Fiction based on truth

[StormSwept]

I have some inkling of a thought towards writing my life experience into a story which, on some level will be a challenge because it is traumatic, while on another level i feel it needs to be written.
On the other hand, if i do write it, and by some miracle it is published... it could really hurt the people who hurt me in the past. I am over it, it isn't about them (it is more about people who go through the same stuff being able to see an end and a hope in it all).

Would you write it?
How would you adapt reality to be more fiction like?

This is a very deep and serious thing I think, i dont want to dredge the past up, the person in question is as wounded and lost as the next one and it isn't my habit to bring people like that down. And Im not about revenge.

Jaki

[pajarita_deDios]

Hmmm, I'd say your first move is pray, pray, pray, and then pray. Let God guide you in this, because it is such a sensitvie subject for you and others.

[David Meigs]

I would encourage you to take the essence of your experiences and incorporate it into a story as different from your life as you can make it and yet still deliver the impact you desire. If you mirror your life too closely, you WILL have unintended consequences beyond the obvious ones. People will be hurt unnecessarily and you could even be sued. Not good.

I have a book inspired by the life of a friend. It would be fine with him if I were to write his life story, if it were not for the lives that would be hurt. I decided to draw upon my friend’s life story to write a fictional tale. The Lord helped me dream up an alternate set of circumstances that will deliver to the reader an experience that is essentially the same.

In the early 80’s Frank Peretti did very much the same with This Present Darkness. There was a cult that arose inside his community that destroyed many lives. Frank was one of a handful of men who helped to expose it and offer healing balm to those whose lives were destroyed. As with most novelists, he drew upon his life experiances and wrote an excellent novel.

Frank’s novel was in no way based on the events that happened in real life, but I feel he did an excellent job at portraying the essence of the experience of many of the people involved. Even more importantly, his book showed how God turned every thing around for the good of those who were devastated at the time. In that way, his book even took on a strangely prophetic quality. I encourage you to do the same.

[kriswrite]

Good advice has already been given. I'd just add that memoirs are really tough to sell, so doing this in novel form may be a better option for more than one reason.

Kristina

[kaulimus]

Perhaps, if you're on speaking terms (or even if you think it would just be beneficial to get off your chest), ask permission from these people you're afraid you'll hurt? It may give you a chance to work through some of those troubling memories and perhaps, if you explain the situation as you've done to us, you'll get the green light? Of course, not knowing the situation myself, such an approach may or may not be the best way about things.

Best of luck,
-Jake

[alison.strobel]

I'm facing the same situation, though nothing I have to say would really hurt anyone--more like I wonder how they'd feel knowing I was writing about them at all, you know? I've tried writing the story three times, once from a memoir perspective and twice from a fiction perspective, and I've yet to be able to get past a couple chapters. It just never feels right. I've had a lot of people say that it would be an important story to tell, that a lot of Christians need to hear it, so I've felt like there's this burden on me to tell it. But then someone told me, "Maybe God doesn't want you to write it." And at first I was like, what?!? Why on earth wouldn't he want me to?? But I don't know, maybe that person was right. I mean, if he DOES want me to write it, then it would come together, and so far it just hasn't.

So...maybe start writing it in whatever way you feel most comfortable--or else just flip a coin if you just can't decide!--and then just pray through it every time you work on it. If God wants you to write it, he'll show you how. It's not like you need to announce to the world what it is you're working on. Have it be a side project or something, and just see how it goes. But, as pretty much everyone else has already said, prayer is the key. Don't force it. Let God lead you in whether or not to write it at all, and in what fashion.

[writergirl]

I wanted to add that you could always write under a pseudonym...if you no longer have contact with the people who hurt you, they would never have to know that the book was about them. Same with changing names/appearances/locations, while keeping events the same.

If you do fictionalize any of the truth, even small parts of it, make sure you clearly state that as well...don't sell it as a memoir. I'll never forget how James Frey got blasted by Oprah for doing that, and the thought of that happening makes me shudder. ;) :)

[Momra]

I'm new to writing, but it seems to me that the writing is the issue, not necessarily the publishing. To deny the therapeutic value of working through the process of transforming the pain into healthy growth just because someone else might read it is to deny most of the value of writing in this case. Once the words begin to flow, then the format may show itself better. But, then again, I'm not a real writer so you who are, feel free to shoot holes in my theory. I'm always open to learn.

[Meganiterocks]

I'm doing much the same thing. This isn't the first time I've tried, but it is the first time that it's "Coming together" as Allison put it. I've taken the basic elements of my own history and fictionalized them quite well, I think. The "me" character is really not that much like me in background, child history, work skills, ect. But the personality is very much like me, and the feelings that event's evoked are the same, as is alot of the truths she comes to know along her journey. It's not shaping up the way I thought it would, but the was God seems to want it to. I echo pajarita : pray pray pray.