RL making its way into your stories...

[BiscuitHammer]

I'm mostly referring to not-sex things in this case, but the thread is open to all concepts.

I very often insert things that have happened (or continue to happen) in my life into my stories. Example- Alex plays D&D, Warhammer, Battletech, and other Tabletop and RPG games. He is currently running a Warhammer 4e campaign with his friends in my Mike & Karen series. And things that happen in the in-story game have actually happened in the campaign I'm running. I've inserted the characters in my campaign into the stories, and what my players do with them. So if something completely messed up happens in my RL game, then it will likely happen in Alex's campaign as well.

My player who has an outlaw character, whenever he makes intimidation rolls, he puts on a luchador mask and has to recite his threat to me before he makes the roll. So Alex's friend who's playing the outlaw in-story does the same thing, and makes the same awful threat.

If my goofball players manage to burn down their favourite tavern, well, Alex's players do too. Basically, if it happens in Alex's game, it's happened in real life with me and my murder hobos.

Not only is it funny, but for my readers out there who are RPGers, it's relatable. It also saves me from having to think up new material, which means I'm saving on brain hard drive space.

What are some examples of your personal life making it (almost) word for word into a story? Because truth can be so very much stranger than fiction...

 

[ElectricBlue]

What are some examples of your personal life making it (almost) word for word into a story? Because truth can be so very much stranger than fiction...

The three vignettes that open The Floating World are pretty much recounts of actual events and conversations, except for one sentence. Likewise, the opening scene of The Madelyn Chapters is a recount of a chance meeting in the street.

Significant elements of I'll Need to Change the Sheets are also true, as is the entirety of Memory and Loss.

It's safe to say that significant personal truthes permeate many of my stories.

 

[Djmac1031]

A lot of my lead male characters tend to be older, divorced, unhappy with their past relationships. That's not accidental or coincidental.

My geeky side has crept through as well; references to Star Wars and Marvel, etc.

And of course, my characters tend to have similar kinks. Again, not a coincidence lol.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Nearly everything I write is based on at least a grain of truth. Things that have happened to me, or someone I know, are often detailed in my writing. Funny thing is, some readers think that some of it is kind of far-fetched, though most of the crazier stuff is most often based in reality.
Some things I've yet to publish, I'm still deciding if I'll share, especially since someone might recognize themselves, if they were ever to read my version of what happened between us.

 

[gunhilltrain]

If I want to describe something exactly as it happened, I put it in Reviews and Essays. https://classic.literotica.com/s/the-past-is-a-foreign-country (To the best of my memory, of course.) An event that almost happened to me but didn't was a separation my wife asked for in the early 1980's. She changed her mind and I went along with it, although eventually we did separate years later. Several of times I have used a fictionalized version of that non-event (or event that was cancelled?) as if it actually happened and it makes a good plot point.

A fictionalized version of the college newspaper from the essay (I called it The Salient) often appears. A few of the real people from it appear as minor characters but the plots and main characters are made up. I do place it in the building (now demolished) where it was located, even to the point of describing what was visible through the windows.

I highly doubt, say, that my ex-wife or my college classmates will ever find Literotica, and if they do, good luck in finding my stuff among the tens of thousands of stories on here. Even so, that was so long ago that I don't care what they would think.

 

[KeithD]

The last two stories I reviewed to submit to the Valentine's Day contest are very close to home, even with some real people in them. They were written sometime apart and I don't usually get that close with stories, but there you are.

Of course if Laurel doesn't get clued into not having announced the Valentine's Day contest yet and given the slug we're supposed to use . . .

 

[Duleigh]

Of course if Laurel doesn't get clued into not having announced the Valentine's Day contest yet and given the slug we're supposed to use . . .

I should have remembered that, I pinged her today about the 750 word project that starts in 20 days

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The meals my characters cook for themselves bear a suspicious relationship to the contents of my fridge. Their drinking also resembles my drinks cabinet, and music mentioned happens to be stuff I like.

My characters often start off with the physical appearance of someone I know, plus the personality of someone else, with a dash or two of some other people.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Much to my wife's chagrin, a smattering of RL exists in all of my stories.

