The question comes up a lot, in classes I teach, when I tell people I write fiction: Do you use people you know in your stories? Well, duh. Of course I use people I know in my stories. If I went around using people I don't know in my stories, I'd have a bunch of flat, uninteresting characters. Very few of my characters, however, are flat-out one-for-one representations of people I know. I may use one friend's speech pattern for a character, for example. Or someone's tale of woe may be the start of a story. Another friend's family background might be useful for filling out the history of a character. It all boils down to things that I know, things that resonate with me and happen to suit my story. I use my family a lot. I can't help it. While I love my family dearly, we have so much drama and conflict exploding at any given time it's like a cross between Dallas and Family Guy. How can I resist telling stories about affairs that bring down empires, cr...
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