6 Writers Who Based Fictional Characters on Other Authors

J.R.R. Tolkien in Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis
Lewis and Tolkien are perhaps the most famous literary superfriends in history, so it’s not surprising they influenced each other’s writing. The founders of The Inklings had a deep admiration for each other, and deeply influenced one another’s work. In Lewis’ sci-fi novel, the character of Dr. Elwin Ransom, professor of philology at the University of Cambridge, is clearly modeled on Tolkien himself, which is only fair, since the novel sprouted from a conversation between the two concerning their dim opinion of modern literary fiction, and their conclusion that Lewis would write a space story, and Tolkien, a time-travel story. Tolkien never finished his (a little book called The Lord of the Rings took up much of his time), but Lewis’ offering is this gem of early sci-fi, with his good friend embedded in the plot as an inside joke.

Truman Capote in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
You can argue whether Lee saw herself in Scout or in Boo Radley (or both), but one thing is clear: the inspiration for Dill Harris—and his friendship with Scout—was none other than Lee’s great friend Truman Capote. Lee and Capote were childhood pals just like Dill and Scout; both spent their days making up games and stories when Capote lived next door to Lee, just as Dill lives next to Scout. Considering how interesting Capote turned out to be as an adult, you can’t help but look back at the sub-standard kids you grew up with and heave a sigh of retroactive disappointment.

Travis Taylor in the Into the Looking Glass, by John Ringo
Dr. William Weaver, the “High-Tech Redneck,” is a key character in Ringo’s Looking Glass sci-fi series, and was based on the very real high-tech redneck Dr. Travis Taylor, a celebrated aerospace engineer and sci-fi author—and also Ringo’s co-author on the sequels in the series. (Ringo apparently decided to cut out the middle man and simply let Taylor write the books with him instead of merely consulting.) The combination of Ringo’s military cred and talent for thrilling, tense storytelling and Taylor’s hard science and sci-fi background has been incredibly successful in both this series and others, although it’s got to be strange writing about a character based on yourself when you didn’t invent that character in the first place.

G.K. Chesterton in The Gideon Fell Mysteries, by John Dickson Carr
Gideon Fell is one of the greatest literary detectives of all time—many people hold the 1935 novel The Hollow Man (published in the U.S. as The Three Coffins) as one of the greatest “locked-room” mysteries ever composed, and Fell’s monologue on locked rooms in that book is still referred to and quoted today. Fell himself, a fat man resembling Santa Claus who walks with effort using two canes, was based on G.K. Chesterton, a prolific author and philosopher and creator of the Father Brown mysteries. Considering that Fell continuously frustrates the police who call him in for assistance by refusing to offer any help until he’s certain of a solution, it’s not necessarily the most flattering portrayal ever set to paper.

Anne McCaffrey in A Wizard Abroad, by Diane Duane
Diane Duane’s wonderful Young Wizards series focuses on the titular youthful wizards Nita and Kit, who struggle against the Lone power that seeks to destroy the universe as a whole, as well as other magical adventures, like settling land disputes between groves of trees. In this fourth novel, Nita’s parents aren’t huge fans of her escapades, so they send her to Ireland, where they hope she’ll be separated from magic and away from the influence of wizards. This doesn’t work out too well, but it does allow the reader to meet Aunt Annie Callahan, a wizard running a stables in Ireland, who is basically Anne McCaffrey in literary form—so much so that if you’ve ever wondered what McCaffrey might be like in real life, you can simply read this book.

Chester Anderson, Michael Kurland, and T.A. Waters in The Greenwich Village Trilogy, by Chester Anderson, Michael Kurland, and T.A. Waters
In one of the stranger cases of authors modeling characters on other authors, we have The Greenwich Village trilogy, beginning with Anderson’s weird and wonderfully dated The Butterfly Kid, which may be the most late-1960s sci-fi novel ever written (it was nominated for a Hugo Award). It features Anderson himself as a character, as well as his then-roommate Michael Kurland—who wrote the sequel a year later, called The Unicorn Girl, featuring a character named T.A. Waters. T.A. Waters subsequently wrote the third novel in the series, The Probability Pad. Taken together, the trilogy can be described as “hippie SF,” featuring drugs that allow you to actually alter reality.