Admit it, you know you’ve done it, created a “fictional” character who is so much like your Aunt Betty you’ve been afraid to show the story to anyone in your family. Few of us go as far as Thomas Wolfe, who didn’t bother changing the names of the real people on whom he based his characters, but we do steal mannerisms, bits of dialog, exciting incidents, and unusual physical characteristics from the real life people we know. Sometimes we distort and change things around so much we no longer even remember which parts are based on fact and which parts we made up.
Fiction writers are not as likely to be sued for defamation as writers of non-fiction, but we aren’t immune, either. I’m going to give you some general rules about what is and is not considered defamatory in fiction. Any first year law student will tell you that for every rule there are exceptions, so as you read, insert the words “in general” before every sentence, and remember not to consider this blog piece as legal advice–consult your own attorney if you have specific questions. (How’s that for a disclaimer?)
One nice rule to remember is that you cannot defame a dead person. Claims for defamation die when the person dies. So if you want to write a novel that features George Washington in a compromising situation, go right ahead. One caveat: if the estate of a famous dead person is still commercially exploiting the celebrity’s image, other laws may prevent you from using the celebrity’s likeness.
Defamation is a written (libel) or spoken (slander) statement about someone which 1) is false; 2) subjects the person or organization to hatred, contempt, ridicule or loss of reputation; and 3) is published to a third party. In addition to these elements, famous people have to show “malice”– that the person making the statement knew it was false or had reckless disregard for whether it was true or not.
For fiction, the question is whether readers can identify a real person from your description: if the reader knows Billy Bob, will the reader be convinced that the defamatory parts of your fictional work (the parts which are false and would subject someone to hatred, etc.) describe Billy Bob.
In general, the more preposterous your plot, the less likely it is that readers will believe you are describing a real person. So if your novel has aliens abducting your Billy-Bob-like character, or you have him murder his wife when in fact Billy Bob’s wife is alive and well, you’re probably in good shape. Other good guidelines to follow are to give your character a different name, different occupation and different physical appearance than the real person. The less like the real person your character is, the better, and really, if you are a fiction writer, it shouldn’t be that hard to make things up.
Some things that will not save you if you have defamed someone: putting the words “in my opinion” before a defamatory statement (“in my opinion Billy Bob stole money from his employer”) will not work, because you are really asserting fact, not opinion. And that little disclaimer you see at the front of every book (“any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental . . .”) also isn’t much of a defense.
One parting thought. Revenge is not a good motive for writing fiction, and probably doesn’t result in the best-written fiction. If you’re mad at your ex, or your mother, or your boss, toilet paper their houses instead of portraying them in your fiction. Your writing is yours, an escape from the people who have done you wrong. Don’t give them a place in it.

Heather Newton practices law and writes fiction in Asheville.
Copyright 2009 by Heather Newton

When I was senior in high school, I confidently told the selection committee for the John Motley Morehead scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill that I was going to be a southern novelist. I was going to join that club of writers, who at the time included Lee Smith, Anne Tyler, Reynolds Price, Doris Betts, Fred Chappell, Guy Owen, and a little later admitted Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Josephine Humphreys, Kaye Gibbons and all those others I wanted to be like. The Morehead selection committee was apparently not impressed, and didn’t give me a scholarship. Since then, a fair number of editors, agents and others in the publishing industry also have not been impressed, and at age forty-something, I am still not a published novelist. Although I’ve now found an agent to help me out, there is no guarantee that she’ll be able to sell my novel, given the current economic climate and the oh-so-not-commercial nature of the novel I’ve written. So I’ve been wrestling with how I’m going to handle it if I never accomplish this goal that I was silly enough to set for myself at age seventeen.

As a practicing Christian, my first thought was to look for a spiritual solution. Failure is nothing new to Christians. The Bible is full of characters who failed magnificently, and repeatedly. Characters who, like Peter in Luke 5:5 have said, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.” So I embarked on a quest to learn how God wants us to respond to failure. The consensus seems to be that God wants us to redefine success and failure in Godly terms, and to measure success by our service to others, not by our list of publications in literary magazines with a circulation greater than five thousand.

And here is where I fail as a Christian. The spiritual solution just doesn’t comfort me. I’m all for service to others, but I still need a way to live contentedly in the gap between what I had hoped to achieve with my life, and what I am actually likely to accomplish. Somehow I have to come to terms with it.

Having failed to be a good follower of Christ, the next place I looked for consolation was in the theory of multiple, or parallel, universes. Yes, you heard me right.

