In Diana Gabaldon’s Voyager, Jamie observes,
“It was not Monsieur Arouet, but a colleague of his—a lady novelist—who remarked to me once that writing novels was a cannibal’s art, in which one often mixed small portions of one’s friends and one’s enemies together, seasoned them with imagination, and allowed the whole to stew together into a savory concoction.” (p. 148)
This seems like a fairly accurate picture of my own experience. How about you? If you are a writer, is this how characters and plots develop for you?
Shawn L. Bird 
[…] cannibal art. […]
My characters are all versions of myself. So far I’ve been too afraid to rip my friends and not-so-friends and family alive in fiction, but that might just be the thing I need to do at this point. Vengeance is mine says fiction.
I exorcised some ghosts writing Grace. It laid them to rest beautifully, and it’s been lovely to be free from the haunting. 🙂