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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Lesbian ebook character is obviously me! WWYD?

83 replies

Literaryalterego · 23/07/2019 16:00

Hello. Name changed for this.
Last week while lazily browsing the Internet I decided to look up an old University classmate who works in publishing and has kept in touch sporadically over the years. Last time was probably 10 years ago.

I noticed she has written a few short stories and they’re available as ebooks. Now, she very kindly sent me a copy of her first (self-published) book which I didn’t particularly enjoy but as Kindle is so cheap and immediate I thought I’d look at what was available. Scrolling through the titles one dated 2012, so 2 years after we last had contact, caught my eye. The plot seemed eerily familiar so I downloaded it.

FGS she’s written about our friendship as 18yos, including very specific details about appearance, family facts, habits. Nothing particularly unflattering....

BUT THEN it turns into a lesbian fantasy of fondling, fingering and oral sex (my character on hers)!

None of which actually happened, nor did I ever want it to happen. I’m a happily married heterosexual with no lesbian experience. To me at the time she was just a lost and slightly creepy friend/classmate who I told once, very clearly after a timid advance, I was not interested in for anything more than companionship.

This happened on Sunday. After a day or so of feeling alternately flattered to have been transformed onto the printed page and furious at the misrepresentation I now don’t know what to do!
I don’t want to show it to anybody close, especially not to DH, as it does expose some of my 18yo self-doubt and spikiness quite accurately. She is a writer, after all.
I also think it would be best to let bygones be bygones. We have no contact and have each gone our own way in life.
However, it does seem a huge violation to have been so literally transported into a “scene” that I have never been interested in. Part of me wants to kick back.
What would you do?

OP posts:
ItsAlrightAlright · 23/07/2019 16:02

I wouldn’t give it a second thought Confused

timeforakinderworld · 23/07/2019 16:03

Nothing. In the nicest possible way there really is nothing you can do here. It might be based on you but it's not you.

AnAC12UCOinanOCG · 23/07/2019 16:03

I'm an author. Everybody thinks you've put them in your books when you haven't.

A self-published lesbian erotica ebook has probably sold about 15 copies, if any. Don't sweat it.

FlyingElbows · 23/07/2019 16:03

Don't do anything then nobody will know and it won't be an issue.

Hairyheadphones · 23/07/2019 16:04

I wouldn’t do anything. I would probably feel a bit flattered and quite pissed off but can’t see what saying anything to her would achieve.

GruciusMalfoy · 23/07/2019 16:04

What would I do? Absolutely nothing. I doubt it's going with win any major literary awards anytime soon, so I'd ignore it and pretend I'd never seen it. It isn't like you're in contact with her anyway. Your friendship with her obviously made a big impact on her as a young woman.

Nautiloid · 23/07/2019 16:04

Very mature posters above.
I, on the other hand, would leave a very pointed review in my own name.

IamtheOA · 23/07/2019 16:04

Leave it..... writers borrow from other peoples lives

statetrooperstacey · 23/07/2019 16:04

She hadn’t though has she she has just used your character as it were. It’s fiction.

Lazydaisies · 23/07/2019 16:05

Other than writing to her and expressing your distaste, which I personally wouldn’t be bothered to do, there really is nothing your can do.

Is it obvious to others that it is you? Maybe there would be some grounds for libel if there is damaged reputation but otherwise you really don’t have recourse for what comes out of someone’s mind.

I think I’d feel like you. Mixed feelings.

RedSheep73 · 23/07/2019 16:05

Do nothing. That's what writers do - they take their own experience and transform it. It doesn't necessarily mean your friend fancied you.

PianoTuner567 · 23/07/2019 16:05

There’s no legal recourse in this. I’d put it out of your mind.

MayFayner · 23/07/2019 16:07

Write a book based on her? Grin

Cinammoncake · 23/07/2019 16:07

It doesn't sound like a bestseller tbh so I wouldn't overthink it. Perhaps write one of your own with a character like her in and offer her a copy? Grin

ohcanada · 23/07/2019 16:07

I would find it hilarious!! Who cares...

growlingbear · 23/07/2019 16:07

No one knows and no one reads self published lesbian erotica. Just laugh about it in private.

Cinammoncake · 23/07/2019 16:08

x post!

64sNewName · 23/07/2019 16:08

I’d be super uncomfortable with this too if it were me, but there’s not a lot you can do really.

In the vanishingly unlikely event that anyone else made the connection between this character and you, they’d hopefully see it for what it is: a wish-fulfilment fantasy.

BruceAndNosh · 23/07/2019 16:09

Is it presented as a work of fiction or a memoir?
A novel or an autobiography?

CaptainMyCaptain · 23/07/2019 16:10

I'd let it go. The story is about a lesbian and you are heterosexual so nobody who reads it (if anyone does read it) will recognise you.

Purpleartichoke · 23/07/2019 16:12

You do nothing. It is fiction. Writers take inspiration from their lives all the time.

I once was watching a tv show and saw a conversation I had played out word for word. It was far too specific to have been a coincidence and the conversation took place in a small restaurant where being overheard would be likely. Thankfully it wasn’t an overly personal conversation, but it still felt very odd to see it on tv.

Literaryalterego · 23/07/2019 16:14

Bruce It’s written in the first person but not stated as autobiographical.

OP posts:
BananasAreTheSourceOfEvil · 23/07/2019 16:16

Get it printed out then send it back to her, autographed with a big lipsticky kiss mark on it? Grin

icannotremember · 23/07/2019 16:19

If it is based on you, it's only you and her who know that.

I would leave a shit review and move on.

Literaryalterego · 23/07/2019 16:19

Good idea, Bananas but I’m not even sure I’m willing to pay the price of a postage stamp!

OP posts:
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