How To Win Friends While Slandering People

Taking off from Sarah’s joke about the upcoming Philip Roth book, “I Hate Claire,” let’s talk about libel.

My mysteries, “Murder on Ice” and “On Thin Ice” take place in the world of competitive figure skating. It is a world I know very well, having worked as a researcher for several television networks’ coverage of the sport, plus as an Associate Producer for a bunch of made-for-TV skating specials. I have seen divas without their make-up, starlets without their handlers, and announcers without their carefully prepared copy. (I will leave it up to your imagination, which is the scarier visage).

But what that means is, when it came time for me to fictionalize a skating animosity great enough to drive several people — potentially — to murder, I naturally turned to that oft-repeated writing maxim, Write What You Know.

It may be a serious lack of imagination on my part, but I believe that the better fiction is based on real life incidents, or at least, moments. Sure, a writer can conjure up happenings out of thin air, but, IMHO, complete conjuring is often devoid of those tiny, realistic details that help bring a scene to life.

After all, could I have just made up a story about a top skater’s domineering mother refusing to allow her daughter to be photographed in front of a candle (which was there to soften the light and make everyone seem more attractive) because she was afraid it would appear that she was a devil worshipper? Or a top male skater being sent to a speech therapist so he wouldn’t “sound so gay” at Olympic time? Or a Russian official saying about a Black skater, “Of course, she’s awful, her tail hasn’t even fallen off, yet!”

No, no, I think those special moments could have only come from reality.

“Murder on Ice,” especially, was based on a real incident, the judging scandal at the 2002 Olympics. The only changes I added were making the event the Ladies’ Free Skate instead of the Pairs, simply because that’s the more popular discipline, and because it cut down the number of people. Oh, well, then, yes, I also had the offending judge murdered. (Side note: Not everyone got the joke. I read a comment on one message board basically saying: This writer totally stole the plot from the Olympics. Does she think we’re so stupid that we wouldn’t notice?)

When it came to creating the lead ladies, I made the American champion a tiny, perky, jumping bean with a domineering mother who, at age nineteen, boasted the stunted body and emotional maturity of a twelve year old. The Russian champion was the oldest woman in the competition, still trying to win the Gold long after it looked like her time had passed, with a tendency towards dramatic theme programs (such as dramatizing Stalin’s Devastating Five Year Plan) and boasting hair the color of “borscht on fire.”

I rationalized that I wasn’t basing the above on any one person. There are many tiny jumping beans in American figure skating, most of whom have the maturity of the Olsen Twins — during their “Full House” years, and parents who haven’t quite realized that they and their offspring are two different people. The same goes for the Russian character. For while there is a Russian skater who kept on skating until she finally won the World Championship at the ripe, old age of 26, she’s not the one with fiery hair or overly complex programs.

So, as long as I’m not basing characters on any one person, but rather an amalgam, then it’s not libel, right?

Right?