Unfortunately, what was a great memory for me was not a page turner for others. Real people don't always have problems and solutions. A camping trip is just a vacation. To tell that story in a way others would want to read was, and still is, a challenge.
Now I am starting again, with only a setting. While I may pull from memory, what happens this time will be my characters' stories, not mine. They will have to face obstacles, challenges, and overcome flaws that my sister and I didn't experience. While I know their location, I am going to leave it to the characters to see where this journey takes them.
Have you ever used your own story in your story? How did it work for you?
I do it all the time!!! I seem to have to start with nuggets of my own truth and then I let them loose. Have fun with it!
ReplyDeleteI've created characters that look like people I know but have different personalities and put character traits of myself and my friends and family into my characters. And once I used a whole scene about a weird experience I had with a bird... And I also gave my best friend's house to one of my characters!
ReplyDeleteRight on. Some of the best advice I got from a great writer friend of mine was something along the lines of, "You know what really happened, and who cares? Let that go and create the story."
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