Lesbian ebook character is obviously me! WWYD?

[Literaryalterego]

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?

I’ve had the same username for many years on this site donquixote and some of the recognisable facts in the ebook have been shared on here.
So I won’t link.

If it makes you feel any better OP, my aunt named a character after me, and described her as me to a T, then had me brutally and graphically die so that my remains could only be identified by my jewellery (also identifiable as mine in real life). It was revenge for the way my mum had last portrayed my cousin.

Awesome! Love it, thecats.

@ZazieTheCat dying to know what bbc serial... :o

OP I can see why you are uncomfortable. I guess though authors borrow from everyone but just because one bit is based on you doesn’t mean the whole character/life is.

I have always wanted to write about a specific event in my life in fiction form, I know it would freak one particular person out if they ever read it, but really only one part of the character would be based on them, not the whole.

less embarrassing than the way my mum wrote about me in her real-life serial journalist's column

Oh god, are you Treasure?

Or one of the Living with Teenagers offspring...?

Tbh unless she named the character your name/ from your town , I wouldn't give it a second thought.
I also know a (published author) who wrote about a character that I recognised as a person we knew, and she confirmed it was indeed based on that person, but if only a few people would recognise - Why does it matter.

Nowhere near so famous! My mum's journalistic outputs were mercifully pre internet.

Alarmingly easy to be recognized even in those days in the incredibly non famous way we were famous.

One of my mum's magazines was popular in Australia, and two old ladies who were fans decided to visit our area on their trip to the UK. They recognized my sister and I getting off the school bus!

Another time a woman read my name from my name tag in my coat and started arguing with me about my mum's opinion pieces!

And my mum is very much the non-famous one out of her and my aunt. My aunt is actually reasonably well known in her genre.

A close relative has written a book "based on real events" I know who all the characters are, and it really upset me, especially over one scene, which I have no way of knowing the truth of. I brooded over it for a few days, and then told myself that it was fiction - move along. I must admit to being fairly pleased when some one else read it and told me they hated every word, and that it was utter rubbish. Cheered me up! (they also knew who everyone was)

Well, I’m now going to read ALL her other ebooks, some of which get 4 stars, and see if I really did make such a strong impression on her.
Thanks for helping me see the funny side of it.

There is nothing you can do.
As long as she changed names shes in the clear.
You may recognise certain events but no one else will.
Console yourself with the fact that it is all but certain that you and her mum will be the only people to read it.
And probably her mum put it down when it started to get weird

I’m a writer too. Where do you think they get their inspiration from? A writer draws from their own experiences, feelings and passion.

No one else will ever know it’s you.

However you decide to 'kick back', I don't think it should be via the medium of words. As you said, she's a writer, and no offence OP, but words obviously aren't your 'thing', so you'd be at a huge disadvantage.

I think I’d feel a bit weird about it too OP! I wouldn’t do anything about it though. Brood for a bit then forget about it, to eventually be flattered that she so clearly wanted to shag me!

thecatsthecats Jackie and Joan Collins

TremblingFanjo

Was just about to type the same thing! Gotta be one of the Collins sisters 😂

I mean no one will ever know it's you... and she could easily just say it's coincidence. So just accept it is clearly just her way of working through her unrequited list and move on

I get the feeling you’re more freaked out that she’s published her “wildest dreams” about YOU.... that’s what’s troubling you. It’s because she came onto you in real life and you shot her down. Now, she’s the author and she can believe the past to be different to rl.

I was thinking more of the Brontës plenty of juicy characters for thecats to be

VenusTiger you’re right!
I’d certainly moved on from our quite intense teenage friendship, the sort you have before relationships with the opposite sex.
I had no idea she’d been so deeply and erotically involved. Now this.
Quite a boost to my self confidence, actually.
As they say in that “Friends” episode, I’m very vanilla!

Forgot to add, our friendship was also intense due to the inhibition-releasing effects of lots of alcohol consumed together!

Just have the quick wank over it you clearly want & then move on.

You sound like you could be a selfpublished writer...

@Sagradafamiliar doesn't she just? Very self-published indeed.

I have been published. I actually put someone in my book from school as one of the worst characters because she had been horrible to me. We met up years later and she cheerfully told me she'd recognised herself in my book and named one of the good guys.