs aren't supposed to be fiction but we've all heard of the so called gang girl tell-all whose rough life was pretty much cobbled together from several other person's experiences. Same for that asshat plugged on Oprah a couple of years ago with his drugs and doom dreck manufactured for a better read.

They all whine: 'That's the way I remember it' yeah, right, uh huh.

No one wants Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm unless Becca's trapped by a psycho adoptive family in a hovel, suffers horrible abuse for decades and nearly dies after ups and downs that would have felled a Hercules or a Xena.

The above fantasy doesn't sell nearly as well as 'true lies'. Truth stranger than fiction brings in the big bucks for publishers, it gets better press, and it makes the writer more money.

Taking a true story and changing names, appearance, job, hobbies, places, those details are legit changes. While someone may say: so&so is like me, if enough changes are there--the person complaining has no case.

Of course you could write fiction in the first person. Why not?

Stephania said:

She's writing it as a memoir. The character is telling her story about years in an affair with a couple of men in power. She's more or less using her life as a guide changing situations, names (of course) etc.. Instead of writing an autobiography, she said she felt this way she can in a way tell her story through a character and make changes to keep it fiction.

I just didn't think you could do that. I don't know why, but it doesn't seem right.

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That's what "inspired by true events" means. Sort of like how the movie Titanic was based on the sinking of the Titanic, but as far as I know there was no Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio floating on the driftwood in real life.
She's probably just loosely relating her character's experiences to her own experiences... When you read a fictional novel, for all you know the author could have experienced any number of the story's events in one way or another. And they probably have.

People say 'write about what you know' and that's exactly what she's doing. Providing the characters and scenes are loosely based on reality, then some authors have done that and it's not illegal or wrong (providing names have been changed, obviously).

As for first person, a lot of fiction is first person.

This is a good example.

The Devil Wears Prada is written in the first person and the author worked for a fashion magazine. However, the events and characters are fictious (although the media believed it was real), but inspired by her life and stories her friends told her.