Fiction Story Ideas: True Stories
Develop Real Life Stories into Short Stories or Novels
Sep 14, 2007
Start with a true life story, but follow these guidelines to turn it into good fiction.
Most people do not have the exiting, glamorous lives of jet-setting playboys or international spies, but they still have real life stories that are dramatic, romantic, scary or funny. However, beginning writers who want to turn a child's cute episode into a story often end up with a manuscript that falls flat. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:
- Fiction is not real life! Occasionally things do really happen in real life that are "stranger than fiction," and will sound contrived in a story. Too many coincidences will make a reader lose belief, no matter how true it really is. And an exciting true story will fail as fiction if an outsider (policeman, teacher, etc.) comes in at the end to rescue the main character.
- Use true life stories as starting points for fictional stories. Writers should realize that real life is only the idea-generator, not the whole story. Plot and characters will always need to be tweaked, and writers often find that both major and minor elements need to be changed completely. An episode that happened in college with a study group may be better told as office colleagues dealing with the same underlying issue in a different way. Think about how the story can evolve, and change accordingly.
- Is the true story significant enough? If a writer is telling a single real life event, it often is not full enough to carry a whole short story. Determine if the episode can become a story on its own, if it will fit better as a scene in a longer work, or if subplots, additional characterization, or other elements can be added.
- Fictional dialogue needs to sound real, not be real. Good dialogue in a story sounds authentic, but isn’t really like real life conversations. People talk in ums and ahs. They take the conversation off on side tangents. They insert extraneous comments before getting back to the main topic. Most of the time, these all need to be cut out for a story to work.
- Characters need to be fully realized. When re-telling a true life episode, characters and motivations need to be fleshed out so the story isn’t flat. Writers may need to include some backstory so that readers can understand the characters and why the story is happening. Readers need to care about the characters, and writers need to depict them so the reader can empathize.
- Real people shouldn’t be recognizable. A true story that seems hilarious to a writer may be intensely embarrassing to the other person, not to mention the risk of a libel lawsuit. So use the basic episode and the comedy (or tragedy, moral dilemma, etc.), but change the character significantly. Not just age and hair color, but occupation, family situation, attitudes and beliefs, personal habits, etc. Keep the characteristic that lead to the episode, of course, but change enough else so the person is completely unrecognizable. They may see themselves when they read the story, but they’ll still be able to laugh about it because they aren’t being embarrassed publicly.
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The copyright of the article Fiction Story Ideas: True Stories in Writing Fiction is owned by Jennifer Jensen. Permission to republish Fiction Story Ideas: True Stories in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