As I understand it, based on one ninth grade physics class and a lifetime of watching too much Star Trek, the theory goes something like this: that whenever a situation occurs where there is more than one possible outcome, there is one outcome in this universe, and all the other outcomes flutter out in a fan of alternate realities in other universes. The depressing aspect is that if you have ever had a brush with death in this universe, you’re bound to be dead in some other universe. The upside is, all those times some editor or contest judge chose someone else’s manuscript instead of mine, in another universe they picked mine. In universe # 54382, the three novels I have written are on the shelves at Barnes & Noble instead of under my bed, I am happily typing away on a fourth one, and will take a break this afternoon to go teach creative writing to budding writers who, in universe # 54382, have not yet been published but are diligently working to improve their craft. I am a far better writer in universe # 54382 than I am in this one. I am also ten pounds lighter and have had Botox injections. So, if I go with the theory of parallel universes, then when I’m old and in the nursing home and my children are packing up boxes of my unpublished work to take out to the curb, I’ll find comfort in knowing that somewhere in another dimension I am sitting on a veranda discussing point-of-view with members of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

If a steadfast, if slightly batty, belief in alternate realities doesn’t console me, there is one other approach that might. A couple of years ago I went to a reading by three women affiliated with www.hipmama.com, an online parenting magazine for progressive (anarchist, even) parents. The authors, all far younger and hipper and more tattooed than me, were great (though they made me think I should start my own online magazine, called “Oldmama” or “Tiredmama” or “Mama-that-grew-up-in-the Reagan-years-and-didn’t-know-there-was-an-alternative-to-getting-a-responsible-job.com”). One of the authors said something about writing that has stuck with me. I’m paraphrasing, but she said that it’s easier to keep on working toward your dream than it is to convince yourself that you never wanted it in the first place.
I think that’s a workable theory. I think I believe it to be true.
Copyright 2009 by Heather Newton

When I first began writing fiction, I wrote short stories. I never considered the possibility of a novel. I reasoned if I could learn to write a decent short story I would at least have the technical writing skills for a novel. While that reasoning was valid, it was a little naïve.

Writing a short story is like building a bookcase or a simple piece of furniture. You can build the basic framework in a weekend’s worth of work. Subsequently, what you do to finish the work can be as simple as sanding and finishing or as intricate as carving inlays, adding handmade knobs, making drawers with handcut dovetails, or applying multiple layers of color and finish.

To stay with the building analogy, writing a novel is more like building a house. Not only does it require multiple kinds of skill: masonry, framing, roofing, finish carpentry. It also requires perseverance: day after day, week after week of unending work. Years ago, I built a house and when the foundation and framing were complete, the shingles and siding were on, the doors and windows in, my wife said to me, “Oh good. It’s almost done. In reality, it was only half finished even though it looked complete from the outside. A novel can be like that. You get the basic framework in place, you know your characters. If you have single or multiple plot lines, you know how they fit together. Yet, there are scenes upon scenes of detail to be fleshed out with detail. It is, like the house, a project which can have no end.

With a house, once you start it, you know it has to be finished. Unless you have unlimited funds, there are simply too many financial considerations and consequences to leaving it unfinished. The completion of the novel for a beginning writer with no contract or deadline has no similar consequences. You can put it away for long stretches of time; move on to other projects.

I’m not quite there yet. Not quite willing to make the time commitment it takes. But I’m working on it. Somehow, I know that discipline of writing every day, of getting to the end of something big will be a stepping stone.

Copyright 2009 by Toby Heaton

It’s Mother’s Day as I’m writing this. Mothers, among other things, are nurturers and caregivers – women who give life to their children, shepherd them through childhood, then send them out into the world

Our stories are a little like that. We create them, work and rework their language and content, then send them out into the world, hoping they will have an impact, that readers will find them. But when do we let them go? When is it time?

The Jan/Feb 2009 issue of Poets & Writers had a wonderful article about a writer named Beverly Jensen who wrote stories for sixteen years, working them over and over during that period but never submitting them to any publication. She contracted pancreatic cancer and died at a relatively young age. Her husband, Jay Silverman, got many of them published following her death. They were good stories.

There’s something pure about writing only for yourself. To spend years working at your craft with little or no acknowledgement. And yet, the good mother knows when it’s time, when she has done all she can do and her children have to make their own way in the world.

There have been many artists throughout history who have been unrecognized during their lifetimes. And undoubtedly many more, who were never known outside of a small circle and never celebrated for their genius. How many times have we heard a song from an unknown singer, picked up an old paperback from a stack in a used bookstore, seen a canvas in a rack at an art store and understood intuitively that here was undiscovered talent, here was creativity that should have had a wider audience.

I’m glad Beverly Jensen’s husband loved and believed in her stories enough to do what she herself could no longer do. But it makes me wonder how many stories, how many songs, how many poems are feathered away in obscurity because their mothers didn’t have quite enough confidence or push to set them loose in the world. It’s the first step, even if the journey may be short.

