Writing from Personal Experience
December 18, 2010
There are many ways to begin a story: one is writing from personal experience. Here’s how you can use this technique.
Ask yourself what moments from your childhood stand out for you? Which ones can you recall in vivid detail, which stories did your parents repeat to you over and over, which ones were the most terrifying or the most exhilarating? When you find a moment with energy, write it down. It may not become a story right away. It may begin as an anecdote. But collect these anecdotes until you begin to find the links and connections that will pull them into a story.
You may want to fictionalize personal experience, combining real events with imagination to make a story. I used this technique in Take the Stairs, which is based on personal experiences I had as a teen as well as those of people around me. Or, you may want to retain the flavour of actual events, using real names and places, like in a memoir. Either way, you’re looking to arrange reality into a story.
Here’s a quote from Alice Munro that I like: “Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.”
In later posts, I’ll explore how to write by observing people and by asking “what-if” questions.
I read your book Take the Stairs for a school project. I don’t read very often and I usually think books are awful, but yours was fantastic. Please keep writing Karen. Job well done.
-Kara
Thanks, Kara. I’m glad you liked the book. Keep reading. You might find other books you like. (You can tell that I’m addicted to books.)