Characters who are obviously people you know

[orangelotus]

I am writing my first novel.It is probable absolute trash but I am finding it very therapeutic. The main characters are two people in real life who are pretty unpleasant. I am exaggerating everything about them but they and anyone else who knows them would recognise them immediately.
What is the etiquette with this?
Also I'm sure this is purely hypothetical as the chances of me completing the book or of it ever getting published are zero.

You put a disclaimer on the front along the lines of:
"This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental."

I always assumed that meant someone in it was recognisable by people who knew them. However I notice my Lemmings game also has something like that at the beginning!

thankyou i doubt it will ever see the light of day ! but they definitely wouldn't be happy!!

It’s safer and perhaps much more fun to take as a starting point some broad behavioural characteristics from the person in question, mix with a physical description from a complete stranger who is the opposite sex or has a very different body type, invent some deep secrets or fears or dreams, and watch as a vivid character emerges to you.

thankyou
i think i'll keep going for now as it is flowing along really well . From my point of view !
so if it seems ok when i finish i can go back and obscure them !!

Change their sex!

Age them up or down.

I think you might be surprised. No one’s ever recognised bits of themselves in mine, probably because the characteristics I’ve ‘borrowed’ aren’t obvious to the people themselves. Or other people say ‘Oh, is character X our friend Y?’ because he has red hair or is an archaeologist, but X, the middle-aged male archaeologist character is in fact based on an imaginary extrapolation of elements of my sister if she’d grown up male, orphaned young, and a different nationality etc. That kind of thing.