Who, Me?

 Q: Do you bring non crime writing friends or family with you to conventions? Pros and cons please.

- from Susan

 

Sorry, this particular question doesn’t fit me. My writing friends already go and I love spending time with them at conventions and conferences (see you at California Crime Writers in LA and Bouchercon in San Diego, anyone?). I can’t think of a non-writing friend who’d be interested. My sons have families and even though they write, they aren’t published (yet) as fiction authors and don’t have fans who might show up at a crime fiction con. 

 

That being the case, I’d like to answer a question a friend asked me over lunch a couple months ago: “Aren’t you afraid someone you used as a character will read your book and feel insulted if you show them in a bad light?” I’ve never had the experience, although that’s not to say I couldn’t have had in a few cases. That depends on a lot of things; 

 

Has the person read my book? 

Would they see themself?

If they thought it was them, would they interpret the characterization as negative?

Would the person be especially concerned because of their public persona?

 

One circumstance that helps me here is that my former professional life was conducted among academics and scientists who were the source of endless possible satires and revenge opportunities. Sit in innumerable meetings with the puffed-up dean of a graduate school who is trying to chisel away at your vexing control of a budget resource he believes should be his and you have meat for dialogue involving a puffed-up dean. Watch a conniving scientist running amok with envy at another scientist’s success and you have a character whose jealousy has twisted his thinking so badly he’s tempted to murder a rival. Why I don’t worry: Neither person who inspired those characters would be caught dead reading a murder mystery. So plebian!

 

A more recent reason I don’t worry is that my latest three mysteries are set in rural France among French villagers. My real life experience is that none of the villagers I got to know spoke – much less read – English. The fact that I was a published author didn’t interest them in the least. Perhaps if I had been a TV star the situation would have been different. But I wasn’t creating them as bad people, only as charming and perhaps eccentric. True, they might not think of themselves as eccentric, so it was probably just as well my American hosts didn’t explain the stories in detail. In one case, however, I was concerned. The utterly charming proprietor of a costume museum would have gasped at the idea I staged a murder there if a visiting American who had stumbled upon my book mentioned it. So, I went to great lengths in the acknowledgements to promote the gem of a museum.

 

We can’t write with potential complainers looking over our shoulders. That way lies the death of good storytelling. There are laws and protocols that are good guides as to how close a writer can get to a real person, public or private, in a work of fiction. If, for example, a public person is a famous bully, has a distinctive look or writing style (all caps, anyone?) and engages in frivolous lawsuits for anything and everything, I’d stay more than a few feet away, although Carl Hiaasen doesn’t even flinch at the possibility - and hasn’t been the subject of rage tweets for his humor.

 

Newest book set in France: