Real life experiences can provide some ready-made material for fiction, but there are both pros and cons to “writing what you know”.

Career experience

A number of best-selling writers have first had success in another career and then made a second good living writing about it. Former attorney John Grisham, former prosecutor Linda Fairstein, and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs have used their fields as backdrops for their books and given their jobs to a main character. Others, like Patricia Cornwell, have an observer’s viewpoint of their character’s job from working in another position in the same field. (Cornwell was a computer analyst in the medical examiner’s office.) The result is realistic fiction with a sense of accurate detail that only an insider could provide.

Personal troubles

Actor and writer Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia in Star Wars) decided to explore some themes from her own life in her novel Postcards From the Edge. She wrote a satire about an actress, centring around the character’s battle with drug addiction, picking her life up again after rehabilitation, and her troubled relationship with her actress mother who is set on outshining her daughter.

The problem Carrie Fisher has faced for years is that, as a celebrity, many people knew her as the daughter of starlet Debbie Reynolds, and as one of many actresses who went through a period of drug dependency. Most people have presumed that Postcards From the Edge is at least partially autobiographical, and have drawn related and inaccurate conclusions about Carrie, her life, and her relationships, that she never intended.

Remember James Frey? Frey wanted to write a memoir about his life. But his life wasn’t quite as exciting as he’d first thought it was, so he added a little bit of fiction to give it some edge. And then he got into a lot of trouble because he went through with the claim that all of his story was true.

The problem with real life is that it has no plot. As fiction writers, we look for plot and tend to work one out if there is none. Be very careful of doing this if you’re writing a true memoir.

Using real people as the basis for your characters

It’s risky to write about real people. The defence “It’s fiction!” doesn’t help much if someone decides to sue you for libel because you’ve portrayed them in a negative light, or simply because you’ve used their likeness without their permission.

If you do have permission, you run the risk of losing some editorial control when your subject decides they want to read how you’ve written their scenes. And, in an extreme example, if much of the book contains remembered dialogue, the subject could well decide you owe him a percentage of your royalties for his “contribution”.

It’s best to stick to themes, concepts, and impressions when you’re using your own experiences as material for fiction. If an experience needs telling, then tell it as non-fiction and get the details straight. If you’re writing fiction, then explore what it is that intrigues you about a person or experience. Why merely rewrite something that already has a story?

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Whether you have a true story you have to tell, or specific themes from your life you want to explore, have a read through these books to help you decide how to go about writing it:
Writing Creative Nonfiction : Instruction and Insights from Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs edited by Philip Gerard (read my review of another of Philip Gerard's books here)

Contemporary Creative Nonfiction : The Art of Truth edited by Bill Roorbach