Written by Diana O’Neil, Whitefox author of Sorrows Yield.

Fiction writers are familiar with friends, frenemies and family members (FFF) suspecting that a particular character – the clever one, the one who drinks too much, mistreats his wife, or the one who sleeps her way to the top – is in fact themselves (or their brother, their mate, their ex). 

They may be right – but not entirely.

All fictional people must have some basis in fact. They must start from a frame, a skeleton, if you will. Writers use what they see, hear and know to add flesh to the bones. It is impossible to write a completely fictitious character, because every person – including fictitious ones – shares traits, experiences and foibles with someone else. You’ve changed their name, their physical features, the location and date? But still they insist: ‘It’s [insert name here], isn’t it?’

So, what to do about the misunderstanding?

In my debut novel, Sorrows Yield: The Past is Ever Present, I went so far as to use the actual surname of the person on whom the main character was set. I chose to do this out of respect, to honour his name. However, it is a distinctive surname that only four people in the world still use to this day – my cousins. I asked their permission, not because I had to, but because I wanted them to be clear as to why I did it, give me their feedback and ultimately bless the project. I am lucky they were understanding. 

Before I went to print with Sorrows Yield, I had a conversation with other FFFs who I suspected might be sensitive to, or hurt by my alluding to an aspect of their personality or behaviour. I had to confess: I felt that it was the moral, ethical thing to do. It was awkward – until I insisted that 98% of the character was an amalgam. Further, I insisted that nobody else would know that the relevant bits related to that particular FFF. This assurance is as true as I can make it

In the next of my books to be published – The Hapless Life of John O’Neil – I used my own surname because it is loosely based on a possible ancestor of mine, an Australian convict of the nineteenth century. Some of the dates and fundamental facts of the actual John O’Neil constitute the framework; however, I can only hope my protagonist had the qualities I’ve given him in the novel. But how many of my relatives who share the surname and the ancestor will be cross that I’ve portrayed him as I want him to be? And not as he may really have been? Or as they imagine they would like him to have been? 

Who has the right to make up stories about those who are dead and buried?

Sometimes a person will insist that they’ve been portrayed, whereas in fact I had no thought of them at all when writing that character. One of two things might have happened here: their egos are a little imaginative and they want to see themselves as that character, or subconsciously I did write them into my book, and it is only by their raising it that I can begin to see it. Both scenarios are unfortunate. The first is possibly an act of narcissism or paranoia; in the second, one can only hope that the author and subject are alone in their discovery of the character’s real identity. 

I have written another 80,000-word manuscript that I believe is a really good story and well written, but I cannot allow it to ever see the light of day knowing that several people, FFFs, will legitimately see themselves writ large. There is no way I could fudge the smoothing process, come clean with them, and persuade them of their anonymity. I really did base the characters in this manuscript on real, living, breathing people. I could not help it. The story required these characters/people to carry the narrative. All I can do is put this potential book in the legendary top drawer (of the fiction writer’s desk) and leave it sitting there until I can come up with a way to hide the ‘non-fiction’ elements of the story. I suspect my inability to adequately disguise these people/characters is because I am too close to the story to see it more objectively – in a sense, I’ve not distilled my experience and therefore it is non-fiction… too real. Fiction ought to be a very, very distant cousin of reality, otherwise it’s revenge or whining or telling tales, or merely a self-absorbed ‘kiss and tell’.

The law would say that a writer must wait till someone is dead before borrowing, and possibly trashing, their identity – you can’t be defamed if you’ve expired. But even with the best of intentions, it could be seen as cowardly for a writer to disallow a maligned late-person any recourse – through the courts or with a punch to the nose. 

Helen Garner, one of the best authors around today, was criticised for her account of an actual friend’s last days in one of her excellent books, The Spare Room (2008). The character was too obviously a person whose identity Garner’s FFF knew. There were some negative aspects attributed to the character, but they gave the character depth and meaning. Garner always described the book as fiction, though for some it was clearly not; in response she’s described it as ‘morally’ fiction (New Yorker, 2023). I have always wanted to ask Garner why she didn’t just leave it as non-fiction: did she fear blowback? She got it anyway. 

The much-lauded and admired writer Nora Ephron said, ‘Writers are cannibals, and if you are friends with them and you say anything funny at dinner or if anything good happens to you, you are in big trouble.’ Her perhaps most famous ‘novel’, Heartburn (1983), was demonstrably about the end of her marriage after her husband was involved with another woman. The characters of the husband and lover were clearly identifiable and in the text Ephron, with hilarity, insulted them both and arguably made them look like fools. The husband threatened to sue, but Ephron got away with her very public revenge. I doubt anyone else would nowadays, in this especially litigious age. Smart, sassy, a bestseller many times over – it was a phenomenally successful book; but was it the right thing to do? 

It is rare that any sensible writer sets out to defame someone – if they know what’s good for them. But Ephron’s parents were both screenwriters, and she grew up hearing her mother say, ‘Everything is copy.’ She was actively encouraged to use her own life as material for her art and craft, and she certainly did. 

Fiction writers struggle with this ‘novel’ issue, by staying brave but not unkind.

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Meet the author: Q&A session with Diana O’Neil