Characters And Creative Control

Writers always get questions about their characters and whether or not they’re based on a real person, someone the author knows. The answer is often that the characters are a combination of personalities of different people the author knows. It’s definitely safer not to name names, but I have a few that I want to share.

In my Indigo Eady Paranormal Mystery series, my main character, Indigo Eady, is half English, half Native American. It was no accident that she shares a last name and characteristics (black hair, blue eyes, similar ancestry) with my grandmother, Juanita Gwendolyn Eady. My grandmother was Scotch-Irish and Cherokee. Having raised my sister and me a lot of the time, she was a big influence in my life. I wanted to honor her, and that was the best way I knew how. I also have a church in Givin' Up The Ghost named after my mom, and a bartender with the name and physical attributes of my dad.

Now take my character Badger, the love interest of Indigo Eady. I knew he had to be cute, but a little scruffy. And real; kind and tough, but with a little hot-headedness in order to get by in the world. He had to be like Sam (Jared Padalecki) on Supernatural.

 

Then there’s Chance, from A Guilty Ghost Surprised. He’s a ghost dog that hangs out at a haunted mansion to protect the ghostly owner, who can't move on. The character Chance is based on my daughter’s real life dog, also named Chance. Of course I sought her permission to use Chance in the role. It might have been strange to see your dog on the cover of a book, not to mention between the pages, as a ghostie.

Luckily, I have an awesome illustrator, Corona Zschusschen, who understands my quirkiness with such things as putting my granddog on the cover of my book, and making Badger look like the hunky Sam.

 

Check out the likenesses from A Guilty Ghost Surprised on the left, compared to the photos on the right:

 

Jared Padalecki photo courtesy of Creative Commons

The illustration of Badger is uniquely him, but with the similar facial features of Jared Padalecki. Much as I'd like Jared/Sam on my cover, there could be some copyright issues if the likenesses were too similar.

 

With the illustration of Chance, I had no copyright worries. As you can see, it's completely Chance, facial features and all.

 

Creative control of this sort is the best part of being an indie author; we can put loved ones in our books and on the covers.

 

What about you?

Do you base characters on
people (or pets) you know?