: What exactly is "fair comment?" From what I understand, truth is a defense against a charge of libel. More to the point, I've been told that a statement need not be true if it represents

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One of the most interesting court cases was the one where a former Miss Wyoming sued Penthouse (and an author). She won an award of .5 million in a lower court, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. This largely set today's boundaries of "libel in fiction."

There are three major issues, of which two played a role in the trials. The first issue was that the heroine of the piece a thinly disguised version of Miss Wyoming. The jury found that this was clearly the case, and awarded damages because the judge (wrongly) told them that this was the crux of the case.

On appeal, an appellate court found that the plaintiff (Miss Wyoming) had failed a second test, establishing the alleged "fiction" as a factual statement. The reason was that the fiction had men "levitating" in mid air (a physical impossibility) after Miss Wyoming supposedly performed oral sex on them. That is, the court found that "levitation" sent a "strong signal of fiction" that would prevent "reasonable" people from taking the story as true.

A third issue was raised by a dissenting justice, "defamation." The judge conceded that the "levitation" was fictitious, but that the allegation of "fellatio" was defamatory. At that time, (the late 1970s), it was considered "deviant" behavior and standing alone, it might have been considered defamatory. The other justices found that the piece was distateful, but protected under the First Amendment because it did not meet requirements to be a (false) statement of fact.

It's interesting to note that the standard for "defamation" changes over time. In the late 1970s, contemporaneously with the above, a judge found that calling someone a "bastard" was not defamatory in part because one out of four newly-born Americans at the time were literally born on out of wedlock. After 2015, it's probably not defamation to falsely call someone a "homosexual," because a "reasonable" person would not find it highly offensive" (although an "unreasonable" person might. Standards for allegations of "unchastity" particularly for a woman, have also changed. Alleging that someone is not a virgin probably wouldn't be defamatory (80%+ of unmarried 20-year olds are not), whereas alleging that someone "has a different lover each night" might well be.

In the case of Red Hat Club, there was no strong "signal of fiction" that acted as a disclaimer. In fact, the "back story" was so true to life that people reasonably believed that the main story was similarly true.

I am not a lawyer but I have done "paralegal" work for company lawyers in my "day job."

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Let's take a step back. What is your goal in writing this story?

If you think that some real person did something that would make an interesting story, and you don't have any desire to praise or condemn the real person, than just change details of the events and the person sufficiently that there is no obvious similarity. Like I said in response to another question on libel, if the real person is a tall thin white man from Kansas, make your character a short fat black woman from Oregon. If the real event was an ingenious robbery of a warehouse where jewels were stolen, make your story an ingenious robbery of an office building where microchips were stolen. Etc. Pick out the parts that you think make the story interesting and change everything else.

If your point is that you want to publicly blast some person who you think is deserving of condemnation, then you have an inherent problem. If you make the association obscure enough that a judge and jury will say that there is no evidence you are talking about this particular person, than readers are likely to not realize you are talking about this particular person either. If you make it clear to the reader, it will be clear to the judge. Maybe if you're very skillful at it you can make it just clear enough that readers know who you mean, but then in court you can deny it and the evidence won't be strong enough to prove you're lying. But not only would that seem like a very unethical thing to do, but it would be very tricky to pull off in practice, I'd think.

The other alternative is to be sure that you have your facts right. If you add any speculation and present it as fact, you are setting yourself up for legal trouble.

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After consulting the Meta question about answering legal questions, I've decided to post what I've found regarding libel in fiction. I am not a lawyer. I am summarizing from this blog post supposedly written by a lawyer, but the disclaimer at the end is maybe the most important thing to note:

Libel law is fact specific. Further, [there] is no single body of law [that] applies. Today, information travels far and wide. Many countries do not recognize the protections [the United States] gives authors and publishers. It is important that professional legal advice be obtained before acting upon any of the information contained in this article.

In short, as you mention in the question, fiction can be grounds for libel if enough of the details of a fictional character match a real person, such that the real person can be "easily identified" by those who know them.

The way to avoid this is to

Change your character so that it is obviously not the same person. Mix in other traits or history that contradict those of the real person, etc. Be careful that you do this in a way that doesn't attribute these traits to the person you're trying not to libel, but instead differentiates your character from your potential plaintiff.
Make some of the details obviously fictional. Example: a plaintiff sued Penthouse Magazine for libel regarding her supposed ability at oral sex. She lost because the magazine described her talent as "causing levitation" which is clearly untrue.
Wait for your real-life person to die; they can't sue for libel after they are dead.
Just leave out the details that make them identifiable.

There doesn't appear to be a bright line that you can use as a guide to say just how much real-life characterization is allowed before you step into libelous territory.

Libel law is fact specific.

This is the key point. It could theoretically be a single thing which links a character to a person, and a single "libelous" statement that causes you trouble.

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