I'm honored. You have my permission.

Personally, I would love it.
Then again, I doubt this person is me.

I write a lot, too. Any chance I could give this a perusal?

it depends on the character - although i suppose if it resembled me it would be devastatingly good looking as well as personable and charming...and modest, of course.

If I get the one I am thinking of into a publishable state (not just the draft but the legal protection etc) I would be happy to get comments. It is a work in progress but more than 50% ready.

My previous stuff was boringly text-book based so this is an area (fiction) in which I have less experience.

Jacob, I already have the most unashamedly self-promoting boaster I have ever met in my life as one character. A real gem, it was so easy to adapt him. I would therefore be pleased to have you as the humble counter-balance to his absurd ego-space... And, as luck would have it, he is not handsome either.

I can't imagine anyone can honestly answer this without a bit more information. As it stands your question is like asking, "How would you feel if the temperature changed?"

I would be enormously flattered, but mostly because I don't think of myself as someone who could be characterized in a book, but maybe I suffer from a lack of imagination.

Authors take traits and exaggerate them. The point I am making is that I have found a trait sufficiently advanced to make the stretch to fiction entirely reasonable.

Well I think it would depend on how one's character was depicted. If I was portrayed as a generally "good" character, I would be especially flattered, but if I was portrayed as a generally "not admirable", I probably wouldn't be. I wouldn't stop you either way if you based your character on me.

Oh man oh man, is there a super shiny enchanted sword in one of your stories? I suppose that wouldn`t be so subtle, but he would be fun to characterize. Or she.... *frown*

If only the enchanted sarcastic sword thing wasn`t so overdone.... :(


Oh, and Chris....

*confession alert*

I too write fictional stories (historically inspired fantasy mostly...:P), albeit ones so bad I do not generally share them with anyone else :D

Recently, one of my characters (a darkly pragmatic leader of men) in a book set in an alternative late Mycenean Greece has a soliloquy that was loosely inspired when I read one of Chrispminis`incredibly lengthy but profound musings about the meaning of life and morality a while back.

The raison d`etre of this character was supposed to speak to what I felt about the meaning of life in a time of brutality, but I take no shame in taking inspiration from others when it is freely given.

Sorry if that creeps you out Chris, but true story.

:D

@flash.
Well, you've eliminated me when you stated he was not handsome;)
Else I'd be flattered even if you were portraying me as a loathsome, backstabbing, yet eloquent (though occasionally verbose), womanizing, patronizing, blood-sucking leech. Which my wife will vouch that I am not, unless she claims I'm playing this game too much, whereupon I'm demon-spawn.

On a tangent - the Tribe is driving me nuts. Blowing a 4 run lead in the 8th frickin' inning. Hell, I'd blow that lead for only $500,000/yr. Why pay over 2 million?

I am an amatuer writer myself. I am hoping one will get published one day.

Oh, that's quite flattering Friendly Sword. Which of my musings was it?

Well Chris, I believe it was during the height of that tremendously long `debate` about the existence of God, the limits of reason, the source of morality, whipped cream, and just about everything in between.

Essentially it was a startingly clear and inspiring dissertation about *why* God could matter to humans, but we God didn`t need to matter, and of course connected to that was your explanation of why we shouldn`t assume that God exists.

Which I believe was the central point of your whole long-drawn out multi-faceted argumentative musings.

Do you still have it? I'd like to read it again. I know which of my ideas interest me, but I'm always wondering which of my ideas actually interest other people.

Flash - sounds like an interesting project. Got yourself a publisher yet? i might be able to help.

Please tell me I'm at least in the running, ole buddy?! ;-)

I would be incredibly turned on-

I mean honored. Incredibly honored.

Is it someone who's posted so far?

wouldn't it be easier if you contacted that person in private, so you can be guaranteed to have an answer ?

like this, you get 30 answers from people who are not involved at all, while the one answer you need might never come.


That being said, it is your book. I am certain that it is important for the plot that the character acts like the character is supposed to act. If the person on this site sais "No, make him different", it would harm the consistency of your story, turning something that was previously a proper plot into some sort of patchwork based on the new personality of the character.
Don't change that character, even if you don't get approval from that person on the board.
It's your book, and you should do your best to make it a good book

Please tell me Diplofool isn't about to work his way into the published world...

It depends on the context, and would probably appreciate a heads up, and a disclaimer in the front of the book to state "this does not resemble any person in real life etc etc" even if it is. If you are planning to portray the character as a shyster who goes around murdering people then it's probably not going to appeal if that person is you!

Still, it sounds like an interesting idea - let me know when you've finished the book.

Ok, ok... I'll have a word with my agent and see what we can do.

I am telling the truth, as I usually do around here. I just thought it would be interesting to see what folks thought and if anyone was paranoid.

For legal reasons, such person would be totally 'disclaimed'. As I said above, 'He is not he' etc.

Which by the way, is the suitably brilliant disclaimer that sits at the front of Brideshead Revisited.

Just to narrow the field, I already have someone from real life as the model for the complete and utter Richard Head award. A truly marvelous example, a gift to the would be author in all of us.

Perhaps the character from here is the White Knight?

what's that book about anyway ?

What's this about Richard Head?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Head

Richard, Rickie, Dickie, Dick...