Whats your most favorite/cruelest thing you've done in writing, based on personal exp

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

I know that as writers we all draw a little bit from our past and present when we structure our stories.

Some of us name characters after people we know. Some of us actually fashion characters after people we know. Some of us torture the bullies in our novels that we have no recourse against in real life.

My question is, whats the coolest/funniest/cruelest thing you've done in your novel, with regards to a personal experience?

I'll start:

Theres this one girl I know who's very pretty. (I hated her from the moment I met her and could tell she was a self absorbed c**t and told my wife so)

But for the longest time, little miss pretty had everyone drinking her coolaid. The girls loved having a hot friend and getting free drinks, etc etc.

The coolaid ran out eventually though and as everyone got to know her she was less and less liked. At this point she's lost her job at the bar she worked at and I don't know of any friends she still has.

Turns out this girl was pretty slutty. (Real shocker) She was having an affair with a married man. She has a 9 year old single daughter and she engages quite often in one night stands.

None of that is too bad right? Except she has herpes. She doesn't tell anyone, and on her one night stands she actually thinks its funny that the "pathetic little navy boys" might end up getting herpes because after all they're usually cheating on their wives anyway.

So I wrote this character into my book as a sexy, vapid young woman. (No kid though, and I wrote her younger)

Eventually my MC's campsite is raided and the men are all killed and the women are enslaved for sex. When they get her back to the slave camp they discover she has herpes and they execute her in front of everyone because she has no worth whatsoever outside of her body, and she's damaged goods.

I'm a cruel bastard huh?

So what's your "revenge via writing" story?

DeleyanLee · Aug 21, 2009

This is a book in progress, so I haven't actually had my vengance yet, but it will come.

My ex-husband is completely ego-centric. He just cannot, literally cannot, realize that the world does not revolve around his preferences and desires. (After 19 years, he still doesn't understand why I divorced him--after all, he was enjoying his computer time while the two-year-old kid was playing outside. It wasn't his fault that she'd wandered out of the yard when he finally remember to call her in after dark and then he had to waste his evening looking for her before I got home from work.)

He was (is) a complete pack rat, and if that wasn't enough, he was a garbage picker. I got into the habit of timing the garbage pick-up so our bags weren't out there more than about 7 nanoseconds or he'd bring them back in--along with anything from the neighbors that looked interesting.

And I won't go into how cluttered/dirty the house was because of all this stuff. I'll just illustrate it with the fact that it took me 2 weeks to clean out his side of the bedroom after I'd kicked him out and filled a dumpster doing it.

That kind of ego-centric is the closest thing to real evil I've personally encountered, so he's Jack the Ripper in my Fantasy retelling.

I'm really looking forward to ol' Saucy Jack getting his at the end of the book, lemme tell you.

MsGneiss · Aug 21, 2009

lucidzfl said:
I know that as writers we all draw a little bit from our past and present when we structure our stories.

Some of us name characters after people we know. Some of us actually fashion characters after people we know. Some of us torture the bullies in our novels that we have no recourse against in real life.

My question is, whats the coolest/funniest/cruelest thing you've done in your novel, with regards to a personal experience?

I'll start:

Theres this one girl I know who's very pretty. (I hated her from the moment I met her and could tell she was a self absorbed c**t and told my wife so)

But for the longest time, little miss pretty had everyone drinking her coolaid. The girls loved having a hot friend and getting free drinks, etc etc.

The coolaid ran out eventually though and as everyone got to know her she was less and less liked. At this point she's lost her job at the bar she worked at and I don't know of any friends she still has.

Turns out this girl was pretty slutty. (Real shocker) She was having an affair with a married man. She has a 9 year old single daughter and she engages quite often in one night stands.

None of that is too bad right? Except she has herpes. She doesn't tell anyone, and on her one night stands she actually thinks its funny that the "pathetic little navy boys" might end up getting herpes because after all they're usually cheating on their wives anyway.

So I wrote this character into my book as a sexy, vapid young woman. (No kid though, and I wrote her younger)

Eventually my MC's campsite is raided and the men are all killed and the women are enslaved for sex. When they get her back to the slave camp they discover she has herpes and they execute her in front of everyone because she has no worth whatsoever outside of her body, and she's damaged goods.

I'm a cruel bastard huh?

So what's your "revenge via writing" story?

