Celebrity Story Query

In your view, if one is doing a celebrity, is it best to pick one that you know next to nothing about, or better to do something about someone that you know at least a little?

The former carries the pitfalls that you might write something WAY off track, I mean ridiculous, almost satire and parody level of goofiness. Say, for instance, you wrote a gang-bang story about N Sync in which Lance Bass fucked a girl in tandem with the others, not knowing that Lance Bass is gay as fuck (came out, so that's been established). Or, in the case of writing Reno, writing Allison Mack as a basically sweet, but kinky nerd who rebuilds the main character, when it turns out that she's now alleged to be involved in a sex-trafficking ring for a cult (she faces possibly 15 years in prison, apparently, for this).

The advantage, however, of writing about a celeb that you know next to nothing about is that one can be free from the popular gossip mill, expectations, preconceived notions, etc. There is a sense of emancipation about doing this. For instance, I know almost nothing about most current heartthrobs, so I could write them any way that occurs to me without preconceived ideas or biases about who or what they are.

Conversely, if you write about celebs that you know much about, you could very well avoid the pitfalls of such laughable goof-ups, but you also feel, perhaps, more constrained by what is rumored about them in tabloids and rumor rags, that sort of thing. It's the "Inside Edition" effect, if you will, constantly hearing whichever current TMZ or whatever host in your head, telling you, "Don't write that, Justin Bieber wouldn't really do that." That sort of thing.

Any thoughts on these issues and how you feel about them?

Phoenix you say? Me too.

Personally, I wouldn't write about actual people.

I might dabble in a little fan fiction, the people who portray the characters would then be doing what I tell them to like it or not.

I haven't gone looking for a celebrity to write about. Either the celebrity already was connected to a story idea I was forming or I had a celebrity in mind to weave a story around. Usually the celebrity has been just a model, maybe even very close to the character in background, personality, and known behavior (e.g., Gore Vidal recently), and, more rarely, by actual name (e.g., Rock Hudson recently). I don't think I'd pick one that I didn't know fit the character I was writing. I don't have them doing what I don't know, or it's been strongly reported, that they actually did/had included in their behavior. I've specialized in fact checking for publishers, so I'd have sources to point to if I was challenged on what I had an identifiable celebrity-source character do in one of my stories.

RubenR said:

What would be the point of writing about celebs, if you don't use their background and characteristics?

I'm not into celebrity stories, but it seems to me that you'd put a "well-known" person into a certain position and make him/her act the way you would expect him/her to do; a 'what if' train of thought.

If you don't use the person's behavior and background, it doesn't make sense to me to write about him/her. I think it would only piss people off, when you get it all wrong; I don't like it when people that I know are described in an unrealistic way. An exception is probably when writing satirical stories, but even then I think the writer needs to know the characters well enough to know which characteristics to emphasize or to flip, in order to make it funny. Recognition seems part of the fun to me.

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Well, the idea would be to avoid cliches, memes, assumptions, rumors, etc. To view them with an outside perspective and what one could guess from their body language, their mannerisms, their general ethos. But that's at least in theory, to think outside of the box.

Again, though, you have a point, which I already addressed, regarding the pitfalls of writing about celebs that one doesn't know at all.

I don’t “click” with celebrity erotica (erotica starring contemporary celebs, I mean.) The ones I’ve tried to read just have non-descript characters with famous names rather than attempts to bring that celebrity to fictional life. Neither my penis nor brain gets engaged.

I probably just haven’t read enough of them to find a gem that exemplifies what celeb erotica is all about.

I don't normally read these types of stories, but an idea struck me and I decided to write one. It features the Flo, the spokesperson in Progressive Insurance TV ads -- the character in the ads, not the actress who plays the role. It got decent views and ratings, and was fun to write.

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I specialize in writing celebrity stories, it's just something I enjoy.

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