Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Why Not Use Real People?

The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

A long time ago I was about to write a mystery about an arson-murder. A dear friend, let’s call him Jimmy Carson, asked me to name a character after him, so I did. I made the character an arson investigator and as he developed, he became a kind of senior confidant and advisor to my sleuth, a police detective. The problem was, I already had a running character in my series who filled that niche. My detective didn’t need two of them.

Well, as I continued my research into arson and arson investigation, I discovered that firemen have an ongoing problem with smoke. It gets into their lungs and damages them, and eventually the strain damages their hearts. So I decided that Jimmy was given the job of investigating arson because he was having heart problems, and this way, the department reasoned, he could continue working for the fire department until he could retire on full pension. But, during an exciting car chase near the end of the novel, I decided, he would have a heart attack and die.

To make my fires as realistic as I could, I made the acquaintance of a captain at a local firehouse to advise me. He was wonderful, as patient as he was knowledgeable. Jimmy might have had my dear friend’s name, but he began to look and act a lot like the captain. At first I shared with the captain just the chapters with fire engines in them, but as his interest in the story grew, I took other chapters over to the fire house as well.

Then came the chapter in which my arson investigator dies. It was an exciting car chase, and I was anxious to know what the captain thought of it. Normally, I’d hear from him within twenty-four hours of taking a chapter over, but not this time. After three days, I phoned over there and learned he was in the hospital. He’d had an medical emergency of some sort at the fire house.

Later I learned he’d been relieved of his command and given a desk job to last until he could retire on full pension.

And soon after the real Jimmy had the first of a series of heart attacks. He ended up with a heart transplant.

And that, dear reader, is why, if I use a real name or a real person in my stories, they are not the culprit, are not a victim, and end up at least as healthy and happy at the end as they were at the beginning.

7 comments:

Linda O. Johnston said...

Oh, Monica, what a touching story! I try not to use real people in my stories, except after getting a release, more because I'm also a lawyer and have legal concerns...

Joanna Campbell Slan said...

Wow, Monica, that's something. I was once asked to pose with another mystery author and have it look like I'd shot her. I declined. It just felt like bad karma.

Camille Minichino said...

Bad karma indeed!
I've used people who have bid on being a character and I have them sign a release.

Julie said...

I just don't use real people. I've always felt that since they call it "fiction" that means I get to make the people up. And as any writer of romance can tell you, people often want to tell you "their story," apparently believing that you'll use it in a book and pay them money. Considering the mortifying nature of some of these stories, I don't even let them tell me anymore. I'm a lawyer, too, and the only real people I would mention are public figures (mayor, president, etc.), used in non-negative ways.

Anonymous said...

Kind of a scary thing to happen. Most likely just coincidence, but then....

Sandyt

Monica Ferris said...

Oh, I always ask for a release, and I often will send at least some of the pages they will appear on to them. I've done it for charity or a fund-raiser, and I've done it for fun -- but always with permission.

Joanna, I can't believe someone asked you to do that. Very creepy.

Betty Hechtman said...

Your story sounds like something out of the Twilight Zone. In A Stitch in Crime, I have a Honda with a stuck accelerator. When I wrote it, I was worried it might not be believable. About a week before the book came out, all the fuss about the Toyota problem with stuck accelerators hit the news.

A reader sent me an email and asked me if I was psychic.