Note to Self...
Jun. 17th, 2011 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przed...be careful when using actual people in fanfic. (In a non-RPS way, I mean.)
So, today I get a message from a woman asking what my historical sources were for a Wild Wild West story set during the Civil War I wrote way back in 2000. This is weird, but I respond that the story is over ten years old and I don't know that I still have a record of the books I used, and could I ask why she's interested.
Turns out that one of the three soldiers I pulled from the actual historical record for the story is the great-great-whatever-grandfather of this woman, and she just wants to know if anything in the story is confirmable fact.
Yikes!
Fortunately, she didn't seem at all upset about the slash aspect (didn't mention that at all, in fact), and was quite complimentary about the story. In fact she asked if she could get a copy of the zine. And I dug through my files and managed to find photocopies of the references I used to research the story, so I was able to help her out with sorting the fact and fiction of the piece.
But man, that could so have gone so very, very badly.
ETA: Soooo, the woman has just responded to my last email, and amongst other things said this:
Ummmmm. (How does one begin to respond to that?!)
So, today I get a message from a woman asking what my historical sources were for a Wild Wild West story set during the Civil War I wrote way back in 2000. This is weird, but I respond that the story is over ten years old and I don't know that I still have a record of the books I used, and could I ask why she's interested.
Turns out that one of the three soldiers I pulled from the actual historical record for the story is the great-great-whatever-grandfather of this woman, and she just wants to know if anything in the story is confirmable fact.
Yikes!
Fortunately, she didn't seem at all upset about the slash aspect (didn't mention that at all, in fact), and was quite complimentary about the story. In fact she asked if she could get a copy of the zine. And I dug through my files and managed to find photocopies of the references I used to research the story, so I was able to help her out with sorting the fact and fiction of the piece.
But man, that could so have gone so very, very badly.
ETA: Soooo, the woman has just responded to my last email, and amongst other things said this:
the homosexual angle was quite an interesting twist....wondered if there was any truth to that.
Ummmmm. (How does one begin to respond to that?!)
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 12:19 am (UTC)But on the up side, it's been an interesting interaction.