Sometimes chapters of the manuscript are read as a weekly serial by either the teacher or me. Mainly I prefer to be there to watch the reactions and also to mark the parts where they laugh or where something obviously didn't work. Often chapter one has to be scrapped. Sometimes the humorous incidents have to be restructured or put into a different part of the chapter because the pacing is wrong. I mark the ms and go home and rewrite it.
Fictional characters are composites.
They are made up from observation, the author's imagination and research such as newspaper clippings. Although a real life incident about a person may spark the writer's interest, that will be blended with fictitious additions. Often I'm asked if I put my children into books. I don't use my family, relatives or friends nor threaten to use them as characters because this is literary terrorism . To me, there is an ethical problem with thinly disguised autobiographical situations.