Hope Never Dies and Real Person Fan Fiction

First of all, I'd like to wish my husband, Eugene, a very happy birthday today! You'll always be my knight in shining armor.

If you loved all the Obama-Biden memes (particularly the ones after the 2016 election such as this one), then you might like Hope Never Dies: An Obama-Biden Mystery, by Andrew Shaffer. I read about this book a few weeks ago and immediately put it on hold at my library. I finally had a chance to read it last week. Basically, after an Amtrak conductor dies in what everyone else assumes to be a suicide or accident, Obama and Biden team up to discover the truth. Biden is the first-person narrator. I've never gotten closer to either man than through the voting machines, so I don't know how accurately they're portrayed. Certainly some of their escapades seem a bit unreal, and other reviews I've read say Obama comes across as more remote than he actually is. Still, the pair do make a fun Holmes-Watson couple.

Since I used to write Beatles fan fiction, I was interested in the real-person fan fiction aspect of this book. In the New York Times article I read about Hope Never Dies, the author relates how he met Biden but didn't tell him about this project. The standard disclaimer at the beginning of the book says that "All characters--including those based on real people, living or dead...are used fictitiously." Celebrities do give up some of their rights to privacy, and we live in an age where YouTube can make someone a celebrity (notorious or not) overnight. I still don't think I'd be too comfortable using a living person as a character. Even if I was inspired by a certain aspect of their personality, I'd rather remix with other traits and disguise them. While I may have been able to get away with using John Lennon as a character in Lyon's Legacy and Twinned Universes, he might have drawn attention from the main characters. If I ever get past the block I have with the next installments of the Catalyst Chronicles, then the story will go in a different direction anyway.

How do you feel about using real people in fiction? Does it matter if they're contemporary or historical? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Update on Stop Hate Project Donation

Back in mid-August, I pledged to donate at least $25 or my September royalties to the Stop Hate Project. Unfortunately, I was so busy getting Summon the Seasons ready for release next week that I didn't do much promotion of my pledge besides than a single announcement on Facebook and my newsletter. Although I ran a free book promotion toward the end of the month, I haven't seen any sales come through from that yet. So my sales for September are $0 on CreateSpace and ACX, less than a dollar on Amazon, and about $2 through Draft2Digitial. (It's pretty rare for me to earn more through D2D than on Amazon.) I've accordingly donated $25 as promised. (I'm not posting any screen shots to protect my account information.) Perhaps next time I decide to donate royalties to a cause, I should do better promotion.

Authors Against Hate

Although authors are commonly warned against discussing politics, as human beings, we have to condemn the alt-right rally and resulting violence and death that happened in Charlottesville last weekend. Therefore, I've decided to donate $25 or my September royalties (whichever is greater) to the Stop Hate Project. It's an organization that helps communities fight hate crimes. I've also started a Facebook group called Authors Against Hate to encourage other writers in all genres and all levels to do something. You can donate royalties or signed books or whatever you feel comfortable with. I just started this group yesterday, so there hasn't been time to plan a group activity yet. If you want to join us, either on or off Facebook, feel free to grab the graphic above to display on social media. We'll see how much interest we generate before going further.

Ten Word Tuesday: On Politics

Primary today--my Taoist reading said to push demons out.