New "author" here...pulling from personal experience and your thoughts on it

[Jared427]

While I am a newish writer, my personal "adventures" are far from new. I have scribbles from a notebook I kept for some years of interactions but have been hesitant to put them...well out into the world.

Thoughts on really diving into personal experiences and not just using them as the basis of stories but rather as the story itself.

Hope everyone is well.

J

 

[JezzicaDee]

I write purely about my real life experiences. It’s a very cathartic process. Dive into those experiences and focus on the tingly parts.
I wish I had kept notebooks, I’d use these first
Love J x

 

[Jared427]

I write purely about my real life experiences. It’s a very cathartic process. Dive into those experiences and focus on the tingly parts.
I wish I had kept notebooks, I’d use these first
Love J x

Thanks for the feedback! My notebooks were a safe haven for me and often, wonderful to go back to and read my exploits. There are many tingly parts to touch on. I have very slowly begun writing and it has been beyond cathartic and just plain fun.

Thanks so much.

J

 

[Escierto]

I have written 14 stories, 12 of them remembrances of actual events and 2 fictional. The fictional stories are more popular than the real life events but I don’t care.

If you look you will find that the stupidest most outlandish ridiculous bullshit is the most popular stuff on Lit. The audience is drugged on porn and prefer their porn induced hallucinations to reality.

 

[PennameWombat]

I have characters who play soccer and Ultimate and are computer programmers (or studying math and comp sci or related fields at universities.) Not because they're 'me' but because I know those things and can quickly craft characters and experiences that fit. Same with using familiar to me locations and settings, even if I don't explicitly state the real-world names.

I have characters who are very loosely based on someone I might've met at some point. Because they stuck in my mind, I could create fictional characters from those fleeting encounters. Nowhere near all of my characters.

I have zero cases of using real sexual encounters as the base for any portrayed in my stories. Other than to the point that, yes, I've had many varied sexual encounters, but nothing I portray here fits to the precise occurrences or to the participants.

I'll mine aspects of my personal experience. as described, but I have less than zero interest in doing anything autobiographical. My goal is to entertain (only my readers can decide if I succeed or not), not bore them to tears.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'd only say, don't use real names!

 

[Euphony]

While I am a newish writer, my personal "adventures" are far from new. I have scribbles from a notebook I kept for some years of interactions but have been hesitant to put them...well out into the world.

Thoughts on really diving into personal experiences and not just using them as the basis of stories but rather as the story itself.

Hope everyone is well.

J

Writing is storytelling. Storytelling is an art.

When we first start, it can be easy to feel like honesty to the narrative (it's good enough to tell and that does most of the work) and overabundance of detail (if I can prove a wild thing actually happened, bam, story sells itself) but that's not quite it.

You don't have to go full bore but hooks, motivations, conflicts, stumbling blocks, and reactions go a LONG way to making what can often read like a police summary read like an honest to god compelling story.

It's easy to assume good storytelling is a natural gift some are just blessed with like charm, sense of humor, or creativity.

While it's true, some of us start further back from the starting line than others, all can developed. Older you get, the more obvious it becomes b/c you see people who were objectively better than you stall out.

You don't have to be the next Melville or even bother with a red H but if you are going to express yourself, worth focusing on doing it well. When you feel yourself clicking and having success, it starts to feed your curiosity and you can set up a nice little feedback loop.

 

[ronde]

A lot of my stories are based upon personal experience. I learned long ago that you should write what you know, and I know my personal experiences better than I know anything else. I know how I felt at the time and that becomes part of the story. I know how other people felt from seeing their body language or because they told me how they felt. That also becomes part of the story. That makes characters human instead of just cardboard cutouts of people.

I don't write down my experiences verbatim. I tend to carve off a bit here and a bit there and meld them together along with answering the questions of "What if this had happened then?" or "What should I have done differently?"

I will admit that the older I get, the more experiences I have from which to draw story ideas, but I once read this quote that I believe to be true.

“Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at 15 to write several novels.”
—May Sarton

 

[AchtungNight]

I'd only say, don't use real names!

Or if you do, make sure they’re acceptable. Says the author behind “Doug Ramsay”.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Thoughts on really diving into personal experiences and not just using them as the basis of stories but rather as the story itself.

Who would know where your reality ends and your fiction starts? I think most of us puts bits of ourselves into stories, and make the rest of it up.

It's an irrelevant separation in my mind - but then, I write mostly reality based fiction, not elves or distant planets (except once, in a story set on Titan).

 

[Rustyoznail]

Welcome to the hangout!

There are a few authors who say they write about themselves and their experiences. I've read a few, and it can add a bit of spiciness to the story. Just remember, you're telling a story to entertain people, which is different from a dry retelling of events.

Good luck with it.

 

[JezzicaDee]

Welcome to the hangout!

There are a few authors who say they write about themselves and their experiences. I've read a few, and it can add a bit of spiciness to the story. Just remember, you're telling a story to entertain people, which is different from a dry retelling of events.

Good luck with it.

Hey
I did a creative writing course and day one, we got told “you may not think you have done anything interesting in your life, but everyone has a story…” I was trying to go straight after years of escorting and bad behaviour and at that point I realised I did indeed have a very interesting story. I just don’t think ‘karen’ and ‘barbara’ at the library creative writing club was the appropriate audience ha!
My partner told me about LitErotica and that there was an audience for my kind of writing, here I am.
I certainly agree, you did to add more than just dry events. That’s the writing part I suppose. I think most readers want a mix of different types of stories, there’s room for every one.
Love J x

 

[SimonDoom]

I look at personal experience as an aid but not a limit. One should never think one can't write fiction about a subject with which one has no personal experience. But if you know a lot about food, for example, you might incorporate that into a Sci fi novel set on another world to make it resonate better.

 

[AllenWoody]

I use my personal experiences like spices. A visual I remember, something someone said, a particular geometry, a sensation, an emotion... None of my scenes are from IRL but they are sprinkled with bits of real experiences.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Oh, and @JezebelleEscortStories and @Jared427 - don't forget to add a link to your stories in your signature.

 

[JezzicaDee]

Oh, and @JezebelleEscortStories and @Jared427 - don't forget to add a link to your stories in your signature.

Hey, thank you for this tip. I may be an old pro, but I’m new here so I’m not sure how this works.
Here’s the link to my latest story:
https://www.literotica.com/s/whore-on-tour-manchester-madness
Hope you can find it from there
Love J x

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'll have a read.

Click on your name in the top right, then signature. You can add a couple of lines there.

 

[JezzicaDee]

I'll have a read.

Click on your name in the top right, then signature. You can add a couple of lines there.

Aww that’s very sweet of you to help me, thank you.
Testing the signature is here:

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Some of my stories are basic retelling of events. The better ones have some details and threads removed so the story can focus on a clear storyline, rather than just reading like a diary, "this happened, this happened, this happened." Teasing out the causes and effects and emotions makes a report into a story.

I've changed bits not just for anonymity but also to make a better story - merging two encounters or characters into one, changing the order of events to build to more of a climax, or changing an ending to be happier.

 

[luv2custrip]

I use my personal experiences like spices. A visual I remember, something someone said, a particular geometry, a sensation, an emotion... None of my scenes are from IRL but they are sprinkled with bits of real experiences.

My story “My Female Boss and the CMNF Party” is based on a real woman I worked with. Every scene that doesn’t involve sex or nudity is straight from real life.

 

[Zootonius]

My sex life would make a boring story. But the slow wooing of my now wife has offered many tidbits to my stories. I joke with her that it was a slow siege.