How autobiographical is your writing?

[Brian G Turner]

I remember a comment Stephen Palmer made in another thread, where he made the point that a lot of writing being autobiographical: How publishers cheat authors with discounts

I'm not writing an autobiography but an epic fantasy series, yet I'm trying to put every experience and inspiration I can into this. On the one hand, I figure it'll make help make it more real and therefore a better piece of writing.

But I also remember being haunted by Rutger Hauer's words at the end of Bladerunner, about experiences being lost, so I suppose that comes into it.

So the question is, how autobiographical do you make your writing? Is it simply a series of abstract shapes given form, or are you trying to put as much as yourself into it?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

None of me at all, if possible. But I suppose certain traits appear (I am just starting something new and the female character is the most like me I've written.) But, nope, I don't torture people, nor have a I recovered from hideous trauma. Even Inish Carraig has nothing of me in it.

But, my writing does draw on Stanislavski's Emotional memory - if a character is mourning, I think back to how I felt when I mourned something or someone. I do actually have to stop every character having stomach ache when they get tense, I suppose.

 

[The Judge]

Autobiographical?

Same or even vaguely similar experiences, actions? Not. At. All.

Incorporating people I know as characters? Not likely.

Bits of me in the characters? Certainly. In every character. I am large. I contain multitudes. (Walt Whitman)

 

[HareBrain]

I don't consciously put myself into it -- if my characters don't have a more interesting life than me, then I've failed utterly -- but as TJ said, they can't help reflecting how I've experienced the world.

 

[VinceK]

I created a Myers-Briggs personality matrix for each character and then referred to this when placing them in a particular situation in an attempt to reduced the amount of influence I exerted over their reactions.

 

[The Big Peat]

I guess on one level they're autobiographies of lives I might have had if born in another place, another time, with another set of genetics...

On pretty much every other level, nah. There's trace elements of course, but no.

*pause* That said, the most recent critique I posted up, when I developed the character a little more in my head he turned out bright but unorganised and unfocused with no sense of what they wanted to do, good at reading people but not good at interacting with them... and about a week later realised that to a large extent that was/is my self image. So I guess if/when that one gets off the ground, there'd be a large element there.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I like to think they're not autobiographical, but my husband and best friend say that reading my books is like sitting inside my head. I suspect more of me creeps in than I would like to think. But if that's true then my brother needs to watch out because homicidal big sisters have a habit of showing up in my stories.

 

[zmunkz]

I draw from people around me that I've really met and dealt with... but myself? No, I try to stay out of it...

 

[Phyrebrat]

Thematically, yes. Personality, no.

That is to say my writing is only about the themes that have made me me. But I'm not using my own character traits in the narrative.

pH

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It's generally thought that a lot of first novels - published or not - have a strong autobiographical element, whether the creator realises it or not. That was certainly the case with my first, though I had no idea at the time. If you keep going though, the drive to reach out to others becomes overwhelming.

 

[Biskit]

I find that a lot of my characters have some of me in them - often a sample of the negative side, or an exaggeration. For events and interactions I often draw on the things I have done and people I have known. So some things are simple - post-grad student, research scientist, software developer - and then there are the wackier ones: historical re-enactor, dancer, stage-hand, home-brewer, bee-keeper, shepherd, natural-born cat-whisperer...

What's the point of doing all these damn-fool things if you don't make use of them?

I've never been in a real battle, and never want to be, but I have stood with a bunch of like-minded nutters in seventeenth century costume, holding a seventeen foot pike at a place called Babylon Hill in Somerset, waiting for those damned Parliamentarians to come and play - it is weird and spooky, knowing it's only a bit of fun for the audience, but when all you can hear is marching drums from the other side of the hill and then the tips of the pikes just coming over the top there is a real WTF and do I really want to be here moment.

I don't imagine I will ever write a historical novel, but I can certainly replace Parliamentarians with Orcs (or whatever) and relive that WTF moment.

Or delivering the first ever lamb (OK, the ewe did most of the work) - that's a real wow moment that doesn't get old, and we've been doing it for ten years now.

It's my life, so I might as well use it.

