legalities of fiction

[flipnflap]

When writing fiction, is there anything LEGAL-WISE to stop you making up an event/incident and saying it happened on a specific date in a well-known place that actually exists?

[cathfromsaron]

not really! you would cover that i your disclaimer!

but is it a public place or are you going to name a hotel or something privately owned ... ?

[Bambiagain]

Lots of authors do it. As long as there is no chance that such an event did occur at that place and time then there shouldn'T be a problem.

[cathfromsaron]

yep, don't libel anyone!

[VHG]

Dan Brown does it all the time.

[VHG]

>>>Dan Brown does it all the time.

My append above makes it look like I am saying Dan Brown libels people all the time.

I mean to say theat Dan Brown uses "real" places all the time (CERN, Vatican etc) and says things happened there.

[jno]

no, it's become quite common in recent years to incorporate real events into fictional narratives to make them sound more authentic. Day of the Jackal may have been the first one to make this popular.

But as mentioned, don't libel real people. Fictional characters can do what they like.

[Famous5]

Charles Dickens includes the French Revolution in Tale of Two Cities and the Gordon Riots in Barnaby Rudge.
Thackeray includes Battle of Waterloo in Vanity Fair and Tolstoy has the French invasion of Russia in War and Peace, and I'm sure there are many more that predate Day of the Jackal

So flipnflap, write your novel and I'll look forward to seeing it on Kindle!

[atalanta]

If you describe a hotel manager of a real hotel as being a short fat red-haired cross-eyed man of irish origin who is a blackmailer, and the real hotel really does have a short fat red-haired crosseyed manager of Irish origin, you're in trouble

[sandyRoe]

especially if he knows something about you that you'd rather keep private :-)