It could be someone that just inspired one specific trait in a character. Maybe your Main Character’s ex has a weird obsession with anime, kind of like a certain ex of yours. Or maybe the evil witch wreaking havoc on your other characters is straight-up Mrs. Hawkins, your 3rd grade math teacher. Confession time – who’s in your book?
As for me… I put some past friends in a story once when I was in college. But, I ended up not liking the story so I scraped it and moved on to something else. I’d like to think I portrayed them in a good light. They were good friends, afterall. It’s not something I would do again. I want my friends to continue being friends, and not everyone wants to be in a story, regardless of how well you portray them.
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YA Highway is a blog (www.yahighway.com) by a group of young adult authors from all over the world! And every Wednesday YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination, from their blog, and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.
But, why not do the same thing on our blog every week? I’ll post their question and you can put your answers in our comments section, or on your own blog and link back to it in our comments (and theirs too, if you’d like, because I’m sure they’d enjoy reading your answers!)