Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/24587
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

First: I did look for similar questions and this is the closest one I could find, and it's not quite answering the question I'm asking: [Legalities about fictionalizing current events](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/8533/legalities-about-fictionalizing-current-events)

Here's the question: pretty much every fiction title I've read includes a disclaimer to the effect of "all persons, places, incidents and actions in this book are a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, places, incidents or actions is coincidental".

OK, but what if your book is _not_ entirely a work of fiction? That is, what if you loosely model the narrative on something from a news story, but fictionalize the names of the people involved and create new plot elements, characters, etc. How should your disclaimer read then? And will publishers accept a work of this nature? Is there any extra friction involved with getting such a book out (assuming it's otherwise publishable)? Any other pitfalls one should be aware of it making a story which models on real world events?

Note that I'm not looking for an answer to the general question of "how do disclaimers work". I'm interested in knowing more about how they work in a specific situation. And not just the strict legal aspects, but the implications as far as how publishers view a work that has this "loosely based on real world events" element to it.

Original score: 4