Writing About Real People: Ethics, Law and Three Questions to Ask Before Publishing

Published 25 September 2026 · 5 min read · Genres

Writing about real people is legal, including the parts that hurt, as long as you stay on the right side of two lines: don't publish a false statement of fact that damages someone's reputation (defamation), and don't reveal private facts about a living person that they never made public and that a reasonable person would find highly offensive. In the United States, truth is a complete defence and free speech runs wide; in France, even a true private fact can be actionable without consent. Between those lines, everything else is ethics, meaning it is up to you. Here are the legal landmarks without jargon, three questions to ask before publishing, and anonymising techniques that don't kill the scene. None of this replaces a lawyer for a specific case.

What the law says, without jargon

Three notions come up in every lawsuit between an author and their family.

Two practical consequences. In the US, truth protects you almost always, but the line between fact and opinion must be sharp: "he stole the money" is a fact claim, "I felt robbed" is not. In France, truth is not enough: a true but private fact (your uncle's affair, your grandmother's drinking while she was alive) can be penalised. In both countries, what concerns the dead is far freer, and so is what the person has made public themselves (a book, an interview, a post).

The three ethical questions

The law tells you what you risk. It does not tell you what to do. For the example we follow Lea, writing a memoir in which her brother-in-law, Bruno, plays a large part: he left her sister overnight, taking the money from their joint account.

Is it true? Not "do I believe it" but "can I show it". The leaving is true, dated, known to the whole family. The money, Lea has from her sister, who has it from a bank statement she no longer has. Verdict: the leaving is written as a fact; the money is written as what her sister told her, not as an established fact. The difference lives in the verb.

Is it necessary? Is the book about Bruno, or about what Bruno's leaving did to the family? If the second, the scene that counts is the sister standing at the door, not the inventory of Bruno's wrongs. Many legally risky passages are also, by coincidence, the unnecessary ones.

Is it reversible? Once printed, the book exists. Can Lea live with Bruno, with her sister, with her nephews, ten years from now, if everyone has read that chapter? The question does not ask you to give up. It asks you to decide knowing the price, now, not at the book signing.

These three questions are part of the pact you make with the reader, and that pact differs by genre: memoir, life story or autofiction details what each allows. In autofiction, Bruno can become a character; in a memoir, he stays Bruno, and all three questions apply in full.

Anonymising without killing the scene

Changing a first name is not enough: if Bruno is Lea's only brother-in-law, the whole village recognised him by line two. Useful anonymising changes what identifies and keeps what makes the scene.

What identifies: the name, the precise job, the town, the exact family tie, a unique physical trait, a known date. What makes the scene: the gesture, the sentence spoken, the light, the object, the effect on the others.

Before: "Bruno, my brother-in-law, a mechanic in Montluçon, left on a Tuesday in March 2019, leaving the keys on the table."

After: "He left on a Tuesday, leaving the keys on the table. My sister looked at them a long time before touching them."

The second version has lost the name, the job, the town, the date. It has kept the keys and the look, which is everything that makes a reader remember the scene. It is also better, which happens often: anonymising forces you to show instead of point.

In the Sagoræ hub, the sheet for each real person can carry two columns, "real" and "in the book", to keep the correspondence straight from one chapter to the next. It is also where the family file described in how to write your parents' life story is built.

Getting it read, and by whom

The best shield is not legal: it is a read-through by the person concerned, before publication, chapter by chapter. It gives them no veto. It gives you their version, which you can fold in, and it turns a revelation into a conversation. For people who refuse to talk to you, or for serious facts, a media lawyer can read a manuscript in a few hours; for protecting your own text, how to copyright your manuscript covers the other side of the law.

Within the method of how to write a memoir that reads like a novel, a read-through by relatives is one more revision pass, and not the least useful.

Frequently asked questions

Can I write about my family without permission? Yes, as long as you don't publish false statements of fact that damage someone and don't reveal a living person's private facts without consent (in France, even true ones). The rest (opinions, shared memories, public facts) is free.

Can I write about someone who has died? Far more freely: privacy ends with the person, and in most places the dead cannot be defamed. Heirs can act only if they suffer harm themselves, for instance to their own privacy.

Does changing names protect me legally? No, if the person remains recognisable to the people around them. Anonymising must cover identifying elements (job, place, family tie), not just the name.

If you want to keep the correspondence between real people and their version in the book, in sheets you control, Sagoræ offers a free trial, no card required.

✒️ Read next: How to Write a Short Story That Lands: Structure, Twist Ending and Length · How to Write Romantasy: Balancing the Romance Arc and the Fantasy Plot · How to Write a Memoir That Reads Like a Novel: From Memory to Manuscript

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