Hi everyone,
I am writing a novel set in India during the late 1940s and the government sanctioned Sikh genocide in New Delhi in the 1980s. I am using a couple of real people: politicians and policemen who have been accused by many eyewitnesses, but have never been convicted, of inciting "riots" against the Sikhs. In Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, for example, created a character called Indira Gandhi in order to have a conversation with her, but she was already dead. Some of these people are still alive so my question is can I still use them as characters if I develop them and use their names? If I change their names, it will be obvious who I am referring to. Thanks in advance for your help!
Best,
Navdeep
www.NavdeepSinghDhillon.com
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Navdeep Singh Dhillon
Writer and Photographer.
www.NavdeepSinghDhillon.com
www.IshqInABackpack.com
0 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 20 29
Navdeep,
The best advice I ever heard about this was to write the book and worry about it later. Don't let legal issues get in the way before you've started typing. You (and hopefully your agent, the publisher, their lawyers, etc.) can worry about this later. After the book is written. For now...write, write, write!
Hope this helps,
Lisa G
24,011 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 23 14
Amen to Lgleaton.
It's a good thing to not worry about how real is too real. Story telling suffers under the gaze of political corrected-ness. A good story is realistic, believable. The more believable stories are the ones where there is little need to suspend disbelief. In fact, not following through makes a story unbelievable. Having a lynch mob not kill their target because they suddenly find it distasteful is wholly unrealistic. Deus ex Machina to save the lynch victim may be cliche, but it's more realistic,
----------"Bearing ourselves humbly before God ... we await undismayed the impending assault ... be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parlay; we may show mercy – we shall ask for none." ~ Winston Churchill, July 1940
51,046 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 18 14
I am writing a novel set in India during the late 1940s and the government sanctioned Sikh genocide in New Delhi in the 1980s. I am using a couple of real people: politicians and policemen who have been accused by many eyewitnesses, but have never been convicted, of inciting "riots" against the Sikhs. In Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, for example, created a character called Indira Gandhi in order to have a conversation with her, but she was already dead. Some of these people are still alive so my question is can I still use them as characters if I develop them and use their names? If I change their names, it will be obvious who I am referring to. Thanks in advance for your help!
Two part answer. If you're seriously considering publication, then you should probably change the names. That way you're pretty much covered. You can always say your story was based upon true events, and any similarity......
If you're not looking to have to have this published, then it doesn't matter.
----------GP
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2006 NaNo winner - Berlin, Witnesses at the Crossroads of History, Book I
2007 NaNo winner - Berlin, Witnesses at the Crossroads of History, Book II
2008 NaNo winner - Berlin, Witnesses at the Crossroads of History, Book III
2009 -