 

[Toby Frost]

I wouldn’t say that my writing was autobiographical, not in the usual sense. But what I write is always very much influenced by what interests me, and in the case of the Smith books, what I find funny. I’m not Isambard Smith, or any of his crew, but they overlap with me one way or another. Also, of course, people make villains of what they dislike.

A friend of mine read the fantasy novel I’d been working on and said that he was surprised to find that none of the characters was clearly either me or “my” character. I think over time the links to me in my writing have become less obvious, and I’ve spread my own experiences across different people. There’s a conversation in the fantasy novel that good friends will know I once had with someone, and one of the characters has a reoccurring injury based on injury I’ve had to my knee, but they aren’t the same people, and the people who do have those experiences are very different to me. Also, I think it’s possible for a novel to have a sense of something, or to talk about something that interests you personally, without having much to do with you in an obvious way. The robot book, if and when I write it, will be like that.

 

[ErikB]

I remember a comment Stephen Palmer made in another thread, where he made the point that a lot of writing being autobiographical: How publishers cheat authors with discounts

I'm not writing an autobiography but an epic fantasy series, yet I'm trying to put every experience and inspiration I can into this. On the one hand, I figure it'll make help make it more real and therefore a better piece of writing.

But I also remember being haunted by Rutger Hauer's words at the end of Bladerunner, about experiences being lost, so I suppose that comes into it.

So the question is, how autobiographical do you make your writing? Is it simply a series of abstract shapes given form, or are you trying to put as much as yourself into it?

I think that some of any writer goes into their creation. The degree with which I put myself into any character is minute. But as the creator of a story I often find types of behavior in my characters that mirror people that I have known.

But in writing each character I must also assume the thoughts and mantal of the character in order to understand how the character thinks, speaks, and acts.

I believe rather than considering my works to have "biographical" aspects of myself, I would reverse the notion and say that I take on non biographical aspects of each character in order to create better continuity within the story.

For writing purposes, I become them more than they mirror me.

 

[Evorath]

Bits of me in the characters? Certainly. In every character. I am large. I contain multitudes. (Walt Whitman)

I think this best describes my writing as well. Virtually every character I write has aspects of my personality, background, or experiences, but I am much more than any one of these qualities. With that said, I do try to integrate as much of my own experiences into my writing to make it as realistic as possible. Even in fantasy, I find that it is easy enough to pull this off if you combine those experiences with a bit of fairy dust (AKA an imagination). Then again, I've been known to pick up hobbies just because I want to write about a character that is skilled in that area. So, I can also relate to ErikB on that end.

For writing purposes, I become them more than they mirror me.

 

[ErikB]

I think that some of any writer goes into their creation. The degree with which I put myself into any character is minute. But as the creator of a story I often find types of behavior in my characters that mirror people that I have known.

But in writing each character I must also assume the thoughts and mantal of the character in order to understand how the character thinks, speaks, and acts.

I believe rather than considering my works to have "biographical" aspects of myself, I would reverse the notion and say that I take on non biographical aspects of each character in order to create better continuity within the story.

For writing purposes, I become them more than they mirror me.

I should never write when pressed time. Make that "mantle" not "mantal" since I'm not selling land in Sweden. I know better than to let that slip by... Sheesh!

 

[Dan Jones]

For me, I can't say I've been through anything my characters have been through. However, a lot of my first-hand knowledge of how Government, industry and regulators work together (or not) has informed much of the background and setting, which helped me feel confident about the feel of the book.

Autobiographical implies "the story of one's life", and while that's not the case for my characters (and for which I'm grateful; I'm not sure Id want to go through what my characters do...), I do use "little" experiences I or others I know might have had, such as a certain reaction or feeling, or look.

 

[hopewrites]

I think my writing gets autobiographical in the way that dreams are autobiographical. The characters in dreams are drawn from personal feelings and their interactions the long form of emotional decision making. The over arching theme of the dream speaking to one aspect of waking life or another.

With writing I tap into the same pool (since I learned to write by keeping a dream dairy) but the draw is more under my control than it is when I'm asleep.

Except those 75 word stories about me arguing with the kitchen. Those are straight out of reality, told with just enough fantasticallity to qualify as fiction.

 

[S.C.Wood]

I tend to write a lot of myself and/or my experiences within my stories. Sure, I might exaggerate certain things, but the core of the plot somehow relates to me.