The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every time. A writer has no other material to make his people from than the people of his experience. . The only thing the writer can do is to recombine parts, suppress some characterisitics and emphasize others, put two or three people into one fictional character, and pray the real-life prototypes won't sue. Wallace Stegner
About This Quote

On the contrary, the world is full of real people, living or dead. When writers write fiction, they are supposed to respect these people by not making up fictional people that look like them. Instead, writers should be creative and combine real people into one fictional character, put two or three people into one character, and then pray that the real life examples won't sue.

Source: On Teaching And Writing Fiction

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