Serious Writing Question

[Misty_Morning]

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[rgraham666]

Okay...

Misty_Morning does not have any submissions but one her alts has a question...

When is reality too much?

Yes, we all take experiences from our private lives and expand upon them...

But have you ever encountered certain situations which are so unique that they can be traced back to you? In most cases we can get around it, but sometimes getting around it dilutes the story so much that it does not makes sense.

I have attempted to hand off very hot story ideas based in reality to others with no success.

I have found this very problematic in my (strike that) others folks writings.

I think that I should point out the fact that these ideas pertain to national security and/or military. I (or my alts) have attempted to address these subjects in the strories idea arena without success.

Suggestions?

Hasn't happened to me yet. But I've never had a job that pertained to national security.

Don't have any suggestions. I'll think about it.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Every time I try to write a story that the people around me could use to figure out that I was the one writing it, it kind've ends up incomplete, and not very good.

Not to mention I have told almost everyone I know that I write porn stories. I haven't linked them all, but they are well aware that I do it. And if they really wanted to they could figure it out.

 

[tanyachrs]

I wrote a story about someone I had the hots for that I realized made the two of us too recognizable. I submitted it and then quickly deleted it before it was ever published. My mistake was including all the little details without changing them, not realizing how they pile up. I think if you change the details as you go it'll be less recognizable than you'd expect. People aren't that clever mostly.

 

[Misty_Morning]

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[angela146]

But have you ever encountered certain situations which are so unique that they can be traced back to you? In most cases we can get around it, but sometimes getting around it dilutes the story so much that it does not makes sense.

I think that I should point out the fact that these ideas pertain to national security and/or military. I (or my alts) have attempted to address these subjects in the strories idea arena without success.

So, for example, if you wrote a story about two people making out on the Commandant's desk at West Point, and included too much detail... after all, there are a finite number of people who are familiar with the layout of the office.

Actually, I know what that's like.

My father has had an "interesting" career in the Military. If I were to talk about him much I would end up "outing" myself.

One suggestion would be to make some of the details deliberately wrong or inconsistant in a way that doesn't detract from the story. For example, if you write about a submarine commander, combine some of the characteristics of attack subs with some characteristics of "boomers".

Change the branch of service if possible (army/marine for example).

PM me if you like and we can talk in some detail.

 

[3113]

Fiction needs Distance

When is reality too much?

I'm not quite sure what your question is. If it's a fear of recognition, then you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Write someone you know into a story and they may not recognize themselves at all...write up a completely fictional character and some real person may get all mad at you for writing about them! (Happened in a story my husband wrote. He used a name for a character, basing it on one guy. Some other guy with the same name insisted that the character was him--even though it absolutely was not. He was very upset that the character died).

I think that I should point out the fact that these ideas pertain to national security and/or military. I (or my alts) have attempted to address these subjects in the strories idea arena without success.

Now this suggests if you're asking if something too close or too "hot" is just untouchable because it is "too real."

The answer is "no" it's not because it's "too real" UNLESS the reality is so much stranger than fiction that it become unbelievable if you fictionalized it.

I've talked to a lot of other writers and read stories by people touching on "too real" things that happened to them. And the problem is always the same: It's difficult to fictionalize a hot event that's too recent.

You can blog about it, you can write it up in your journal, you can even write up a non-fiction book about it not a week after it happened. But turning it into fiction is a bitch.

Example: A friend of ours wrote a fictionalized account about his very bad divorce while it was happening. It didn't make for good writing.

Why is this? Well, non-fiction is pretty much the facts as you lived them. But fiction is often something larger. You don't write about *your* divorce, you write about *a* divorce and it can stand for any divorce. You don't write about the guy who leaked sensitive information and nearly caused a war between the U.S. and N. Korea. You write about *a guy* who leaks sensitive information that nearly causea *a war* and the difficulties of national security in this modern day and age.

In short, I would say that the reason you can't write these stories just yet is not only because you might be recognized, but also because it's too soon. You haven't enough distance from them to see what they really should be about. Putting it another way, you've amazing facts to relate, but that doesn't equal a story. You need that distance to turn a news report into a fictional tale, to see what the larger picture is so that it becomes more than just shocking facts.

As for others having the balls to write up these stories for you...others may not see a story in them yet either. It may have nothing to do with how hot the topic is. Not every idea is a story, and not every shocking fact in-and-of-itself is going to be material for good fiction.

 

[angela146]

In short, I would say that the reason you can't write these stories just yet is not only because you might be recognized, but also because it's too soon. You haven't enough distance from them to see what they really should be about. Putting it another way, you've amazing facts to relate, but that doesn't equal a story. You need that distance to turn a news report into a fictional tale, to see what the larger picture is so that it becomes more than just shocking facts.

Yes. If the "heat" comes from the actual event and that event is to recent, you can't fictionalize it until time has passed.

On the other hand, it may be a particular setting or a particular job that adds flavor to the story. It may have happened years ago but you still can't write about it without giving away who you are.

For example, that blow job in the oval office... the desk, the cigar, the cute little hat...

 

[tanyachrs]

That's a good example. If it's only hot because it's the oval office, then you're out of luck. But sometimes the story works just as well in the headmaster's office with a banana, at which point it becomes completely unrecognizable. In some ways, using real details for a fictional story is laziness. You know those details work and they're easy to slide in but maybe an invented detail could be more richly symbolic if chosen carefully.

I don't know how changing the author would make any difference. If you have information no one else should have then you either wrote the story or passed the details on. Either way, it implicates you.

 

[oggbashan]

I think you should treat the story as an intellectual exercise:

How can I tell this story without revealing the identity of the participants or myself?

Write it as fiction. Read it. Are there too many clues? Then write again and test until you have written the story in a way that no one involved would recognise as being based on their experiences.

It can be done but it takes applied intelligence and persistence.

OG

 

[angela146]

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that the original details of the event can *detract* from the truth of the story. By altering the specifics, I can get to the essence of the story.

I have been writing some partial stories for the snippets thread over the past couple of days. Each of them started as a true story and then morphed into fiction.

As I added fiction, removed original details and diverged farther from the original events - I began to move closer to the heart of the story.

Maybe it is an artifact of my writing style - or lack of talent - but it seems to work for me.