Drawing from personal experience

So we all know the adage that every life is a book waiting to be written. And some of us are mad enough to try. And we also know that it’s usually better to draw from personal experience than to try and wing it cold. Our characters are the most sympathetic when they are authentic. Which means knowing what the hell we’re talking about.

Which brings me to the next question: how close is too close? When do true events stop becoming fiction and start becoming autobiographic? Does it start with verbatim quotes and end with suspiciously similar-sounding names? (“I’ll call my protagonist… Memogen Goods. That will fool them.”) Can you be accused of unoriginality if you were to bring the most annoying character you know to your pages?

When does working the muse become abuse? Read more