# how to fictionalize a true story



## cassie30 (Feb 24, 2013)

I want to write my life story. However someone suggested I fictionalize my life story. So my question is how do you turn fact into fiction?


----------



## SouthernRiver4 (Feb 24, 2013)

Basically, you retell the events using different names, tweaking the situations a bit so they aren't the _exact _events--but you retain the basic idea. Make up some of the dialogue.

Just a few things to do.


----------



## Deleted member 49710 (Feb 24, 2013)

Interesting, I was just reading a discussion of related issues in another thread.

I've never written a nonfictional prose piece with the intention of showing it to others, really, so maybe I'm talking nonsense; but I've read them, so maybe not. To make it a compelling story, I think you have to stick to the same principles as writing fiction. There should be some kind of narrative/story being told; people should be presented with depth and insight, just as a character should be; there should be enough detail to create an atmospheric reading experience (to make up some sort of term) but that detail should be relevant to the story as a whole. 

To some extent non-fiction has to be true to fact, but at the same time you're creating an aesthetic object. Which of those goals is paramount is going to depend on the writer. For me, sometimes I write poetry based on my own experience, but I'm really not that interested in communicating or saying exactly _how it_ _was_; rather I'm trying to make something beautiful or compelling out of that experience, which might be pretty banal on its own. For some people it's important to say exactly what happened and how they felt, and this may well be the better approach when the events recounted are out of the ordinary. But they're just different approaches to the problem.


----------



## Hemlock (Feb 24, 2013)

Try to exaggerate some details, or state that the odds were in your favor, etc. :icon_shaking2:


----------



## Olly Buckle (Feb 24, 2013)

Page one insert a disclaimer, "This book is entirely fictional, any relation to the truth etc. ...'  

Seriously, 'Tweaking events' or 'Make it more interesting', are good suggestions, but a trifle vague. I would suggest simplifying motivations, people like simple, clear-cut reasons for things. Tidy up the outcomes for the same reason, and at the same time you can feel free to make them what you feel they should have been, rather than what they were necessarily. In a way there is a bit of this in most things I write, only instead of bringing a bit of myself to fiction to give it some reality this would be doing it the other way around.


----------



## dolphinlee (Feb 25, 2013)

I am sorry but I find the question strange. If you want to write your life story then write your life story. You don't need to give your life to a fictional character to do this. You write about your life. You don't need to turn it into fiction to do it, although there are times you might add a little fiction. 

Now there are times when I have told people what has happened to me. In the telling I have made things a little bit more interesting. I have exaggerated (Okay lied a little bit) about what happened. I suppose that because what I have said is not the exact truth that you could say I 'fictionalised' it but I would still consider that what I said was about me. 

Maybe you should start writing your story and see how it goes. Do what you feel is right for you! If after a while you feel it is not working out the way you want it to then think about doing it a different way.


----------



## Whisper (Feb 25, 2013)

cassie30 said:


> I want to write my life story. However someone suggested I fictionalize my life story. So my question is how do you turn fact into fiction?



You can try reading _Roots_ for inspiration.

Generally, it's no different than writing any other story of fiction. Just write the story realizing your writing a story fiction which dosen't limit you to the truth of events and you can make those events unfold and turnout anyway you want. 

However, as someone pointed out, if you're using your name and yourslef as the MC, you better make sure you indicate this is a story of fiction and completely made up or you're likely to end up like many of the authors that tried to pass off made up stuff for real life.


----------



## JosephB (Feb 25, 2013)

cassie30 said:


> So my question is how do you turn fact into fiction?



You lie.


----------



## Leyline (Feb 25, 2013)

I generally just add spaceships.


----------



## Nickleby (Feb 25, 2013)

I intend to do the same thing in my next book. Since there are real people involved, and I plan to portray them as antagonists, there's the possibility of a lawsuit for libel. I'm going to change the names, the occupations, and the details of the events to make them more interesting. However, I'm not going to change the basic situation or my feelings about it--that would turn it into pure fiction rather than a fictionalization.

That line, between fiction and fictionalization, is blurry. You want to change enough of the facts to make it fictional, but you don't want to change so much that you're telling a different story altogether.

We all retroactively edit our lives to some extent, I believe. We all want to think that we're the heroes, that our lives have meaning, that the world makes sense on some level. An autobiography cast as fiction gives you the chance to do that, in a way that nothing else does. Good luck.


----------



## Olly Buckle (Feb 25, 2013)

> That line, between fiction and fictionalization, is blurry. You want to change enough of the facts to make it fictional, but you don't want to change so much that you're telling a different story altogether.
> 
> We all retroactively edit our lives to some extent,


I reckon that applies to almost any autobiography, and a lot  of biographies; depending how prejudiced the biographer is. The real answer is that there are no set rules for books, the questioner has a concept of a book, a fictionalised life story. Possibly our discussion around the concept will help give it more form, but there is nothing like writing it in my experience. You cannot write what you do not have, but if you write the bits you have thought about the gaps between them make it obvious what is needed to fill them. When I have properly written all the other bits there is a eureka moment when I realise "Oh yes, of course, that's why he's there", or some such. Seems to work for me.


----------



## JosephB (Feb 25, 2013)

I was thinking about just putting glasses on the real people in my novel.


----------



## dale (Feb 25, 2013)

just pretend like you're telling your life story to an especially exquisite girl you're trying to seduce.


edit: whoops....with the name "cassie", you're probably a female yourself. scratch that idea.


----------



## moderan (Feb 25, 2013)

JosephB said:


> I was thinking about just putting glasses on the real people in my novel.


