Fictional companies/employers - what can you get away with?

SpeckyBrunette · Dec 27, 2007

Hey everyone - hope you all had a nice Christmas! I bet I'm not the only one delighted at the prospect of guilt-free chocolate and alcohol for a few more days.

Anyway, I have a question relating to fictional companies in novels and figured I'd ask, especially seeing as a friend who's also writing a novel is wondering the same thing. Would someone care to help us out?

One of my books involves a main character working for a huge gaming company that creates one of the biggest fantasy-themed online RPGs (sound familiar?) Even though my company is fictional, has a different name and is based in England rather than America, a lot of people know which company I'm basing it on in the book (the book is chick-lit.)

In other novels I've noticed that people and companies (advertising, media etc) have been 'ripped off' for lack of a better term right now.

Would this be okay, or is it likely to get us into trouble later on when the book is complete?

PeeDee · Dec 27, 2007

Go for it.

Now, if you were actually having your character employed at Blizzard (since I assume nobody in their right minds would be implying LucasArts anymore), then you would have to be a little more careful.

But if they're employed by Winter Storm, the company behind the amazingly successful fantasy game Planet Of Crafty Wars, then I think you're fine.

HeronW · Dec 27, 2007

Changing the names to protect the innocent or guilty, and the locale of the business, street, product, all goes to making a more original plot.

jannawrites · Dec 27, 2007

HeronW said:
Changing the names to protect the innocent or guilty, and the locale of the business, street, product, all goes to making a more original plot.

And that's all that's needed to put it in your book, legally, too. Good luck!

scarletpeaches · Dec 27, 2007

I sure hope you can base a company on a real life one, as that's EXACTLY what I'm planning to do!

narnia · Dec 27, 2007

By some strange coincidence, my MC has the same exact job that I do!

This worked out fine until a few weeks ago at a company after hours party. A co-worker told the head of our division that I was working on my first novel. He offered to post an article on the company intranet when it gets published (I know, that should say 'if' but I am determined! :tongue

) to give me a little exposure. That would be an awesome thing since our company employs ~ 225,000 people worldwide. The next day I changed the type of the company.

Hey, you never know! :Shrug:

ACEnders · Dec 27, 2007

Haven't you ever seen Law and Order? lol - they always make up names for things that we all know what they're really talking about. Like Craig's List was like Dan's List...something like that. They've done it with Napster, heck they did it with Anna Nicole Smith...exact same story but in NY and with made up characters!

Charlie Horse · Dec 27, 2007

That's why they invented the disclaimer neatly placed at the beginning of the book. Works quite well for these situations.

ORION · Dec 27, 2007

I didn't worry about changing any of the real names - my agent said don't bother. That came during the copyediting phase and it was done all at once with the publisher. For example I used the name of a bank that was real so when the copyeditor asked me to change it to a fake one I just looked in the Everett yellow pages and changed "mutual" to "federal"...
Since my brother in law had Down syndrome we made sure the protagonist's name was in no way similar... but people still think Perry is based on a real person.
Yes the front of the book has a disclaimer.

Fictional companies/employers - what can you get away with?

SpeckyBrunette

PeeDee

Where's my tea, please...?

HeronW

Down Under Fan

jannawrites

no, really

scarletpeaches

narnia

ACEnders

Self-Banned

Charlie Horse

Speaking in metaphors

ORION

Sailed away years ago