How Much of Yourself Do You Put in Your Stories?

[Emilymcplugger]

Boy, reading how so many people put experiences and real-life into their stories makes my vanilla life seem even more shit than normal.

Not a good day for the ego.

 

[SimonDoom]

Boy, reading how so many people put experiences and real-life into their stories makes my vanilla life seem even more shit than normal.

Not a good day for the ego.

Don't feel bad! You have your imagination. Let the exercise of your imagination boost your ego.

My stories bear little relationship to my real life. They're mostly fantasy projections. I've had a little experience with BDSM and exhibitionist/voyeur activities, but that's about it. No group sex. No threesomes. No wife swapping. And no incest, thank God. I like having this strange little place to let my fantasies run free. It doesn't matter at all to me whether I'm doing these things in the real world.

 

[Erosfan]

All of my stories are, at least in small part, a window into what/who I am or want to be. A couple of my stories are 100% true. Some are fantasy that I would like to try IRL.
Everything I have written is posted here on Lit.

 

[BoiBlackcinder]

All of my publshed stories are closely based on my real life experiences. I tell them from a first person perspective, and everything i wrote really happened to me, or i was witness to something and wrote it into my character.

I am working on a new story that is all creative, told from 3rd person POV. It's been a real challenge so far and I am seeking editorial advice.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

No real life tie-ins here. Most everything I have put up so far is purely fantasy.

 

[SmokingFap]

I'm always one of the main characters in any of my stories, because they're my fantasies and I write them for myself. I just happen to publish some of them on here.

 

[Tessinwales]

The majority of my work here is based on real life experiences. There is a little bit of artistic licence, but not much. Some of my work is fantasy. And no! I'm not going yo reveal which is and which isn't real life. You will have to judge that for yourself. Needless to say I put a lot of myself into all my work. How successful or enjoyed that is I can only take from comments made.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

A name, sometimes two dug out of the distant past. Very little else.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Not a whole lot.

 

[Erozetta]

Depends on the story. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes none at all.

 

[Plathfan]

Writing from personal experience is a double-edged sword. People tend to embellish the past and reality, thereby violating the art's first commandment: Thou shalt be authentic. Inauthenticity is the only unforgivable creative sin.

Such writing naturally tends toward first-person narration, and if the narrator is... well... annoying, no amount of literary skill can redeem it.

We all incorporate aspects of our own lives into our writing; it's inevitable. Yet, there's a fine, distinct line between elements that propel the story forward and a narcissistic impulse to write about oneself unnecessarily. That line is crossed all too easily, and once I notice it, I'm done. You'll join the ranks of eternal literary nemeses.

 

[magnetarhanggliding]

Some of my stories are pure fantasy.

Some are based on real-life events I read about or witnessed that touched me somehow. Those stories have a lot more of my emotion poured into them, and generally, don't do as well as the pure fantasy stories (there is a lesson in that about my abilities as a writer and storyteller).

In the sense that I've written stories with aspects that have affected me, then they are very personal, but they are not personal experiences.

 

[Belegon]

My earlier work had a lot more of real me worked in. Sometimes situations, sometimes friends, rarely lovers. Most of the lovers I've portrayed in my written work are combo pieces, the best parts of two or three different exe's... serial monogamy was my lifestyle for a lot of my youth. I've got more exes than I should and I can remember endearing traits I loved about almost all of them... and I don't hate any of them. So those things have been worked into stories. Or I've got a character in a story that looks like one ex and talks like another. Probably to the point that both girls could accuse me of copying them into my fiction.

As I've grown as a writer, I find that there is less of me. And, perhaps, less of my actual loved ones.

My cherry-picking the things I loved about former girlfriends has had some positives. Because I rarely pick negative traits to examine, the few real-life women who have deciphered themselves out of my work have responded pretty favorably.

 

[glynndah]

It all depends. Some of my stories are completely true; some are just slightly embellished and I'm the star, or at least an eager participant. Others are complete fantasy and have nothing to do with me except my imagination. I let the readers decide which is which.

 

[jaF0]

^^^^ Where have you been? It seems like it's been almost 5 years now.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Writing from personal experience is a double-edged sword. People tend to embellish the past and reality, thereby violating the art's first commandment: Thou shalt be authentic. Inauthenticity is the only unforgivable creative sin.

Huh! I thought the only unforgivable sin was to be boring.

Since most of my writing is sci-fi, "authentic" is malleable and negotiable. But my near-future sci-fi universe, the bleeding edge of high tech, is only an exaggeration and/or parody of my IRL world, and the characters are often mash-ups of the people I meet there. Is that authentic enough?

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Short answer: it depends on the story. I'm part of the "write what you know" tribe, so what I've published is based on my knowledge and experience either working in those fields, or just stuff that happened through my life. Nevertheless, all the events are complete bullshit, and you'd be really stupid to think any of it is real.

However, and here's the long answer:

Everything you write is autobiographical, even science fiction, and the planet Ork. In some way even that is a reflection of you—who you are. Paula Fox.

It wasn't until last year that I decided to go full Henry Miller (a guy well known for pretty much writing everything about himself and his life, but take both what I say and what he writes with a grain of salt; I mean, every single protagonist he had was himself, or himself with a different name) with Marquis de Sade for one reason: I was one of the unlucky thousands to participate in a lottery for a circus that ended up with all of us being politically persecuted. So yeah, one-sided civil wars, disproportionate retributions, people getting arrested for nothing, rigged elections... those things I mentioned in The Woman at the Speakeasy were real things that unfolded during the time in which I wrote the story, a time I spent in hiding, under extreme anxiety, and with the desire to come back here gnawing at me like a rat. I'm not ashamed to admit it, honestly. At the end of the day is my experience that shapes my fiction, and never in my entire life I thought I'll end up going back to my Cyberpunk roots by taking out the sci-fi element and putting sex instead.

Thing is the more I try to resist putting the things that interest me, whether that is kinks, social commentary, political caricatures of my country, curiosities that I have, or even tapping into my experiences in the jobs that I've had, the more I find those bleeding into the page one way or the other.