There are times I meet someone for a brief time, maybe a couple hours, and their personality impresses me enough to create a fictional character about them. Obviously I am adding my own attributes to the fictional character, and I don't know them well enough to write about many of the real person's attributes, but the original impression on me will be central to their character. Is it illegal to create a character this way, where the character development is loosely based on a real person this way?
When I am writing I make sure the connection is loose enough that the person could not be identified. I guess my main concern is if someone would read my book (which is a work in progress) and be like "oh I remember seeing this author for a couple of hours and this fictional person has a similar personality to me" Could they sue me?
Answer
Since most characters in every story draws from a conglomeration of different people the author met/ saw/ heard, the answer is likely 'no' (I'm no attorney). Make sure the character is not exactly the same as the person (which you already identified as something you did).
I sat down at the door of a Wal-Mart one day and imagine short stories about every person that walked out the door every 5 minutes. I took some quotes, looks, mannerisms, all from examining people. This is a trick a writing teacher taught us to do.
The key is making the characters different "enough"
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