Can a dictionary be passed to django models on create?

For any model DummyModel you can use DummyModel.objects.create(**data_dict). Does not require save after the create.

If title and body are fields in your model, then you can deliver the keyword arguments in your dictionary using the ** operator.

Assuming your model is called MyModel:

# create instance of model
m = MyModel(**data_dict)
# don't forget to save to database!
m.save()

As for your second question, the dictionary has to be the final argument. Again, extra and extra2 should be fields in the model.

m2 =MyModel(extra='hello', extra2='world', **data_dict)
m2.save()