Recently a friend told me that someone we both used to work
with refused to read my books. When my
friend asked this person why, he said it was because he was afraid he’d be in
them. And not in a good way!
I was pretty surprised to hear this. Partially because this person is very nice,
and has nothing to fear if someone ever decided to write about him. But mainly because I don’t usually “put” people in
books! Characters show up, or are
created, and they generally seem to be people in their own right, with their
own history, quirks, faults, and needs.
It got me thinking about what parts of real life show up in my
stories. And I realized that my new
book, More Than a Rancher, has a lot of real life in it, but it’s the experiences I have in life that make
their way into my stories, a lot more than the people I meet.
For example, my heroine is a ballroom dance teacher, an
experience I briefly had, but she teaches all the dances, while I just stuck to Lindy Hop and other dances from the forties. She competes, while I was never that
good!
My hero has a little brother who is fourteen years old. I was a junior high administrator and loved
working with young teenagers. But is
Paul based on any one student? Absolutely
not. It’s more the essence of Paul, the
enthusiasm, the passion for his dreams, the surprising bits of wisdom and the
retreats into sullen silence or juvenile humor, that comes from the kids I
knew.
And both my hero and heroine struggle with the impact of
alcoholism in their lives, albeit in different ways. I grew up living with an alcoholic, but she’s
not in this book. But what I know about
the disease, and the frustrations and pain of watching someone struggle with
it, did find its way into the story.
I told my friend to please reassure our former colleague
that he is in no danger of being put in one of my books. And then another thought occurred to me. If
people think they might be in my books, do they wonder if I am there too? Do they think that I have met these
incredible cowboys, ridden the mountains with them, and experienced all the
romance and passion that I write about?
How wonderful!
How would you feel if someone made you a character in their book? And if you are a writer, have you ever based a character on a person that you know? Do you put real people in your books?