By cloning here, I mean using traits of friends or family as part of your characters’ personalities. It’s a touchy thing, for sure!
I wrote a blog post years ago about five of us friends working at a company in New Jersey. I felt so close to these women—they were work sisters. One of the group died of cancer at a very young age and I wrote about how I’d first met them (they were already a working team when I joined). My first impressions were of “a blonde,” a “woman with big hair and pictures painted on her nails,” and “an aloof woman who I thought hated me.” That was exactly how I pictured them when we first met. I didn’t know them. I didn’t yet know how smart, caring, beautiful they all were, inside and out. That wasn’t the point of the blog post, either, but when they read it and responded, I had to see the post from their perspective. One woman wrote and asked was her hair really that big? Another asked “So I guess I’m the aloof one?” I felt terrible!
Now granted, a blog post isn’t the same as using friends as a basis for a book character, but the result can be the same. I have a friend whose friends asked her to make them characters in one of her books. She used different 
names but some physical and personality features as secondary characters, and two out of three were angry over how she’d portrayed them. They didn’t like the parts in the book she assigned them, didn’t like how she portrayed their personalities, didn’t like… Well, you get the picture.
Another friend told me that she based a cheater and womanizer on a former boyfriend and that he would recognize himself immediately. I advised her against going that route! No need making enemies on purpose when life throws enough roadblocks our way to begin with.
In Passionate Destiny, I broke that rule. I used a former boss as the basis for Margaret. If he read the book (which I’m certain he did not), he would have recognized himself in a skinny minute. The difference is, he would have laughed! He was the nicest man in the world, but he did have a snobbish side and he wasn’t afraid to show it. That’s what I drew on for Margaret as she moved from a professorship at a New Jersey college to rural Virginia, where people have to pump their own gas and folks chat at the grocery check-out counter. So maybe the trick in having characters resemble friends or family is to be sure they have the temperament to laugh at themselves.
We all view people around us—their looks, their quirks, their actions—as fodder for rich characterization for our books. We can’t help it! But when it comes to those closest to us, maybe have a talk about what you have planned before writing.
Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.
Dee
Only a Good Man Will Do: Seriously ambitious man seeks woman to encourage his goals, support his (hopeful) position as Headmaster of Westover Academy, and be purer than Caesar’s wife. Good luck with that!
Naval Maneuvers: When a woman requires an earth-shattering crush of pleasure to carry her away, she can’t do better than to call on the US Navy. Sorry, Marines!
Thanks to those scholars and writers with their quills and artists with brushes, we have priceless records of empires and monarchs, exploration of unknown continents, heroes and traitors and medical breakthroughs. The Magna Carta is an excellent example of history with us today.
was poverty, a rigid class system, bigotry and ruthless punishments for petty crimes. An Irish ancestor of mine was transported in chains to Van Diemen’s Land penal colony (now Tasmania, Australia). The thirteen-thousand-mile journey, with appalling food and conditions, took over three months. Her crime was stealing fifteen shillings. Granted, it was a lot of money then and the penalty of fifteen years transportation was better than a public hanging.
While writing 
brought home to rest in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Australian War Memorial.
Australian War Memorial with that query. Both very kindly replied that yes it was possible, although the chances of being caught were high and the penalty very harsh. Neither would admit it did happen but it was good enough for me to begin writing my third book, 
Is this her tummy, or my tummy. Okay. No contest. I vote for MY tummy.
thought that if I could afford it, I’d rent a cottage in the moors around Inverness and spend a summer writing. That’s my fantasy vacation! It hasn’t come about but I fill my fantasies by reading books in Scottish settings.
train in Waverley Station in Edinburgh I felt as though I’d come home. Maybe I’d lived there before. The city called to me. I wandered at will and had a great time and met some fantastic people. I also loved the area around Loch Ness (so beautiful!), and Stirling and Balquhidder are gorgeous. Skye had light like I’d never seen, and I could spend a week there just looking out over the sea.
back there again. I haven’t given up hope!
Especially in this season, there is much to be grateful for. There is so much, in fact, how does one limit it to a few? Don’t know… But I’m going to try.
and I learned things I’ve never forgotten. It planted my feet firmly on the ground and centered me. Plus, it gave me a perspective on everything in life since. As hubby says, once you’ve started to jackknife coming down Donner Pass in a blizzard, the meaning of “stress” changes forever more.
experience things most people have not. I’ve been able to write. I’ve enjoyed both working and not working. I’ve been blessed, totally and sincerely. It’s such a wonderful feeling!
I have to say, I am not a very good cook and I’ve become worse since being married. My family used lots of seasoning, so at one time I knew what I was doing with them. But Jack likes no seasoning—not spices, herbs, salt, or pepper. Nothing. He says he likes the taste of food as it is meant to be tasted. So I’ve learned to eat food the same way and that somewhat limits what one can do in the way of creativity. Consequently, my culinary acumen has suffered. I do still have a few dishes I cook and Jack eats them or he fixes a sandwich. (Okay, that’s not accurate. I fix his sandwich.) One of my favorite comfort foods is goulash, or what some call hamburger and macaroni.
with a slice of crusty bread and maybe a salad. Doesn’t matter—it takes me back to my childhood. Funny thing. Years ago when I first started making goulash for Jack and me, it didn’t taste the same as when Mom made it. I asked her why and after relaying how I made it, she asked when I added the secret ingredient. Once I started that, the flavors were the taste of home. See if you can spot the secret ingredient.
heritage. At any rate, this is not a difficult recipe but for some reason, we only had it for holidays and other special dates like birthdays throughout my years of living at home.
I hope you love this dish! It’s got childhood written all over it, though it’s my childhood, not yours. Maybe you’ll want to adopt it, though.
Next spring, hubby Jack and I will be married 46 years. Considering that we dated for nearly seven years before that and had met two years prior to dating, we’ve known each other, dated, and been married almost 55 years. When I say it feels like forever, you can understand what I mean. When I say that it feels like yesterday maybe you’ll know what I mean, too. When we were falling in love, saying we’d be together forever sounded so easy. Hahahahaha! How naive! It hasn’t all been easy but it’s all been worthwhile, and made easier by being able to laugh, both at ourselves and with each other.
Mexico once, for a harried, scary trip (do they have the concept of stop signs down? Not that I could tell.). For almost eight years, we were hardly apart except to go to the bathrooms, living in an 8 x 8 foot truck cab. There were times I wanted to murder Jack but I never considered divorce. (I’m sure he never wanted to murder me—I was the epitome of the perfect traveling companion.) And if you’re prone to divorce at all, driving a truck together will get you there faster than a CHP officer can write a speeding ticket. Those were great days!
After not graduating and leaving Virginia Military Academy in his junior year, Jack went back to school at age 63. Far from not graduating, he got his diploma and graduated summa cum laude! I’m so proud of him.