It's almost exactly like that for me. Change the names a little. In the nonfic piece I'm working on, there's no way to change the occupations. So I think the second draft will have some name changes and actions changes-something one person did, another will perform, just to stay within the boundaries of reasonableness. Otherwise, things won't change at all. And I wouldn't change except that there might possibly be some incidence of malpractice and I don't want to be the agent of bring that kind of charge.
And then the spaceships


----------



## JosephB (Feb 25, 2013)

Heh. I don't think spaceships will work in my novel, unfortunately.  Although some of the characters seem like the kind of people who might  be abducted and probed by aliens. Otherwise, two characters -- sisters  -- share a very similar background to my wife -- and she had a rough  childhood. I'm not sure how she's going to feel about it -- but there's  really not much I can do to try to mask it. The characters both share  her best qualities in different ways, so I'm hoping she'll be good with  it. The problem I supposed is knowing the similarities, will people  think other fictional aspects that are less flattering or "revealing"  are true? Who knows.


----------



## fireaero (Feb 25, 2013)

I guess you could try adding an extra element to the story that will set the story apart from reality. Maybe setting it in another time period, or adding magic. Although name changing is good too. It all depends on the story line.


----------



## kinetika (Feb 25, 2013)

It depends on how you want to write it. I'm "writing my life's story", too, but I'm doing it in a way that you either have to know me or be an incredible psychologist who can analyze my story and understand it for what it is. And it's written in a fantasy setting.

I placed a lot of symbolism in my story -- a lot that was done unintentionally and just happened with the process of writing. All of my important characters ('good' and 'bad') are representations of certain people I met and interacted in my life. Only two people in my story are actual real life people (my protagonist and her lover), while the others are a combination of people in one character. As far as events go: they are distortions of scenarios I faced in my life. Also, every dream (four of them) I put into my fantasy story were actual dreams I had myself. Even the story itself was a dream I had several years ago, plus it's a lot of self-exploration and "escape", since my life sucked between the ages of 16 and 20. At times, I get so immersed with my character and her world, I wonder if it's actually a memory of a past life, on a distant world, or if that's the world that awaits me after I die.

Anyway, all my ideas/stories are done this way because it's the most real and grabs at the reader, plus there is hardly any brainstorming/planning involved since you've experienced the story yourself, already. Isn't that what all writers do? Write out distorted stories of their own personal experiences?


----------



## moderan (Feb 25, 2013)

That's really stretching the premise of the OP.


----------



## kinetika (Feb 26, 2013)

It may be 'stretching it', but maybe the OP would consider creating an entirely new story, using their personal life as inspiration. Getting into that whole legal stuff is a hassle, not to mention those people would probably want some of the profits, should the novel do well. Doing it the way I did it would make it so you don't have to deal with all that and you can still write your 'life story', plus it'll be more fun, and creative, to do it all from scratch.


----------



## moderan (Feb 26, 2013)

Maybe, that's up to the OP. For me, no. But my autobiography has an agenda beyond telling my own story. I dunno what the OP's plans are-they haven't been vouchsafed.
As far as things being more fun, or more creative, maybe for you. That doesn't go for everyone.


----------



## Jon M (Feb 26, 2013)

Writing a life story just to then bury the specifics in a fantasy seems rather pointless. It's the revelatory aspects we're after, getting a peek behind the scenes. I don't think you can hide that element and expect to have a successful memoir.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 26, 2013)

All fiction is at least partly autobiographical, and all non-fiction is, in part, lies.


----------



## kinetika (Feb 26, 2013)

It could be displaced in this reality, with different characters who are like the ones in the person's life, just with different names, similar experiences, and set elsewhere, other than the town(s) your life took place in. You don't have to write it in a fantasy/sci-fi setting, that's just how I  wrote mine -- and it's not pointless, if you did it for the reasons  that I did. I'm sure I'm not the only one who did it, and I remember watching a movie (can't remember the name right now) on a man who wrote out 40,000 words worth of story about his "life" in the same manner that I did. People do different things, and have different motivations; and I just made a suggestion.


----------



## Jon M (Feb 26, 2013)

kinetika said:


> ... and set it elsewhere, other than the town(s) your life took place in.


I suppose that would be okay if the setting had absolutely no impact on the story, but I doubt that is ever the case. For example, _Permanent Midnight_ is an excellent memoir about a Hollywood screenwriter turned full-blown junky. You couldn't take Hollywood out of that story, it is as vital as the narrator.


----------



## Foxee (Feb 26, 2013)

When I read The Visitation I realized that it contained a lot of real-life experiences that the author, Frank Peretti, had described during a speaking engagement. The book isn't an autobiography but it weaves these real-life anecdotes into the life of the MC as the story unfolds. It made for a rich and lively background which was good as the plot led the MC back through his own past for clues as to what was happening.

So perhaps this is a direction to go, use autobiographical observations to bring the fictional plot and characters to life. To an extent, I think most of us do this anyway. It's a matter of degree.


----------



## Deleted member 49710 (Feb 26, 2013)

On a related note, you know what's highly annoying? When you write something fictional and then everyone assumes you must be writing about your own life. I had a little story published online featuring a guy being a jerk to his girlfriend. I posted it on Facebook to show off to friends and family, and now have to tell people that, really, no, my marriage is fine, I am not harboring some ancient resentment against my husband, it's fiction, fer chrissakes.

So really, doesn't matter what you label things, everyone will assume it's autobiographical on some level.


----------