Jebus, man. I try not to avenge real life people via my characters, for fear of sounding too, uh, psychotic... or losing credibility and objectivity. I think if you do that, you run a real danger of writing a thinly disguised rant, and nobody wants to read that. I think the worst I've done along those lines was have characters come back with clever retorts that I would've otherwise been too slow to say in similar situations.

scarletpeaches · Aug 21, 2009

I've done this with my trunked novels, but the ones I'm proud of and plan to submit later this year? They're all from my imagination. No real people in them at all...

BenPanced · Aug 21, 2009

sleepsheep said:
Jebus, man. I try not to avenge real life people via my characters, for fear of sounding too, uh, psychotic... or losing credibility and objectivity. I think if you do that, you run a real danger of writing a thinly disguised rant, and nobody wants to read that. I think the worst I've done along those lines was have characters come back with clever retorts that I would've otherwise been too slow to say in similar situations.

And thinly disguised rants can come back to haunt you in the form of lawsuits.

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

sleepsheep said:
Jebus, man. I try not to avenge real life people via my characters, for fear of sounding too, uh, psychotic... or losing credibility and objectivity. I think if you do that, you run a real danger of writing a thinly disguised rant, and nobody wants to read that. I think the worst I've done along those lines was have characters come back with clever retorts that I would've otherwise been too slow to say in similar situations.

lol. I don't think it comes off as a rant. Her death happens off screen. In fact, after Mitch sees the two women loaded into the trailer, its another 100 pages before he finally finds his wife and asks what happened to the other woman. She responds, "They found out she had herpes and killed her, said she was worthless as a slave."

I tend to write people around me, for better or for worse. I just told my co-worker in the office that I killed his character last night.

I have known since the start that this one person had to die. And I've been joking with him about it for weeks.

This guy is too awesome NOT to write about though. He's 6 foot 5 and 250 lbs and NOT fat. He's like a football player but has the sweetest disposition of anyone you've ever met. Seriously, got a perma-grin.

I wrote his character in the book almost exactly like him in real life, and he's a great character. (He's a tertiary character though, not main or even secondary.)

Thats just an example though. I love filling people into blank spots. And they seem to get a kick out of being written about. "Write me dying really cool man!"

scarletpeaches · Aug 21, 2009

Come on, who's gonna sue lucidzfl and stand up in court saying, "Hey, man - I'm the chick with herpes and you've totally ruined my reputation!"

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
Come on, who's gonna sue lucidzfl and stand up in court saying, "Hey, man - I'm the chick with herpes and you've totally ruined my reputation!"

ROFL! Her name is changed, the character is 7 years younger than the real girl and she doesn't have a kid. It'd be pretty godamn hard to pick out who it is.

That said I also have like 10 people I know with herpes, so it'd have to be a class action law suit or something.

scarletpeaches · Aug 21, 2009

lucidzfl said:
ROFL! Her name is changed, the character is 7 years younger than the real girl and she doesn't have a kid. It'd be pretty godamn hard to pick out who it is.

That said I also have like 10 people I know with herpes, so it'd have to be a class action law suit or something.

I thought I mixed with a bad crowd.

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
I thought I mixed with a bad crowd.

haha.

From the internet:
One in five Americans have genital herpes (yet at least 80 percent of those with herpes are unaware they have it).

I've heard that in populous areas its 1 in 4 or worse. Most people just aren't honest about it.

A girl I know who posts on facebook recently got pregnant. She was listing medications for stuff she's taking and said, "Oh and I can't take xyz any more because it'll interact with the meds i'm taking for this."

Her boyfriend (who knocked her up) looked up that medication and goes "Holy fuck thats for herpes"

She's like, "Whoops, I didnt tell you? My bad"

Ellefire · Aug 21, 2009

Her boyfriend (who knocked her up) looked up that medication and goes "Holy fuck thats for herpes"

She's like, "Whoops, I didnt tell you? My bad"

That's NASTY!

I don't usually put real people in my novels but someone annoyed me recently and I did include him in 'Asylum' , except he seems to have morphed into 'generic fat guy with pervy attitude' so you can't tell he's the **** who irked me.
When I told a forum I usually go on I was writing a zombie novel, someone asked if they could be in it. I replied yes, which zombie would he like to be? I could have killed the whole forum off that way! Muhahaha

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

Ellefire said:
That's NASTY!

