Bookwriters And Novelists Forum Do your characters imitate peo..

When you are writing a story, do you make character who emulate real-life counterparts, or do you just make the personalities yourself? I tend to do a bit of both, generally more to the latter, but how about you? Do the characters imitate the best qualities of their counterparts, the worst, or a mixture?

Mine do, at least sometimes.  It helps to flesh out a character if you have a real life experience to inform you.  It's not necessary, but especially when I'm writing a character that is intrinsically different from myself, it's nice to have a reference point to help write that character realistically.

Settings work the same way for me.  It helps to really see and experience something before you describe it.  In person is great, but the Discovery channel can work wonders too!

As long as your imagination is still the key component of the character or setting, then drawing in a little real life to give it some substance can be really cool!

I have one story (which I've forgotten a bit recently) in which I deliberately name characters after my friends, maybe adding comedy traits that match them - I ask their permission first, dw!
Otherwise, they are all created from scratch (although I'm begining to think the hero/heroine always turns out either like my ideal partner, or my ideal self!)

My characters are invariably composites of real people. I go to some length talking to people and getting to know their traits and idiosyncrasies. Just lately I have started to integrate animal character components into some of my main players. In the novel I am working on now I have placed the souls of a cat, a dog, a flea, an alien, a tramp and a CIA agent into the bodies of five adult nuns and a caretaker living in a convent. Their alien instincts and attitudes I have kept largely intact. The story is called "The Scam" and I am posting it here for those of you that want to have a look. So far I have about 20.000 words typed up and a further 60,000 or so in longhand that I will transcribe over the coming days. The boring part of writing. I find it impossible to create a story on my laptop, I write everything in longhand first using a fountain pen. (Yes I am a dinosaur) Having the machine between me and my work irritates me and stifles my creative flow. Horses for courses I guess.

Hans von Lieven

It actually varies for me, sometimes it will reflect some of my friends or family. Mainly though I find myself imitating people I see on TV like Dick Winters from Band of Brothers, I will kinda do a little imitation of him in some characters becuase that series is a mayjor insperation to me.

I make up my characters. But my recent book Ash to Ash I accidentally made the husband character my boyfriend without even realizing it lol

My books are based in real events so the characters do tend to reflect the people involved. If they didn't act and react the way they do, maybe some of what transpires wouldn't have.

My characters imitate me, my friends, and my family. Then, they tend to be somewhat borrowed from each of my stories. I tend to have a set cast of personalities that I just put on characters with different names and appearances for each different story.

Only the villains in my stories.  Over the years I've run into people who have gone out of their way to make my life miserable, or just been downright rude or nasty because the know no better or think they can get away with it.  As the local law frowns on some of the fates I would like them to suffer I am giving them literary immortality instead.  It is a great way to have the last laugh on the d*********s one meets in life.