One, in particular, included scenes in an Irish Pub that we frequent. The fictional characters interacted with the RL employees of the establishment, but as I was writing the scenes, it seemed like every time I included one of the RL employees by name, within days, they would no longer be working there.

It pissed my wife off, and she still blames me for some of her favorite employees not being there anymore.

 

[SimonDoom]

A few of the characters in my stories are based loosely on people I've known.

In most of my stories, the settings are similar to those I have lived in or worked in, and with which I am familiar. The settings are often left vague or fictionalized, but their characteristics are similar to places I have known.

A few of my stories incorporate elements of real-world news, such as my COVID lockdown story, or my science fiction story inspired by the true story of "penis fish" washing onto the beach in California.

 

[PennameWombat]

I played in a soccer tournament in Mexico while in college over spring break. Met a high school group from North Dakota. That’s how Mel and Chris met here, their meeting and subsequent lives veered totally away from reality.

I worked a summer at a municipal swimming pool. So did Jeremy here. His summer was, beyond that location, totally divorced from reality. But of the few comments I get, one was quite appreciative of my depiction of the pool and its equipment.

I use plenty of real settings. The swimming pool. Paris, France. Stonehenge and Trowbridge. Sydney and its suburbs. Kangaroo Island. A certain city next to a large, salty lake (that isn’t so large as it used to be.) Las Vegas. And others. Generally with a few twists, but also meant to be recognisable.

But events? Beyond having said hello to a group of North Dakota high school students while in Mexico… no.

 

[Duleigh]

Of course RL creeps into our stories, the secret to writing a good, believable story is "write what you know." I've been lucky enough to have lived a life that has scattered me all over the world with a sense of curiosity often got me in to trouble but enabled me to meet a myriad of incredible people, my favorite being Mr. Park a Korean English professor who didn't understand the use of phrases like "out of the frying pan, into the fire" (he couldn't understand why you would be in a frying pan in the first place) and "Son of a bitch" (he thought it was a compliment meaning cute like a puppy) and intentional malapropisms that his students brought to him. I learned more about Asia, Korea, and his people much more than he learned about English. Another favorite was Gundi, a race car driver who didn't like to drive, she wanted to be a mechanic on the team because you can't get a job being a race car driver but you can get a job as a mechanic. Her brother Klaus was a friend, an apprentice baker, we'd sit up all night talking about the apprentice process in Germany and I'd wonder "Why don't we have that in America?"

How can people like that and the settings that surround them not creep into your stories?

 

[SomaSlave]

My stories are all rooted, to some degree, in RL. One of the series, Soma's Journey, is completely based on incidents in my life. The other stories, while purely fictional, are explorations of experiences I would like to have; some of the incidents are based on things that I experienced. My MC's insights and thoughts are my own and the locations are mostly based on local places (readers familiar with the Triangle will recognize many of them).

The fascinating aspect of this to me is that, as I record possibilities, the MC's responses often go somewhere very different from my intention. Is he taking on a life of his own? Are my own desires actually very different than I thought? I'm not sure, but the writing journey is certainly enlightening.

 

[MrPixel]

A lot of my earlier works were paraphrased from RL events, and maybe future short stories might be inspired by recollections. About the only RL in my current writing (a series) is one of the MCs is modeled on my wife, quirks and all. She is (...uh...mostly...) amused by it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Much to my wife's chagrin, a smattering of RL exists in all of my stories.

One, in particular, included scenes in an Irish Pub that we frequent. The fictional characters interacted with the RL employees of the establishment, but as I was writing the scenes, it seemed like every time I included one of the RL employees by name, within days, they would no longer be working there.

It pissed my wife off, and she still blames me for some of her favorite employees not being there anymore.

I've seen this before. How did she find out? I hope you didn't tell her. This is why people in my RL know that I write, but they don't know what I'm writing. Fortunately, most of them are just not that interested in what I'm doing.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I've seen this before. How did she find out? I hope you didn't tell her. This is why people in my RL know that I write, but they don't know what I'm writing. Fortunately, most of them are just not that interested in what I'm doing.

