Killing characters based on real people

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by frahse

No one has such a mechanism? Is everyone so careful and thoughtful about death?

Fate doesn't work like that.

Fate, if you believe in it, is actually very careful and thoughtful about death.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Fate, if you believe in it, is actually very careful and thoughtful about death.

I for one believe in the fickle finger of fate.

I have seen it happen up close.
I have seen some live that should never have had a chance.
Others "out of the blue." Struck down.
"Just gone" "Like that" "Just gone"

Meticulous plans blown away.
Whims come true.

Fickle hand. Fickle finger.
Fickle fate.
Whimsy of war.
Death is a greedy mistress, a fickle bride.
Chaos reins.

I agree with frahse. When you always know the horse to put all your money on in the first few pages of a book, something is lost

[gmw]

I have always found that matching "fickle" and "fate" together was close to contradictory. "Fickle" is about instability, likely to change, unpredictability, whereas "fate" is about predetermination and unavoidability. To describe fate as fickle seems to say that you don't believe in fate, which is fine, but in that case why use the phrase?

I realise the above is not necessarily accurate. It is not completely unreasonable to match the words because the results of a predetermination may indeed appear fickle to those that experience it. I may throw the dice to see which of my characters to kill off, but if I really believe in fate then I believe the fall of the dice has already been determined. ... Still, the words feel like an unnatural pairing

[frahse]

I prefer to look at the concept of fate using a term the religious like to use. A "mystery."

Some say fate is determined, predetermined or can be determined, but I say rather it is a mystery. Unknowable.

Gamblers think fate is determined by some law, some statistic, some system and think they might be able to predict the fall of the die. I say "not."

Sure on occasion their predictions might match up with events and that matching can be turned into a statistic and the hopeful or the foolish might think they have a handle on fate, but fate stands outside that charade.

[gmw]

There is no contradiction in believing that your fate is a mystery; just because you may think something is predetermined does not mean that you know what was determined. But to use the term "fate" implies or suggests a future that is (or may be) predetermined. If you specifically don't want a reader to consider predetermination as one of the implications, then you should avoid the word - try just "future".

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by frahse

No one has such a mechanism? Is everyone so careful and thoughtful about death?

Fate doesn't work like that.

You are not "fate." You are a writer who determines what happens in your own stories. And since what happens in your stories should be chosen according to how it improves the story, choosing acts at random is contrary to good storytelling.

Once upon a time, a little girl on her way to Grandmother's house had an embolism and died before she got there.

The End

Not a good story.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

You are not "fate." You are a writer who determines what happens in your own stories. And since what happens in your stories should be chosen according to how it improves the story, choosing acts at random is contrary to good storytelling.

Once upon a time, a little girl on her way to Grandmother's house had an embolism and died before she got there.

The End

Not a good story.

No it isn't. However remember it is one you wrote.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

[...]Once upon a time, a little girl on her way to Grandmother's house had an embolism and died before she got there.

The End

Not a good story.

It's got possibilities. Wolf tracks spotted nearby; the grandmother found dead too leading to suspicion of a serial killer; some person calling to take responsibility for her murder; call in Dr Grey and/or the team from CSI (pick your favourites); some sexual tension among the investigating team; a prankster that disturbs the evidence. It could take a good 800 pages before we finally found out for certain that the little girl's death really was natural.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by gmw

It's got possibilities. Wolf tracks spotted nearby; the grandmother found dead too leading to suspicion of a serial killer; some person calling to take responsibility for her murder; call in Dr Grey and/or the team from CSI (pick your favourites); some sexual tension among the investigating team; a prankster that disturbs the evidence. It could take a good 800 pages before we finally found out for certain that the little girl's death really was natural.

gmw.
That is all very well and good, but realize as the child grasps her head in pain, the sun explodes.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by frahse

gmw.
That is all very well and good, but realize as the child grasps her head in pain, the sun explodes.

Was that a challenge? Too easy - I've been reading Anne McCaffrey with psychic powers in gestalt with other power sources, the possibilities here are just too obvious.

[John Carroll]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Once upon a time, a little girl on her way to Grandmother's house had an embolism and died before she got there.

The End

Not a good story.

In the sequel, Red Riding hood becomes a ghost that haunts the big bad wolf.

[Namekuseijin]

Dante will sue you.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by John Carroll

In the sequel, Red Riding hood becomes a ghost that haunts the big bad wolf.

Despite my better judgment, I can't resist.

"Red Riding Hood, the Walking Dead"

[James_Wilde]

Granted that one might base a character more or less loosely on someone one actually knows, but if the OP implies killing off a character called James Wilde, based on someone he knows called James Wilde, I have to say I think that would be in bad taste.

And it could get you in serious trouble if the character is someone significant in the real world, for example a story about the assassination of a president and using an actual president as the character. The CIA and MI5/6 and similar organisations have absolutely no sense of humour.

[John Carroll]

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

Granted that one might base a character more or less loosely on someone one actually knows, but if the OP implies killing off a character called James Wilde, based on someone he knows called James Wilde, I have to say I think that would be in bad taste.

And it could get you in serious trouble if the character is someone significant in the real world, for example a story about the assassination of a president and using an actual president as the character. The CIA and MI5/6 and similar organisations have absolutely no sense of humour.

No, definitely not using their name. Just creating a character based on the person. Like if the daughter's boyfriend were an actor, suddenly a theatre in the forest blows up because the ghost of Red Galloping Hood works for the CIA and heard them making fun of the president's bff from high school.