Copyright 2009 by Toby Heaton

It’s tax time, time to give my accountant a list of expenses incurred in connection with my so-far-not-profitable business as a writer. One category of deductions is entry fees for writing contests, and I’ve been pondering the deep question of whether writing contests are worth the money and aggravation they entail. If I look just at the money, dollars spent entering (several) and dollars won (a few), contests probably aren’t worth it. But if I consider the money I spend entering contests to be similar to the money I might budget for a trip to Vegas or Atlantic City, it makes sense to keep entering–I know I’m going to lose the money itself, but what I’m purchasing is the hours of entertainment I’ll get from playing the slot machines and black jack tables.
Here are some of the things writing contests have done for me, besides every decade or so earning me some money. I’ve had four short stories published as a result of contests. I’ve made the finals or semi-finals in some novel contests that I could brag about in the query letter I send to agents. I’ve gotten my name in the paper, which marketing experts say is a good thing for budding writers to try to do. Perhaps most importantly, placing in a contest, even if I don’t win the grand prize, is validation that I’m producing good work, and that I shouldn’t give up–that I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.
Recently, my novel, Solace Fork, made the quarter-finals (top 500) of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel contest. I’ve heard people criticize this contest for being too much like American Idol and for trying to channel wannabe authors toward Amazon’s print-on-demand division, but I think it’s a good contest. For one thing, it was free to enter. Also, quarterfinalists got two “editorial reviews” of their work from people who review lots of books for Amazon, and mine were generally positive, so that was a nice perk. And whether I proceed any further, I get a review by Publisher’s Weekly, which I assume I can put on the back of my book cover if I end up self-publishing, with ellipses replacing any unflattering parts. So I’m happy. And if I do proceed to the semi-finals (top 100), it will be one more thing I can put in my agent query letter.
I’m talking to the members of the Flatiron Writers about our group sponsoring a short fiction contest, with an actual monetary prize. We have to work out the particulars, like, how many stories can we realistically read, what kind of prize can we afford to offer, what “celebrity” writer can we convince to be the final judge, and things like that, but I think it would be great. Keep watching our website for details. You may be our winner.
Copyright 2009 by Heather Newton

My mother (Suzanne Newton) is a writer, author of nine novels for young adults published by Westminster Press and Viking. Her first book came out in 1970 when I was six. My mother was thirty-four and had four children under the age of eleven, yet somehow she succeeded in doing something I still haven’t mastered. She knew how to claim her writing time.
My mom wrote in my parents’ bedroom, the only room with a window-unit air conditioner. She went in there every morning and stayed until lunch time, banging out prose on a manual Hermes typewriter that kept her fingers strong for piano-playing and opening pickle jars. From her room she could hear us playing outside, and come out if necessary, say, to wash our mouths out with soap for saying bad words like “pee pee head.” She rarely came out. This was the 1970s, before hover-craft parenting was the norm, and mothers could get away with raising children by means of benign neglect. My siblings and I pretty much ran wild. While we were roaming as far as we could pedal on our bikes, eating all the candy our allowance would purchase at the local mini-mart, bathing every other night and only occasionally washing our hair, my mom was writing.
I have been far less successful than my mom at claiming my writing time. I try to carve out Fridays from 8:30 to 2 to write, but far too often it doesn’t happen. For me, the issue isn’t “time thieves” like television, video games, Facebook (or writing blog pieces for the Flatiron writers!). If these were the problems I could drop them cold turkey. The three things that most often shove writing off my agenda are 1) my child, 2) my law practice, and 3) church work. These are all good things that are important and that sometimes legitimately demand that I give them priority. Sometimes, though, I let them claim more of me than I should.
I love my kid to distraction, and perhaps because my parents were so hands-off, I’ve made a conscious decision to parent differently, to show up at every game and performance, to notice what she’s up to, to make sure she bathes and brushes her hair! But my child wouldn’t suffer if I chauffeured her fewer places or supervised fewer play dates. Heck, she might like me to leave her alone a bit more.
And then there’s work. When I was young I had my palm read twice. One psychic told me I was going to be a lawyer, the other said I would be a cosmetologist. (They both told me I would have five children, but that’s another story). I sometimes think it would have been better if I had gone to beauty school. Cosmetology is a career that you can leave at the salon when you go home. Clients come in to get their hair cut and then leave–their cases don’t drag on for months and years, with crises on Fridays. In many ways my legal career has been very rewarding, but someone told me recently you have to devote 10,000 hours to something to become really good at it. The career I’ve chosen has definitely stood in the way of my accruing 10,000 hours as a writer.
Finally, church work. It’s one thing to say “no” to my child or to work obligations. It’s another to say “no” to God! I’m involved in my church because I love it, but in the last few years church work has become almost another part time job. I don’t mind the meetings (I’m Baptist, we do everything by committee and you would not believe the number of meetings) because they happen at night when I wouldn’t be writing anyway. What bumps my writing time is preparing to teach adult Sunday School every week. I can never seem to get it done before Friday, so on Fridays when I’m supposed to be writing fiction, quite often instead I’m preparing Sunday’s lesson. Right now I’m finishing up an eight-week teaching commitment, and I think I’m just going to have to say “no” to any more teaching for the rest of this year so I can make some headway on the short stories I’m supposed to be writing. Sorry, God!
I don’t blame anyone but myself when a week (or more) passes with no time spent writing. I believe fundamentally that people make time for the things they really care about. In addition to writing during the day while her urchin children roamed the neighborhood, I remember my mother standing over her ironing board late at night after she had put us to bed, with an iron in one hand and her pen and writing notebook in the other. Real writers don’t moan about lack of writing time. Real writers write.
Copyright 2009 Heather Newton