Thoughts and Advice

BanzaiBk

First post from a long time CWforum lurker I have been lucky enough to spend a large part of the last few years publishing short stories mostly anonymously, both at home and a few very minor publications abroad. In late 2006 I had a verbal/semi-formal agreement in place with O'Brien Press to publish a collection but had a personal crisis and pulled out. Fortunately I have been given another real, contract signed deal with O'Brien press (I'm still on cloud nine) for an initial few books loosely based on real life events. It's great, I know how lucky I am. I feel so incredibly vindicated I can't describe it. However...

How do people deal with the personal backlash/reaction/questions/thoughts from people that might recognise events from what has been written? The content is not something that I am afraid of , it's the reaction it might garner from people who will have prior knowledge of what I'm talking about. Of course they might never read it in the first place and I'm over-thinking this entirely :P

I know some of you will read this and :rolleyes: your way through my self-indulgent freak out. Obviously in the past I wimped out with mostly anon-pub. The contract I have includes a lot of personal advertising and I'm terrified. How are we supposed to handle this appropriately? I want this to be my past, present and absolute future so I don't want to mess this up. Any advice or thoughts on my mushy-brained ramble is gratefully sought

EileenG

My experience is that people either won't read what you've written, or won't pick up on personal references. As long as you've changed the names and a few minor details, people will not connect themselves, particularly if the character is not a heroic one.

I remember hearing about one novelist, I think it might have been Marion Keyes, who wrote a very autobiographical novel about her last affair with a total jerk, and how it ended. Afterwards she worried about what would happen if he read it. And he did come up to her a few months later, and said "You know that book you wrote?"
"Yes?"
"That guy in it?"
"Yes?" (really worried)
"I think I've met him."

I reckon if you have a stock answer along the lines of "It was inspired by a true event, but all the characters in the story are fictional", you should be fine.

Antilles

I read the only character JK Rowling ever based on a real person was Gilderoy Lockheart, and that guy claims that he was actually the inspiration for Dumbledore.

BanzaiBk

EileenG wrote: »

My experience is that people either won't read what you've written, or won't pick up on personal references. As long as you've changed the names and a few minor details, people will not connect themselves, particularly if the character is not a heroic one.

I remember hearing about one novelist, I think it might have been Marion Keyes, who wrote a very autobiographical novel about her last affair with a total jerk, and how it ended. Afterwards she worried about what would happen if he read it. And he did come up to her a few months later, and said "You know that book you wrote?"
"Yes?"
"That guy in it?"
"Yes?" (really worried)
"I think I've met him."

I reckon if you have a stock answer along the lines of "It was inspired by a true event, but all the characters in the story are fictional", you should be fine.

Thanks for that Eileen. I went through the whole renaming process and rejigging only a few months ago. I'm assuming that most people who would know me will not read the book but I'm still nervy. I have to suck it up I suppose

Antilles wrote: »

I read the only character JK Rowling ever based on a real person was Gilderoy Lockheart, and that guy claims that he was actually the inspiration for Dumbledore.