Don't mistake me for a lawyer. But my understanding is that if you fictionalize a true event (geez, I hate that Latinate word "fictionalize") the plaintiff must prove real defamation and damages. But even the smallest tweak will cover your ass. In "The Devil Wears Prada" the narrator is clearly the assistant to Anna Wintour, the Edito…
Don't mistake me for a lawyer. But my understanding is that if you fictionalize a true event (geez, I hate that Latinate word "fictionalize") the plaintiff must prove real defamation and damages. But even the smallest tweak will cover your ass. In "The Devil Wears Prada" the narrator is clearly the assistant to Anna Wintour, the Editor of Vogue. But as such the author must've signed a non-disclosure promising not to bad-mouth her boss. So how can she write this book? In one of the final scenes of the book -- in Paris for Fashion Week -- the narrator looks across a salon and sees... wait for it... Anna Wintour! Thus the fictional Miranda Priestly stands beside Anna so the book can't be about Ms. Wintour. I'd bet a big box of doughnuts that some publishing house lawyer asked for that passage in the book just to avoid a lawsuit.
On a more basic ethical level, if you write a balanced fictionalized version that honors the real story without cheap shots and malice, then you won't feel like a user scum-sucking lowlife. Stay with me here. Recently a lawsuit was resolved over "The Help." A housekeeper/employee of the author's family had sued, claiming that the author had stolen stories the plaintiff had told about her own life. The woman Ablene Cooper asked for $75,000 in damages but the case was thrown out because the statute of limitations had expired on the alleged theft.
So, in short: Hedge by tweaking the material so it's not identical to the truth. Don't malign the subject and hold him/her up for ridicule ('The Help' author Kathryn Stockett had compared Cooper's skin color to a cockroach -- cheap shot!). And wait until the statute of limitations has expired before you use those stories told to you by your servants who stand around dropping peeled grapes into your mouth all day.
Don't mistake me for a lawyer. But my understanding is that if you fictionalize a true event (geez, I hate that Latinate word "fictionalize") the plaintiff must prove real defamation and damages. But even the smallest tweak will cover your ass. In "The Devil Wears Prada" the narrator is clearly the assistant to Anna Wintour, the Editor of Vogue. But as such the author must've signed a non-disclosure promising not to bad-mouth her boss. So how can she write this book? In one of the final scenes of the book -- in Paris for Fashion Week -- the narrator looks across a salon and sees... wait for it... Anna Wintour! Thus the fictional Miranda Priestly stands beside Anna so the book can't be about Ms. Wintour. I'd bet a big box of doughnuts that some publishing house lawyer asked for that passage in the book just to avoid a lawsuit.
On a more basic ethical level, if you write a balanced fictionalized version that honors the real story without cheap shots and malice, then you won't feel like a user scum-sucking lowlife. Stay with me here. Recently a lawsuit was resolved over "The Help." A housekeeper/employee of the author's family had sued, claiming that the author had stolen stories the plaintiff had told about her own life. The woman Ablene Cooper asked for $75,000 in damages but the case was thrown out because the statute of limitations had expired on the alleged theft.
So, in short: Hedge by tweaking the material so it's not identical to the truth. Don't malign the subject and hold him/her up for ridicule ('The Help' author Kathryn Stockett had compared Cooper's skin color to a cockroach -- cheap shot!). And wait until the statute of limitations has expired before you use those stories told to you by your servants who stand around dropping peeled grapes into your mouth all day.
Thanks!
Voodoo donuts, of course.