Topic #539
Have you modeled any of your characters on a real person?
How do you disguise them (if needed?)
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Writing alternative history, colloquially called alt fic, can be fraught with legal pitfalls. If you don’t trip on legal issues, you could trip and break your credibility. You have to be mindful of how and why you use real individuals as characters. I advise going with long dead individuals over recent historical figures. Also, if you model a character on someone in your personal life, don’t tell them that, if you value them in your life. I’ve done both.
You might say, well, who cares. I’m not writing my work to coddle anyone. That’s fine. Be prepared for the fallout is all that I am really saying. Be sure you cover yourself to avoid legal suits or any other difficulties that may arise. Even when you tell someone in your life that they show up in your book, they will remain judge and jury of how you depicted them. You can’t predict how that will go, even if they are flattered by knowing this. Once they read it, you may be in the dog house there forward. Don’t be surprised. There are hundreds of authors out there who have talked about how that goes. Sitcoms have made episodes. Cinema has mentioned it. Write what you know carefully!
In my historical drama, I have included long deceased historical figures. The events of the book take place during a tumultuous historic event that changed my country forever. It still haunts us and we still have yet to grapple with all the pieces. The events that followed were touched by its ripples. Today, even, we are touched by its ripples. An important tale.
Those figures, however, don’t take too much part in the drama. They are there like set dressing. Their actions can catalyze the events throughout the story that affect the characters. In addition, I am mindful of the history and take care to portray them as accurately as possible, without getting alternative to the point of absurdity. My whole point was to immerse the characters into actual history. Thus, it’s key that I respect everything as it happened and was.
Likewise, my spy thriller follows the same formulas. This was difficult. We’re talking Nazis. How do you separate your horror, grief, and anger for what they did from maintaining the accuracy? For me, it was about portraying them accurately as not to give them one inch in which to redeem themselves. The research was taxing, in that it revealed how very human they are. However, this has prepared me for current days and watching others realize that horrible people are as nuanced as every other person. I truly wish they were just monsters with no gray areas to mask them. We’d identify them quickly and save so many from them.
Writing that dark story paved the way for how I was able to handle my dark paranormal fantasy. It taught me how to respect other cultures while carefully weaving links between them to create a fictional realm. The most difficult part was having the home world of the heroes being called Zion. As this book posits that we all hail from a parallel universe we barely remember, and parts and pieces (including language–words) comes through with us, I went through picking words that held an essence of memorability.
Well, that’s very perspective based.
To choose this name, I lined up multiple terms for heaven through multiple theologies and cultures. I considered them for ease of remembering, age, and sound. There wasn’t any nefarious favoritism toward them. Absolutely, literary analysis could write for days about the meanings of place names, the clashes they may echo, and bias. To this, I would remind others, that while I use an Islamic term for Hell, which is a fantastic word, there is no support of Zionism here. Islam has a word for their hell world. I did not say hell was for Islam. Regions in Jahannam carry Greek names. Am I also saying the Greeks are bad? Maybe it is more suitable to say that, having suffered so much, they know what hell is? Likewise, having suffered so much, Judaism knows heaven. Let’s not support such division.
By the way, the commander of Walhall in Zion is based on Persian culture. Memory is unreliable. Words change ownership in the human realm. Events and the zeitgeist change how we view history and words. For instance, it’s seems to be the thing to hate on a group of people because of their governments. I’d be screwing myself if I backed such ideas. Let’s be honest, the USA isn’t doing well out there right now.
The Afterlife in Different Cultures: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism
Ark Historia
A main idea threading through the series is that we misremember a lot and thus mischaracterize things where we are now. We have developed a language apart from the home realm, so many languages over time, cherry picking things and changing their meanings. Keeping with the above example, you find that the bad guys are seeking reentry into Zion, and therefore they’re more like Zionists, trying to open that door through violence and force. On the other side, all of the peoples of the universe in which humans find themselves are trying to stop that and build peace. They want to maintain the separation, as it serves the point of the plane (our universe) existing at all.
A lot of misunderstanding, misinterpretation of texts and memories, goes on between the characters. Of course I added to this tumultuous text by basing a lot on personal experiences and individuals who have come in and out of my life. Some are composites, some are pieces, and some might be whole. The book is based on dreams I have had. Therefore, they hold a lot of symbolism or representative details.
You’ll find some real people alluded to in the work, too. I kept to references because the book is weighty enough! It deals with such serious things, like domestic violence, bigotry, and world events. Another pile of bricks would have made it so heavy. Besides, lessons learned from the historical work: you don’t need to put them there at all. Alluding for effect felt a bit lazy. Why bother? For instance, mentioning Malcolm X at the Parker House was more of a sidebar random fact that has not come up again. Could it come in a later sequel? Perhaps I have been laying the ground work. I don’t know yet. In hindsight, it just felt pointless when I started the series, so I avoided being so pointless.
As mentioned above, compositing behaviors into a character is the best way I have found to include everything that I needed. Face it, we are shaped daily into the humans we presently are by hundreds of interactions with known and unknown other individuals. To write them all in the book would be a confusing and arduous task. Instead, if it felt formative enough, the instigators get melded, packing them into fewer and fewer people. They stay or go as needed.
Take note that it is useful, if you can have a recurring character that can be that person who does the things instead of creating new flats for each. That said, once they have done their part, they often part ways. This break in connection fully symbolizes the loss of their influence. That doesn’t necessarily mean that person is gone from my real life. Death or parting, therefore, becomes (not less serious) a break from.
Remember, in the series, death is just a transition from one plane of existence into another, and the characters can move around. Going to Oblivion is the unmaking that would result in never returning, and none of the characters know for certain that that is the end for them. All they know is, a negative entity returns no more to any realm from there, that they have recognized. Unmade, perhaps they go back to Nirvana to start over? In a way, isn’t that the same as ceasing to exist, to be unmade so wholly you are not recognizable?
With that heavy thought, please click on the links below to see how the other authors answer this fantastic question. I am curious to learn how they navigate this potentially sticky situation. Don’t forget to subscribe before you go (top right). The hop will arrive every Friday to your inbox without having to hunt for us. See you next time! Thank you for stopping in and spending a moment to read my thoughts.
