“I’m writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn’t pay any attention at all. Sometimes it’s me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it’s not me at all.”
Writing from life
a six-part, nuts-and-bolts workshop for writers of memoir, autofiction, and fiction
Writing from life isn’t just about sharing experiences; it’s an emotional offering. When we share our stories, we invite readers to connect, reflect, and perhaps even heal. It’s not always easy—real life is messy and often doesn’t fit into neat narratives. But therein lies the power: the truth in our messiness can resonate deeply.
Every story drawn from reality carries authenticity and authority. The work of writing from life is to reclaim life’s chaos and transform it into clarity and meaning. So, whether it’s a hilarious date mishap or a moment of heartbreak, your personal stories can inspire and connect.
Writing from life is a way to help others feel seen and understood. It’s a reminder that we’re all navigating our own stories, often overlapping in ways we don’t realize.
What’s a story from your life you’ve been wanting to share?
6 days of lessons
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Most fiction contains at least a dose of reality, no matter the genre. My first novel was set in an autobiographical place but the protagonist was not me. She had some of my biases and passions, but she was biographically separate from me in all the important ways. Ditto my second book . . .
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The most important thing about autofiction is that it’s emotionally true to life without needing to be true to facts.
Here, we’ll discuss two important reasons to fictionalize life:
— To make sense from nonsense
— Because What If?
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The reasons why you might want to deviate from fact in your writing -- while still writing from life -- often have to do with the ways in which fiction and real life differ.
— Fiction is concise.
— Fiction resist repetition.
— Fiction manipulates time.
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Consider what Sigrid Nunez, who is often credited for writing autofiction, has to say:
“All of [my novels] have elements from my own life, all of them have some autobiography in them, and in the most recent ones, the huge autobiographical thing there is the sensibility. The way these narrators see the world and human experience is certainly my own.”
We’ll discuss what distinguishes autofiction from writing from life in memoir or fiction:
Voice
Names
Mischief
Heightened Reality
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It’s often said that reading and writing fiction is an act of compassion -- we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes in order to understand their [weird or crummy] choices.
In my opinion, writing from life requires the greatest dose of compassion.
Writing compassionately is as much about craft as it is about intent.
To write with compassion, you must practice 4 craft skills. Without these four things on the page, writing from life will not work. The reader will smell a rat.
Balance
Proof
Self-awareness
Vulnerability
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Here’s something I’ve learned as much from teaching writers as from writing: You believe you know how real people in your life will respond to your work, individually, and you are wrong. You’re guessing based on what you know of them and of the material, but you are not in their shoes, and I promise your guesses are somewhere between being mildly off base and wildly so.
There are several ways to mitigate the fallout from writing from life, including but not limited to:
Give up before you start (boo!)
Embrace the process
De-editorialize
Be direct
Burn the bridge
Go anonymous
Wait to publish, but not to write
6 writing prompts
Each video series will conclude with a prompt designed to practice the craft skills we discussed, with an example from published work (mine and others’). Members of this workshop will have the option of posting their prompt writing to our discussion board. Feedback will be encouraging and thoughtful.