I recently wrote a short story and gave it to my father to read. He handed it back to me the next day and said, “It’s about me, isn’t it?” The story was about a doctor who has come to Pakistan from Wales and works in a polio camp for the poor. My father is not a medical doctor, has never even been to Wales, and I’m not sure if he even knows how children are immunized against polio. But I can guarantee you that anyone who knows me and read this story, or any others that I have written, will think that the main character is based on them, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.
      I’ve been asked countless times if I base my characters on people I know in real life. The answer is no. I have no desire to sued, socially ostracized, or friendless, so I generally don’t make a habit of creating characters that are only thinly-veiled versions of my friends or relatives. Unless the story is clearly an autobiographical memoir or a piece of historical fiction you won’t find me or Benazir Bhutto in there either.
      My characters are people who are dreamed up specifically for the purpose of fiction --- to carry a story along, and to act in ways that will illustrate the themes and subjects I’m exploring in the work. They have to be unique and original and yet they have to do and say things that normal people would, while at the same time thinking and expressing feelings and ideas that are purely my own. This presents a dilemma for any author. How do you make up characters who seem believable and at the same time are clearly not real? Next>