This week I've been reading a book where one of the supporting characters is a writer. In the story line, she uses her brother and his friends as "models" for her characters. She says that she just used a modification of their names, but the characters are not based on the actual men. Now, this is just fiction, but it got me to wondering, do "non" fictional writers base some of their characters on real family and friends?

Looking at my own characters, I don't think that I ever based any of them on my friends and family. Sure I've used their names. I have two minor characters who are sisters and named them Gertrude and Florence after my great aunts of the same name, but the characters are not them. The sisters in my story are older teenagers. I only new my great aunts as elderly women, and I was too young to have picked up too much about their personalities, and how they may have interacted as young women. So I poached their first names to honor them. I also have other characters named after my dad and my grandfather, but the characters' personalities are not based on my dad and grandfather's personalities.

How about you? Have you ever based a character on a friend or family member? When they read it did they recognize themselves? Did they like these characters or did they think you misrepresented their flaws and foibles?