I don't usually put real people in my novels but someone annoyed me recently and I did include him in 'Asylum' , except he seems to have morphed into 'generic fat guy with pervy attitude' so you can't tell he's the **** who irked me.
When I told a forum I usually go on I was writing a zombie novel, someone asked if they could be in it. I replied yes, which zombie would he like to be? I could have killed the whole forum off that way! Muhahaha

Nice. I feel like theres something cathartic about righting the wrongs with your writing.

No one ever has to know that "that" person is "that character". But YOU know, and that makes it sweet.

Maybe I never grew up and I'm still 11 years old and writing about getting back at the bullies.

BenPanced · Aug 21, 2009

Oh, I've just got a bad feeling in general about this thread...

scarletpeaches · Aug 21, 2009

lucidzfl said:
Nice. I feel like theres something cathartic about righting the wrongs with your writing.

No one ever has to know that "that" person is "that character". But YOU know, and that makes it sweet.

Maybe I never grew up and I'm still 11 years old and writing about getting back at the bullies.

I seriously think this thread is interesting. All herpes aside.

But I think you nailed it, here. It's about righting (writing?) the wrongs. Bringing about fictional justice that was denied you in real life.

After all - fiction has to make sense. Real life rarely does.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using real people. It never did Jackie Collins any harm and let's face it, all she does is change the names.

In the last book of hers I read there was a Hollywood golden boy who left his wife for a femme fatale Oscar winner who collected adopted children and worked part-time for the UN.

Sound familiar?

Oh, and the ex-wife was clingy, needy and desperate for a new boyfriend to show the husband she was still in love with that she could move on without him.

Definitely sound familiar, right?

As long as you don't slander a real person, or bring about loss of reputation/earnings, then you should be cool. It's still an area in which you need to be careful, but it's definitely not impossible.

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
I seriously think this thread is interesting. All herpes aside.

But I think you nailed it, here. It's about righting (writing?) the wrongs. Bringing about fictional justice that was denied you in real life.

After all - fiction has to make sense. Real life rarely does.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using real people. It never did Jackie Collins any harm and let's face it, all she does is change the names.

In the last book of hers I read there was a Hollywood golden boy who left his wife for a femme fatale Oscar winner who collected adopted children and worked part-time for the UN.

Sound familiar?

Oh, and the ex-wife was clingy, needy and desperate for a new boyfriend to show the husband she was still in love with that she could move on without him.

Definitely sound familiar, right?

As long as you don't slander a real person, or bring about loss of reputation/earnings, then you should be cool. It's still an area in which you need to be careful, but it's definitely not impossible.

Lumbering gentle giant.
Vacuous self important jerk girl
Tall handsome, popular guy turned overweight, slovenly broke alone dude?

These are archetypes, not characters. I see nothing wrong with making them the base of a character.

One of my characters was based on a car dealer I knew. At the beginning he was just a caricature of the man I knew in real life. But the dark dark road he took me on was a total surprise to me. The end result is nothing like the reality.

backslashbaby · Aug 21, 2009

Mine are composites. I poke fun of a lot in my WIP, and yes, some of the most outragous ideas come from things I've known folks to really do/say/believe.

Part of my motive for writing it is because some things are just so bizarre in real life, I love exploring that fictionally.

Real examples? The simplest is probably an Ex I had that could argue the most ridiculous things. I took Spanish all my life, practically, and he had one year of it - he started an argument with me about Gato not meaning cat. That story isn't in there, but the general stubborness/idiocy is

Parametric · Aug 21, 2009

I like to get my revenge, not on people, but on places. I love the way urban fantasy allows me to use real places as setting. And then bitch about them. :tongue

Northampton is particularly suffering at the moment.

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

backslashbaby said:
Mine are composites. I poke fun of a lot in my WIP, and yes, some of the most outragous ideas come from things I've known folks to really do/say/believe.

Part of my motive for writing it is because some things are just so bizarre in real life, I love exploring that fictionally.

Real examples? The simplest is probably an Ex I had that could argue the most ridiculous things. I took Spanish all my life, practically, and he had one year of it - he started an argument with me about Gato not meaning cat. That story isn't in there, but the general stubborness/idiocy is

Truth really is stranger than fiction. We all crib from places we've been, things we've seen. Why not people we've met?

I have yet to tackle addiction or life-spiral in any of my books yet, but I could write an entire novel just about one co-worker of mine. I wouldn't have the first hand knowledge of seeing someone just completely lose their shit without seeing this guy. Sadly, he's an inspiration for all the wrong reasons. Also, a goldmine worth of first hand insight into that.

