I killed you last night.

"I killed you last night in a story." Pause. "It felt so good I'm going to do it again tonight." Those are words I used with a coworker once. To be fair, he was an annoying little sleaze and I would have gleefully beaten him within inches of his life. I felt it was a good compromise. And when I told him, with a big smile on my face, he took the hint and stayed well the hell away from me for a few weeks.

As I recall they were good weeks.

I've killed a lot of people I know in books. Mostly, ironically, by request. The most they get is a first name and a description that vaguely resembles them. It's not a matter of legalities. A piece of paper wold fix those. No, it's a simple factor: I don't like killing my friends in books. What if what I write should come to pass? How many decades of therapy would THAT require?

I use real people as springboards in everything I write, but I don;t use the whole real person. I'm far more likely to incorporate bits and pieces that fit together rather well. And with the exceptions listed above, I never use real people's names. In the case of sleaze-boy, he would have never recognized himself. I completely changed his physical description and his, well, everything. But -I- knew who I was killing in extremely violent fashion. The first time he died it was while being swarmed by rat-sized demons who took bit bites and chewed him into shreds. I'm pretty sure I did him in a few more times.

I have said more than once that I am paid to kill people. I kind of like it, too. Great stress relief, trust me on this.

But when I write about anyone,, any character, the odds are I'm remembering someone from my life. t might have been a customer from a store I worked at, or that pretty girl I saw exactly once at the mall, or a child whose smile was so infectious that it was worth remembering.  I think every writer does. I very seldom go beyond that level.

I prefer to make stuff up whenever possible. It's why I write fiction.

Most of the characters would look something like this if you could see where they came from.