: Re: How to avoid hearing "that's me!" from your friends when they read your characters? I recently asked about getting inside of someone else's head for writing good characters who are noticeably

@Ravi5107385

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While you may not be attempting to "write what you know" when you take a seat at the keyboard, it is bound to happen to a varying degree. Inspiration, though sometimes spontaneous, can all the more often be traced back to something you've recently encountered in your day-to-day life.

Of course, taking too much from any particular person can run the risk of your work becoming biographical, I'd say you should consider that risk and embrace it while you write.

Understand that your most realistic and consistent characters may come from the melding together of real-life attributes with your imaginary ones. In this case, you might consider blatantly mashing together two or more of your friends. By using John's bad temper and Jack's pension for expensive food you've essentially told both of them that you aren't basing your character entirely in either of them. Thus, any negative traits that are attributed to your character could more easily fall to another person.

At the end of the day, however, I'd say you just embrace it. If you've got writing that you don't want Jack to read because it might h

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