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| Every month in Writer's Digest's InkWell section, we pose a thought-provoking question related to the writing life. In the March issue of WD, we talk about turning your diary into a novel, and ask: Would your story be better told as fact or fiction? Why?
To be part of our monthly Conversation, e-mail your brief response (up to 50 words) to writersdig@fwpubs.com with "Life Story" as the subject line or post it here.
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Expert
Posts: 3170
  
Location: Montgomery, AL | My life is definitely better as fiction. I use aspects of my own life and family history to build stories. To me, life is a platform from which to launch believable, beautiful, and meaningful stories. However, if I were to tell my own story as fact, people would probably snore. |
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Member
Posts: 5
| That's a question I've been asking myself for years. In the past, I have used life experiences to write fiction, but I want to tell my story. I started a memoir last night, so we'll see how it goes. |
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Member
Posts: 15
Location: Rural Alberta | Life is usually stranger than fiction and my life story is no exception; parts would read like a combination of divine intervention and freaky coincidence. Fiction would probably work better as a marketing tool. |
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Expert
Posts: 6979
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico | Mine would most likely do best as a tragic comedy of errors. |
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Expert
Posts: 3334
Location: Southwestern Virginia | Have to be fiction. Even with the mother ship's user manual, you people would never believe it.
John
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Member
Posts: 41
| I'd prefer that most of my life's story be told as fiction to protect the guilty and not to embarass the innocent. |
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New User
Posts: 3
| I'm biased for good reason. The first nonfiction I published is an autobiography, (Timeline, published ByShayne), and the first prose book I published was a memoir piece. I'm working on a book featuring the life I lead v. the life I SHOULD have had. This way, I've fully balanced the truth with the What-Ifs, but still retain integrity of events as I remember them. |
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Regular
Posts: 98
Location: North Pole, Alaska (No, I'm not kidding) | My life would be better reading if I embellished and called it fiction. As much as I've donein my life, I doubt readers would want to see about the plethora of projects I didn't complete, the promises I didn't keep, or just how many failures outweigh my successes.
If I did convert my diary to non-fiction, it would be a tragic piece about a man struggling with his temper, responsiblities, and sprituality. |
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New User
Posts: 2
Location: Fargo, North Dakota | I didn't begin to write my stories down until an assignment for an English class. I was 48. I was encouraged to enter the freshman writing contest, won first place, twenty-five dollars, and changed my major. Biggest problem--writing about friends and family! Fiction would possibly create less trouble? |
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| I've spent a good deal of my post-college career in the media, i.e. newspaper writing, radio...and with all honesty I just finished a short story loosely based on my recent life. I've been battling depression for some time now and decided to feed off the negative feelings from the illness instead of letting it eat me alive from the inside out.
So, I guess my work could be considered fiction. I'm hoping to have it published,as I think it's a good look at what the disease can do to a person inside and out.
Hopefully, a kind publisher out there will be interested. I'll let ya's know what happens as time rolls on!
Later!
Paul |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 637
| No story of my life would be complete without my fictional characters. I've shed more tears over their deaths than I have over real life relations. Maybe that's because the characters have to die so many times: rough draft, revisions, copyedits, page proofs.... So that would be fiction. Multiple volumes. |
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Expert
Posts: 3170
Location: Montgomery, AL | Curious - 2006-02-22 2:10 PM
No story of my life would be complete without my fictional characters. I've shed more tears over their deaths than I have over real life relations. Maybe that's because the characters have to die so many times: rough draft, revisions, copyedits, page proofs.... So that would be fiction. Multiple volumes.
Good point, Clare!
