I find it apparent in my every work of fiction to include bits of my own experiences inside my stories. Not just a rendition or a toned down version, I mean the whole thing, like every scene in that life experience I translate into fiction. It almost feels embarrassing since I'm basically spilling out my deepest private life events, but in a way, it felt like freedom. Do you do this often or am I the only lunatic who does? So if I we're to be a famous novelist someday and you happen to read one of my novels with embarrassing depictions of sex or other habits, you have to trust that it's 100% true. 

deathbyprayer (03:22am Tue, Aug 12, 2014)

So if I we're to be a famous novelist someday and you happen to read one of my novels with embarrassing depictions of sex or other habits, you have to trust that it's 100% true.

Hey, better that than having a depiction of sex written by somebody who has no idea how it really goes, eh?  (Apparently this really common romance novel cliche, where a heterosexual pair couple up one night and then just sort of stay joined at the genitals until dawn because they're so in lurve and it's romantic...does not work in real life. At all.)

As a fiction writer, I consider all life experience research for a novel. Sometimes I feel weird about it, so I do try to tone it down or mix it up a bit, but I think you're quite brave to keep it straight...and, once I gain more confidence, I'm sure that I'll writing out 100% true-to-life and true-to-my-life stuff, too.

That's really great! I find it a little hard to do stuff like that, though a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm only eighteen and thus haven't lived much, heh.

My father's been writing a sort of biography for yeaaars now, and from what I've read, it's just like what you describe; 100% true-to-life stuff.

I might have to try it some time. Writing this way sounds really liberating.

I know in my last novella I used my own personal experiences with panic attacks, suicide and other things to write those scenes. Those who have read it say they are quite intense and powerful, which was something that sometimes lacked in my earlier works. Writing about things you know, especially if the setting is 'reality' based lends an authenticity that is hard to achieve if you have no real knowledge of what you are writing about. (There are exceptions obviously. I can fairly graphically write about how it feels to eat an eyeball even though I have never eaten one, I've just watched other people doing it LOL)

I believe writing about something you truly know or have experienced it is one of the best ways of writing. You can actually see and even feel the difference--you know it is something the author either knows very well or actually lived or went through. Just follow your heart and let it go my friend!

Peace ! 

Haffina (01:07pm Tue, Aug 12, 2014)

I know in my last novella I used my own personal experiences with panic attacks, suicide and other things to write those scenes. Those who have read it say they are quite intense and powerful, which was something that sometimes lacked in my earlier works. Writing about things you know, especially if the setting is 'reality' based lends an authenticity that is hard to achieve if you have no real knowledge of what you are writing about. (There are exceptions obviously. I can fairly graphically write about how it feels to eat an eyeball even though I have never eaten one, I've just watched other people doing it LOL)

Now that's what I call "writing about what you know" - and as they say, writing about what you know is possibly the best advice when it comes to what to write about.  You can put every bit of every tiny detail that happened in the scene or event that you lived though, without any "fillers" which can lead to cliches - yuk! - we all want to avoid those. 

I think it can be sometimes painful to access those memories, but also quite liberating in another sense.  Some things that have happened to me in my life have become much less burdensome for committing them to paper - even if I never showed them to anyone else.