I was wallowing pretty heavily in self pity this morning. My right eye is a mess, my water heater exploded last night and flooded our basement, and I was all “oh, life sucks, I’m so miserable, boo-hoo.”
And then a dear writing friend of mine (I don’t think she reads this blog, but she’s pretty much one of the most awesome critique buddies I’ve ever had), turned it back on me. On Monday I had mused aloud about what kind of conflict occured in real life that I could use in my stories. For some reason, when she replied with “Well, your hot water heater could blow up, flooding your basement…”
It just made me grin. So that’s my advice for the day. The next time life sucks and you have absolutely no desire to stop wallowing, put one of your characters through the same thing. Not to torture them, but because then you can have the situation turn out exactly like you want…at least on paper. It’s cathardic, trust me.
Do you ever use real life events in your fiction?
Ouch that does suck. We had our toilets back up and had to have the septic tank dug up and fixed which left our yard a disaster last year. I know how that type of mess goes. And in times where finances are already tight, it really sucks the big one.
But that is good advice. Not sure I’d use a water heater but I haven’t figured out the technology level of my epic fantasy. However, having stuff like that can make for a great story line. One of the writers did that who does the podcast “Writing Excuses”. He had a person complaining about a house being haunted but it ended up just being an issue with a toilet that eventually was fixed by a plumber and not the ghost hunter (or something along those lines). People still write to him asking if it was a ghost or not. lol
I’ve used real life events of my own and other peoples in some fiction though it’s hard to point out an example. Maybe if I think of one I’ll let you know.
I use my own real-life experiences all the time. I embellish, of course, but there are some things that I wrote a priori — before they happened — that later turned out to happen to me in real life!
It’s weird. Sometimes my life imitates fiction, and sometimes my fiction imitates life.
– Eric
@Dawn – I don’t have a lot of indoor plumbing in my story yet, either. I’m still writing scenes from 3000 BC. But I’m sure I’ll find a use for it somewhere.
@Eric – the self-fulfilling prophecy of your writing almost sounds eerie. Maybe you could make bank on that? 😉