We Fiction Writers Borrow Heavily from Real Life

Sometimes consciously, sometimes not

Photo by Clever Visuals on Unsplash

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. ― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Everything is grist for the writer’s mill. Everything.

Our conscious minds may filter input, picking and choosing what is important. Those are the details we select and remember selecting from our personal lives, family legends or the culture around us to use in stories.

We adapt and shape them to fit the purpose of our story. Genders, time periods, specifics may change, but the heart of a scene that resonates powerfully may be that kernel from the author’s life experiences.

Pat Conroy so barely disguised his stories all hell broke loose in his family every time he went to press. These wounds eventually healed when father joined son at the book promo events.

There Papa Conroy signed copies as the famous antagonist he was in real life, but called, in the book by the same name, The Great Santini. Conroy fans can read that true story in The Death of Santini. (links)

Not all stories are so explicitly autobiographical. Yet they still draw on real people or events, physical or…