fleetwood-mac

Fictional Characters Inspired by Real-Life People

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Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks (left) and bandmate Lindsey Buckingham in the official video for the Nicks-written 1977 song “Dreams.” (Screenshot by me.)

Fiction is of course not always totally fiction. One example of that is when authors create characters inspired by real-life people, even if those fictional characters are often different in significant ways. 

This approach can certainly be compelling for readers as they look for the similarities and differences between the created people and the actual people – and wait to see where authors take these hybrid humans. Also, authors are helped by having a factual template for creating fictional characters.

Taylor Jenkins Reid (above) took that approach in her 2019 novel Daisy Jones & The Six, which I read last week, about a fictional mega-popular 1970s band inspired by the real-life Fleetwood Mac. Daisy has some similarities to Stevie Nicks, an FM singer-songwriter, while Six member Billy Dunne has aspects of Lindsey Buckingham, another FM singer-songwriter as well as the band’s guitarist.

But there are differences. For instance, Nicks and Buckingham were real-life romantic partners before their breakup, while Daisy and Billy’s relationship has a different dynamic. Also, Daisy and Billy co-write a number of songs amid their love-hate feelings for each other, while Nicks and Buckingham each mostly composed their songs solo.

Another Six member is keyboardist Karen Sirko, loosely based on late Fleetwood Mac keyboardist/singer/songwriter Christine McVie. But, again, various differences between the two. 

A much different novel, All the King’s Men (1946) by Robert Penn Warren, stars a charismatic populist governor — Willie Stark – who begins as an idealist but ends up corrupt. Stark was clearly inspired by real-life Louisiana politician Huey Long.

F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s 1925 classic The Great Gatsby includes several characters modeled on real-life people. Daisy Buchanan was inspired by socialite/heiress Ginevra King – a longtime romantic obsession of the author. And fictional Daisy’s fictional golfer friend Jordan Baker was based on Ginevra’s golfer friend Edith Cummings.

Three years later, Aldous Huxley’s 1928 novel Point Counter Point included the character of Mark Rampion as a D.H. Lawrence type.

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Atticus Finch was inspired by the author’s attorney father Amasa Lee. And the young Scout Finch’s friend Dill Harris was based on Harper Lee’s childhood pal Truman Capote, the future author.

Looking to real-life people for novelistic inspiration of course predates 1900.

The title character in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula was partly inspired by 15th-century Romanian prince Vlad the Impaler.

In Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, there are characters based on Percy Bysshe Shelley (the author’s late husband by that time) and Lord Byron.

Of course, authors often create characters who are like themselves – as was the semi-autobiographical case with the aforementioned Scout Finch (Harper Lee as a kid), The Last Man’s Lionel Verney (Mary Shelley gender-switched), My Antonia’s Jim Burden (Willa Cather also gender-switched), The Mill on the Floss’ Maggie Tulliver (based on George Eliot), Little Women’s Jo March (based on Louisa May Alcott), David Copperfield‘s title character (whose name flips Charles Dickens’ initials), Martin Eden‘s title character (whose initials spell “me” for author Jack London), etc.

Comments about, and examples of, this theme?

Misty the cat says: “Two more foundations and we’ll have Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation Trilogy.'”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece – about my town’s welcome pulling of $91.1 million from a bank supporting cruel privately run immigrant detention centers — is here.

A Kitty Tries to Be Witty

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“Perhaps I should wake up and write a blog post,” says Misty. (Photo by Maria.)

I, Misty the cat, guest-blog for Dave every two months. I last did this on April 13 and today is June 8, so that’s…hmm…actually not quite two months. Reminds me of when Dave returned some novels to the library five days before their due date, and the indignant book drop expelled said novels with such force that they traveled back in time and landed on the heads of the three Karamazov brothers. Fortunately, each of the books was under 400 pages.

But Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 824-page The Brothers Karamazov is even longer than my average nap, during which I experience “Dreams” more often than Fleetwood Mac did at their 1977 concerts. And Dostoevsky’s 1880 novel might have been the first volume of an even longer work if the Russian author hadn’t died in early 1881. Perhaps a trilogy of sorts — like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (about me nudging my cat-food bowl so that each serving lands in the exact center) and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (about my epic quest to be a male feline version of the Ernestine telephone operator played by Lily Tomlin).

I recommend shopping at Pop Culture R Us for all your celebrity-name-dropping needs.

Speaking of decades-ago entertainment, do you remember the 1978 movie Same Time, Next Year about a married woman and a married man who have a multi-year annual affair? That film partly inspired the long-term romance of Mallory Blessing and Jake McCloud in Elin Hilderbrand’s 2020 novel 28 Summers, which I read last week and found to be a wonderful, poignant book. It’s 422 pages in hardcover, which explains why various other 19th-century Russian fictional characters are donning helmets to avoid concussions. Helmets with stickers saying “Please Don’t Name Your Cat Anna Karenina.”

I’ll add that 28 Summers has an alternate-history element, with Jake’s wife Ursula DeGournsey running for President of the United States in 2020. Reminds me that my aforementioned cat-food bowl is shaped sort of like the Oval Office, and even has a tiny edible desk.

Other novels featuring politicians? Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy, Fannie Flagg’s Standing in the Rainbow, and Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, to name a few. When my cat-food bowl was empty for five seconds, you know what I screamed? Yes, I screamed “It can’t happen here!!!”

A century ago, Lewis had quite a run of notable novels: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929). It Can’t Happen Here was published in 1935, eight decades before my 2015 birth year — which means that in 2025 I’m now…furry.

I’m sometimes asked how I, the kitty Misty, consume literature. Smeared with tasty cat food, of course. But, seriously, I read novels in the traditional print-book format rather than via eBook or audiobook. I guess I’m “old school,” like the 1636-founded Harvard University. I expect only a few members of The Class of 1640 to be at Harvard’s 2040 alumni reunion; they’re the ones who reside with cats, who help humans live longer.

Long-lived humans in literature? The over-2,000-year-old Lazarus Long of five Robert Heinlein novels; Ayesha, who also clocks in at about two millennia in H. Rider Haggard’s She; the 250-year-old High Lama of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon; etc. I assume they had well-funded retirement accounts.

One of the oldest of my fellow cats is Garfield, who has starred in Jim Davis’ 1978-founded comic strip for 47 years! Which reminds me that my next guest blog post will appear in 47 years — minus 46 years and 10 months. So, August 2025. That’s also when my teen human Maria is starting college, which means her bedroom will be…mine!

Dave will reply to any comments because I, Misty the cat, am busy consulting with an interior decorator about changes in Maria’s room (where you see me in the photo atop this post). A kitty can’t have enough scratching posts, treat dispensers, and paintings of hairballs playing poker.

Misty the cat says: “That railing’s shadow means 4,378 more days of spring.”

Dave’s comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for Dave’s book features a talking cat: 🙂

Dave is also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, Dave writes the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about New Jersey’s upcoming primary election and much more — is here.