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Basic Writing questions is not a crit forum. All crits belong in Share Your Work
homage paragraph, or how to avoid infodumps
- Thread starter Morwen Edhelwen
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mccardey, I do see that. One thing, some posters on here refer to a character based on a real person almost as if they are a fictionalised version of the person. IMO, in a way that's true. Does anyone share this opinion?But not really, though - because C and E were actual people, and actual people of whom you have no first-hand knowledge, and who have no temporal connection at all with your fictional world and its characters. So your characters are based on C and E. They're not "basically" C and E at all - they're based on them.
Some people will find that fascinating - even more so if they work it out for themselves. But by insisting on using the names, you can see you're just setting yourself up for arguments with people who mind you blurring the distinction between "actual" and "based on" - quite apart from people who might know a whole lot more about C and E than you do!
"Fans" of C and E (that is, people who see them, say, as the ALW characterisations) might get a buzz out of being clever enough to work out the connections. Students or people with a real interest in them or the real world they really lived in might be a lot less forgiving. A whole lot less. And publishers will know that.
It just seems unnecessary trouble you're making for yourself, do you see?
But there. I've said my bit.
The Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is fictionalized version of the historical person. You are not writing truth about an actual person - you are making things up, even if you stay as close to accepted fact as possible.
Yeah, the facts in that book are
a) there was a person named Abraham Lincoln.
b) he was a nineteenth-century American politician, who was US President during the American Civil War.
c) the facts of his political career
d) his childhood and family background.
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