When I first started writing, *drilling in the background, more shelves going up* many of the characters I wrote about were based on people that I knew. Even if I didn't know them personally, I knew about them, in particular how they looked. To begin with, especially with minor characters, I found this incredibly helpful. It was a way in, a prop; perhaps it had something to do with the comfort of the familiar. It took me a while to discover that this Central Casting approach to characterisation had its limitations.
Two problems spring to mind.
If you are writing about somebody you know, slicking a fictional gloss over them to protect both them and you, it becomes very hard to get away from the fact that ultimately you are working in facsimile. You may come to feel that you are involved in reproduction, rather than creation and it's difficult not to let this devalue what you are working on
If you are basing a character on somebody you vaguely know, it is unexpectedly challenging to get beyond vaguely knowing them. What you do know about them can get in the way about what you'd like to invent. They don't shed the actual qualities they have, simply for your convenience, and gradually you find that your hands are tied. The semi intimacy with which you began is likely to be precisely where you end up, and for the writer and the reader, this is a highly unsatisfactory experience.
In the end, it is elating to cut yourself free from what is familiar. That fearfully clean slate is actully full of possibilities. For your reader to form a relationship with your protagonist, you need to do so as well, even if that implies ups and downs and moments of heartbreak. The characters who plague and confound you, who won't leave you alone but niggle away at your subconscious, are the ones you start by not knowing very well, but come to love the best.
P.S. Ed Reardon's Week is back on Radio 4 tonight -- I never know whether to laugh or cry.
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