Glad you're back. I've missed your sage and witty comments! |
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Expert
Posts: 1586
Location: Uijongbu | The only way I could tell ALL of my life story would be to lie and claim it's fiction. Otherwise, I'd have to leave out the really good parts. |
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Member
Posts: 38
Location: Staring into space...Cyberspace ;-D | I would definately have to write my life story as fiction, otherwise I'd get accused of embellishing the truth.  Wouldn't have to though my life is wierd enough as is. The story would be something like comedy/fantasy
 Emma |
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Expert
Posts: 3342
Location: San Diego, California | I guess I should join the parade marching for fiction, because when I tell my personal life experiences, the response most often received is: *blink* *blink*. Sometimes truth seems to be beyond belief. On the other hand, I could write my memoirs and never have James Frey's problems. |
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Expert
Posts: 3342
Location: San Diego, California | I guess I should join the parade marching for fiction, because when I tell my personal life experiences, the response most often received is: *blink* *blink*. Sometimes truth seems to be beyond belief. On the other hand, I could write my memoirs and never have James Frey's problems. |
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Expert
Posts: 3333
Location: Texas Hill Country | My personal life story would be better told as fact. The story is in my spiritual quest and I had never even thought it much of a story until I began to share my testimony with others and got their reactions.
Having said that, the story of my family is one of high-drama, tension, and truth unbelievable. Since I appear to be the only one of my family members itching to tell the stories - I'd write them as fiction. In fact, I am writing them as fiction.
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Veteran
Posts: 211
Location: Longview, Wa | I'd have to say fiction. For me to claim my life as factual and let the entire world read about it would make me feel sort of invaded. Besides, my diary is rather boring and all I really do is rant and rave. Though a fictional novel based on some the things I've gone through and places I've been would be fun to write. |
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Veteran
Posts: 211
Location: Longview, Wa | I'd have to say fiction. For me to claim my life as factual and let the entire world read about it would make me feel sort of invaded. Besides, my diary is rather boring and all I really do is rant and rave. Though a fictional novel based on some the things I've gone through and places I've been would be fun to write. |
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Regular
Posts: 58
Location: Nashville, TN | Fiction, definitely. My life story is interesting only to me, and that is because I'm attached to it. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of drama, conflict and resolution; but nothing that everyone else has not experienced in their lives already. They probably got it in more dramatic form, to boot. So, a little fiction thrown around to tidy up the loose ends, to bring a fine point to a pointless experience, a little moral lesson sharpened up so the next time it came around I would actually have learned from it. You get the idea. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 816
Location: Oregon | I'm on the fiction band wagon. I already have my husband asking me "Is this anyone I know?" when I tell him a story idea. It's hard enough to put yourself into your writing when it's fiction. I'm not sure if non-writers know how personal it is to write. Anyway, I don't think I could expose myself so completely. The one time I wrote a non-fiction short. It was so painful that I couldn't put any emotion into it. It ended up being a very flat piece. So, fiction it is. |
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Member
Posts: 33
Location: Swamps of New Jersey | My real life story is so surreal, it would read as fiction anyway. My life has consisted of being homeless, having abusive fathers, and my mother marrying a guy younger than me. After all, people love to read about the dysfunctions of others. It makes them feel better about themselves. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1171
| Karls_Mommy - 2006-03-06 4:09 PM My real life story is so surreal, it would read as fiction anyway. My life has consisted of being homeless, having abusive fathers, and my mother marrying a guy younger than me. After all, people love to read about the dysfunctions of others. It makes them feel better about themselves. I hope you've started that novel already. Personally, I don't like reading about the misfortunes of others. Too sad, brings out my emotions, which I'm determined to suppress. But it's true, people do love to read about dysfunctional families and such, and I have a few people I can give your book to as gifts. Subtle hints, you know! lol My story would be better told as non-fiction. Nothing too exciting, not too horribly boring either. Average, I guess. |
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Expert
Posts: 3170
Location: Montgomery, AL | The more I think about it, the more I realize that my life story is similar in many ways to Big Fish. My Dad is staying with us for a couple of days while he attends some lectures at our Alma Mater (Faulkner University). I took a couple of hours off today and went to a lecture with him, then he took me to lunch.
As we talked, he told stories about things my Papaw had done back when he was a young carpenter. Hearing him talk about his father and the past reminded me of the seemingly countless stories I heard from him and other family members throughout my childhood. They all have this unbelievable quality that seems larger than life, but you know it really happened.
That's how I want to tell stories. I want them to be big in some small way. |
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Life Stories
