# Writer ticks off people he knows by writing about them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2008, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892 "2008-03-19T02:51:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/21 "2008-03-19T17:33:56Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] On a quick scan of the thread I don’t see any mention of Grace Metalious, so, Grace Metalious. She wrote “Peyton Place” and the people of her home town felt it cut too close to home. Her experiences following the book’s publication and the townsfolks’ reaction form the basis of the sequel “Return to Peyton Place.” [/QUOTE] Post #4. (I’m just mentioning it because I always feel a bit slighted when my posts are missed and somebody else comes along with the same info later. I know you didn’t do it on purpose Otto, just sayin’) ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/22 "2008-03-19T17:46:53Z")
[QUOTE=photopat] Post #4. (I’m just mentioning it because I always feel a bit slighted when my posts are missed and somebody else comes along with the same info later. I know you didn’t do it on purpose Otto, just sayin’) [/QUOTE] No worries; I hate it when people miss my posts too. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/23 "2008-03-19T17:50:31Z")
[QUOTE=Governor Quinn] It’s a case of alienating individuals rather than a community, but the chapters of _Answered Prayers_ published in Truman Capote’s lifetime managed to get him into trouble with those he had covered. [/QUOTE] That’s who I thought of. He was quite hurt when his “swans” (wealthy, lovely society NYC ladies), who felt betrayed, cut him off cold. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/24 "2008-03-19T17:51:43Z")
I think Sylvia Plath’s _The Bell Jar_ made a lot of people unhappy after it was published. She insisted that it was only very loosely based on actual events in her life, but I think a lot of critics reviewed as it if it were autobiographical. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/25 "2008-03-19T18:02:36Z")
This was an ongoing plot point in the TV series “NCIS,” where one of the characters (Tim) wrote a successful novel with the characters blatantly based on his co-workers. In real-life, it was done by Caroline Lockhart. She was one of the first female writers to have her stories published in a big east-coast U.S. newspaper with her real, female, name on the byline (Nellie Bly came first, I believe). Lockhart moved to Cody, Wyoming, where she wrote novels based directly on people she didn’t like. Her novels became bestsellers, and three of them were made into movies. “Lady Doc” was one example: Lockhart couldn’t get along with the female doctor in Cody, so she wrote a “fictional” book slamming the doctor and fueling a life-long feud. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/26 "2008-03-19T18:08:11Z")
I recently posted in Cafe Society the question of how the state of Hawaii reacted to Michener’s novel. A poster or two responded that a lot of islanders were pretty pissed off. He did a lot of probing about in sensitive areas of family, money and land ownership, and wrote about what he found. Michener then lived in the state, but found his welcome worn out enough that he had to move back to the mainland, and that some folks to this day still don’t like to hear his name. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/27 "2008-03-19T18:53:41Z")
There was the [recent case](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/22/books.france) of Pierre Jourde and his novel _Pays Perdu_. Having written a thinly disguised unflattering fictional portrait of his ancestral village in the Auvergne: > [@](#): > > In July 2005, when Jourde arrived with his family for a summer break, six villagers appeared outside his house shouting insults. Things turned violent, blows were exchanged and stones were thrown. Jourde’s 15-month-old baby was slightly hurt and his mixed-race daughters were called “dirty Arabs”. Jourde and his family locked themselves in their car and fled. They have never returned. Reactions were less extreme, but I understand that the inhabitants of Lübeck got angry when Thomas Mann published his (excellent) family saga _Buddenbrooks_, drawing on his own upbringing in the city. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/28 "2008-03-19T18:56:35Z")
The OP seems to equate basing characters on real people you know with writing a thinly disguised memoir. A great writer brings much more to a novel than a mere recounting of biographical incidents, but that doesn’t mean that good writing shouldn’t draw from life. [QUOTE=Governor Quinn] It’s a case of alienating individuals rather than a community, but the chapters of _Answered Prayers_ published in Truman Capote’s lifetime managed to get him into trouble with those he had covered. [/QUOTE] Incidentally, Capote was the model for one of the characters in **To Kill a Mockingbird** and didn’t seem to mind a bit. Harper Lee set the novel in a fictionalized version of her hometown and several of the characters are based directly on people she knew. TKAM is not usually considered hack work. Mark Twain based much of **Tom Sawyer** on his own childhood and people he knew. [QUOTE=Mark Twain] In the book I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but had as good a heart as ever any boy had. His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the only really independent person, boy or man in the community, and by consequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy and was envied by all the rest of us. We liked him; we enjoyed his society and as his society was forbidden us by our parents, the prohibition trebled and quadrupled its value. [/QUOTE] Blankenship became Huckleberry Finn, who reappeared in one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/29 "2008-03-19T19:02:06Z")
A cousin of Rebecca Wells told me that she was persona non grata among her family for _Little Altars Everywhere_, her first book and a much darker tale of mental illness, alcoholism, and child sexual abuse than any ya-ya sister could ever imagine. She redeemed herself and not coincidentally made a fortune by dressing up a lot of stories with prettiness and redemption in _The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/30 "2008-03-19T19:26:26Z")
Come to think of it, _Star Trek Voyager_ had an episode in which the EMH, who was an aspiring novelist, wrote a thinly-disguised account of life aboard ship that cast his shipmates in a pretty unflattering light. The EMH (a holographic “lifeform”) was puzzled when his shipmates were angry/hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/31 "2008-03-19T19:39:38Z")
Novelist Gertrude Atherton included a scathing portrayal of the Algonquin Round Table in her book “The Black Oxen.” I’ve not found a source though that discusses what if any reaction the Round Tablers had to it. Along the lines of the ST:V example, yonks ago a show called “Doctor Doctor” featured an episode in which one of the doctors in a small practice writes a novel using the other doctors as characters. Their reactions IIRC varied based on how flattering or unflattering the characters were. In the ST vein, there was that episode of Next Gen where Barkley created holodeck characters in the image of various of the crew, although not for purposes of producing a holo-novel. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/32 "2008-03-19T20:58:42Z")
[QUOTE=TWDuke] The OP seems to equate basing characters on real people you know with writing a thinly disguised memoir. [/QUOTE] Because on the TV shows I’m talking about, that’s exactly what the novels were. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/33 "2008-03-19T21:50:42Z")
[QUOTE=TWDuke] Incidentally, Capote was the model for one of the characters in **To Kill a Mockingbird** and didn’t seem to mind a bit. [/QUOTE] Really? Who was it? _curious_ ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/34 "2008-03-19T21:59:57Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia] Really? Who was it? _curious_ [/QUOTE] Wasn’t it Dill? (dim memory from somewhere) MiM ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892/35 "2008-03-19T22:03:37Z")
[QUOTE=Made in Macau] Wasn’t it Dill? (dim memory from somewhere) MiM [/QUOTE] That’s it, but I don’t think she meant to roast him, as they were childhood friends. How about J.K. Rowling and Gilderoy Lockhart? Apparently, Lockhart was based on a real person. (Unfortunately, she said, the actual individual probably thinks he inspired Dumbledore.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-ticks-off-people-he-knows-by-writing-about-them/441892.md?page=1)