I have often written about friends and family. What writer has not? The descriptions needn’t be perfectly specific to anyone, but how could we possibly write about people in general without including those we have met over the course of our exemplary or misspent lives?
It never works to write about people as one homogeneous mass while we consider what it is that makes us all human. People are a glorious mishmash of quirks, eccentricities and downright oddities. As a species, we all want pretty much the same things – something I learned very clearly during my years of moving around the world and living in different cultures. It is an undeniable fact that our aims are the same, but we go about getting what we want in very different ways.
Even when I resist the temptation to put friends or family members into my novels, I know that I’m wasting mental energy because they’ll see themselves in there anyway.
‘But why did I have blonde hair in your book?’ asks a puzzled friend, having decided that the overdrawn caricature of a shrieking socialite was based entirely on their introvert, retiring self. I never respond in detail because denial only gives offence and I’ve come to understand that people would rather be immortalised in print than not, however unflattering the portrait.
Everyone is convinced that any writer of their acquaintance will naturally include them in much of their work. They see themselves in every line and are rarely insulted, however awful the portrait, as long as you get their hair colour and weight correct. Woe betide the character I write as a size twelve who faintly resembles a friend who proudly wears a size ten.
‘But, Hilde, you’ve never worked as a Spanish portrait painter!’ will never convince your German gym teacher friend you haven’t grossly misrepresented them. Lifelong friendships have been shattered for less.
Only once have I modelled a character on a particular acquaintance, because she really did inform every line I wrote – not too flatteringly, I must admit. I hesitated for a while, changed her hair, gave her glasses and took my chances. She loved the book and never once saw herself in it. It may be that we all only identify with those we see as positive characters, and that particular likeness was indeed speaking …
My latest book is about a family of three children, loosely based on myself and my siblings. I used our childhood home as a template and wrote about some of the things we used to do as children. However, these are simply the skeletons of people, the loose structure of a family. The three characters are not the three of us – although no one will ever believe that, least of all my siblings. They have even forced me to change the descriptions of their fictional partners because they would never date someone like that. I have obliged as far as possible but am still resigned to giving offence, although to my mind the descriptions have been quite flattering and the characters created pleasant enough.
The only trouble-free experience I ever had with loved ones was when writing about my cats. They remained as loving and unruffled as ever, even when I wrote about them as fat, duplicitous, greedy and self-centred. In point of fact, they were all these things, but I still loved them to distraction and my life has never been quite the same without them. I definitely appreciated their pragmatic approach. Did my writing about their defining characteristics lead to fewer bowls of food or cuddles? If not, what did they care? If only people were as simple to deal with.
Dick King Smith may have been onto something when he decided to write about animals. Perhaps my next plot line should be about a cat, whose best friend is a dog, as they open a pet food store together. No feelings will be hurt and no sensibilities ruffled. No delegation of local felines will turn up on my doorstep with a petition for me to rewrite them as slimmer and less fluffy – and you know the Man Booker people will want to talk to me when it’s finished.
In the meantime, I plan to continue with my career of giving offence to those to whom it was never intended and insulting others with impunity. I should also finish this post quickly. I have a phone call I need to make to a writer friend, whose one-eyed, nearly bald South American mass murderer needs a little work before I’m prepared to accept it as an entirely accurate portrait of me. I should add that I’m very flattered she cares enough about me to put me into print.
Obsolete Vernacular 