I would be remiss NOT to use him in one of my future books. Though he's soul crushingly depressing and I don't typically write depressing.

MsGneiss · Aug 21, 2009

lucidzfl said:
"They found out she had herpes and killed her, said she was worthless as a slave."

Couldn't they use her to clean or cook or do other activities that don't easily lend themselves to herpes transmission. I imagine there's plenty of manual labor to be done in your post-apocalyptic world.

lucidzfl said:
One in five Americans have genital herpes (yet at least 80 percent of those with herpes are unaware they have it).

I've heard that in populous areas its 1 in 4 or worse. Most people just aren't honest about it.

The bad guys in your book are going to be killing a lot of people then, eh?

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

sleepsheep said:
Couldn't they use her to clean or cook or do other activities that don't easily lend themselves to herpes transmission. I imagine there's plenty of manual labor to be done in your post-apocalyptic world.

These are high end slavers only. To give you an idea of what they deal in, a black man, who had a phd and could cook and clean, got auctioned off for 400 rounds of ammunition.

The 25 year old blonde woman got 40,000 rounds of ammunition. (ALthough it was a bidding war.)

They simply don't have the space or time to deal with cheap goods.

sleepsheep said:
The bad guys in your book are going to be killing a lot of people then, eh?

The refugee camp had about 20 people. They killed all but 2. They were going to spare the gentle giant but he lost it when they killed his wife so they had to put him down.

MsGneiss · Aug 21, 2009

lucidzfl said:
These are high end slavers only. To give you an idea of what they deal in, a black man, who had a phd and could cook and clean, got auctioned off for 400 rounds of ammunition.

The 25 year old blonde woman got 40,000 rounds of ammunition. (ALthough it was a bidding war.)

They simply don't have the space or time to deal with cheap goods.

It seems economically prudent to expand their business to the cheap goods as well, ya know, seeing how it's the end of the world and all. Dang. Now I want to watch Mad Max. Or Waterworld. Double dang.

KTC · Aug 21, 2009

I did it with a play. Well, I didn't really use personal stuff...I fashioned one of the characters out of a person I once knew in real life. The play took place in the basement of a haunted castle on a Friday the 13th. The audience moved about from one play to another. I didn't like the person I fashioned the one character after...and I suppose I took it out on the character in the play. The thing is...the poor actress who played the character had to be locked in a cramped spooky space in the haunted castle...I believe it was all cob-webby too. ack. She probably hates me.

It was a comedy...the audience bust a gut laughing over the predicaments of my poor character. The actress? Probably not so much. It wasn't her fault...the character and the character cutting opportunity arose...and I took advantage.

aadams73 · Aug 21, 2009

sleepsheep said:
Jebus, man. I try not to avenge real life people via my characters, for fear of sounding too, uh, psychotic... or losing credibility and objectivity.

This. There are people I wouldn't cross the road to piss on if they were on fire, but I'm not putting them in my books. They're just not that important to me. I stay as far away from those people as possible.

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

sleepsheep said:
It seems economically prudent to expand their business to the cheap goods as well, ya know, seeing how it's the end of the world and all. Dang. Now I want to watch Mad Max. Or Waterworld. Double dang.

There are slavers who specialize in cheap goods don't get me wrong. These SPECIFIC slavers work on spec. IE: A wealthy client says, "I need a blonde woman, aged 25-30, who is extremely attractive" The slaver goes out looking for just that. The trailer they have behind their truck is a fricking uhaul 2 wheeler. You can only fit 2-3 people in there if they are hunched over and CRAMMED in. Gas is farking HARD to get so they aren't going to get a bigger truck. Hence, they literally don't have the space to transport more than 2 or 3 people at all.

But if you think about it, every business is the same way.

Cocaine dealers don't bother with weed.

People who sell porsches don't bother with hyundais.

lucidzfl · Aug 21, 2009

aadams73 said:
This. There are people I wouldn't cross the road to piss on if they were on fire, but I'm not putting them in my books. They're just not that important to me. I stay as far away from those people as possible.

Interesting. People are falling on different sides of the fence. I assumed everyone wrote people that they knew.

Don't get me wrong. The herpes check doesn't affect my life at all. None of my friends talk to her any more, and I never gave her the time of day anyway.

My wife loves the fact that I wrote her into the story though and she said she cannot wait to read that part.

Whats your most favorite/cruelest thing you've done in writing, based on personal exp

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