My wife proofreads most of my stories for me, especially the less erotic stories, which the one mentioned was.

 

[elizaloo]

All of my stories have some basis in reality - and then segue into fantasy. In fact, if anyone from my younger years happened into Lit, they'd recognize me immediately. Several are completely factual from beginning to end.

 

[gunhilltrain]

My wife proofreads most of my stories for me, especially the less erotic stories, which the one mentioned was.

I'm sort of impressed. My marriage ended long before I joined Literotica, but even if they had overlapped, I would never have let her know what I was doing. The same goes for my remaining family, including my sister and my two adult children.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I avoid letting my real life creep into the stories. While I live an interracial romance story, it's all personal and not open to anyone else's business. All my stuff is just letting my imagine run rampant. Sometimes, I go to far. I know that. But not going to put any IR from my RL into my tales.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have used RL events from my life or the lives of people I know. Also, in public, like restaurants, bars, movies or plays, and sporting events, I make mental notes about how people look and act. Sometimes I eavesdrop on conversations and use what I hear, or closer to what I heard, in conversations in my tales.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I have used RL events from my life or the lives of people I know. Also, in public, like restaurants, bars, movies or plays, and sporting events, I make mental notes about how people look and act. Sometimes I eavesdrop on conversations and use what I hear, or closer to what I heard, in conversations in my tales.

I recall that Ralph Bakshi actually recorded conversations he heard in bars and other areas when he was producing Fritz the Cat, Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and so on. He used the recordings for background dialogue in his movies.

Just before covid fucked the world, I witnessed the world's most entertaining hobo fight (sorry, I meant 'forgotten man' fight) in a parkette, and I'm DEFINITELY putting that scene into the Alexaverse...

 

[Seadog777]

I'm mostly referring to not-sex things in this case, but the thread is open to all concepts.

I very often insert things that have happened (or continue to happen) in my life into my stories. Example- Alex plays D&D, Warhammer, Battletech, and other Tabletop and RPG games. He is currently running a Warhammer 4e campaign with his friends in my Mike & Karen series. And things that happen in the in-story game have actually happened in the campaign I'm running. I've inserted the characters in my campaign into the stories, and what my players do with them. So if something completely messed up happens in my RL game, then it will likely happen in Alex's campaign as well.

My player who has an outlaw character, whenever he makes intimidation rolls, he puts on a luchador mask and has to recite his threat to me before he makes the roll. So Alex's friend who's playing the outlaw in-story does the same thing, and makes the same awful threat.

If my goofball players manage to burn down their favourite tavern, well, Alex's players do too. Basically, if it happens in Alex's game, it's happened in real life with me and my murder hobos.

Not only is it funny, but for my readers out there who are RPGers, it's relatable. It also saves me from having to think up new material, which means I'm saving on brain hard drive space.

What are some examples of your personal life making it (almost) word for word into a story? Because truth can be so very much stranger than fiction...

I do the same thing. In EVERY ONE of my stories there is something that is 100% RL.

A name, location, description, scenario, etc, etc.

It's fun to get the emails or messages from people trying to guess what it is.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

I've gotten comments about silly things like the color of the trees at a certain location in the fall, that a reader thought I got wrong. But now, since I rarely say where the story takes place (unless it's important to know) no one can give me grief over a some tiny little detail that they love to point about their city or state.

The added bonus is that no one would realize that they might be the person that I've written into a story, if there's no location that would tie it to them.

 

[nice90sguy]

I avoid it here, based on the admittedly unlikely scenario of having my real identity exposed.

My non-erotic stories are pretty much autobiographical, sometimes down to the people's names.

 

[Duleigh]

It's fun to get the emails or messages from people trying to guess what it is.

It is! under the heading of "Write what you know" I get emails from fellow veterans that start with "I was stationed there! From 1987 to..." and I end up with a few more ideas for future stories

I avoid it here, based on the admittedly unlikely scenario of having my real identity exposed.

At my age it's highly unlikely they know me. My legend is fading into obscurity, and most subpoenas have expired.