I don’t normally write realistic fiction.
I was put off the genre back in my Creative Writing classes, when everyone assumed that my realistic stories were biographical, to the point where it caused some unwelcome drama. No, I did not base any characters off of you as some sort of passive-aggressive attack. Chill out.
Currently, Alice and the Warden is my only story that doesn’t contain fantastical elements, since my main reason for writing it is to indulge in over-the-top adorableness and romance. Throwing in things like magic, dragons, or aliens would detract from that. Aside from being set in a castle-prison in an ancient forest, everything could sort of actually happen maybe? Since it’s more realistic than, say, The Scion Suit, I have anxiety that others will think that it’s biographical.
Especially because a lot of authors really do base characters off of real people.
No, I have never met any women who ran off with degenerate boyfriends in their teens, then turned their lives around when they had a baby (and that never happened to me either). I could say that Alice is based off of attributes from a wide variety of people that I’ve met in my lifetime, but in my opinion, the most accurate way of describing it is that she sought me out on the spiritual level to tell her story.
Things writers don’t talk about because it makes them sound crazy, lol.
Truthfully though, I could never write anything too realistic. I like to take too many creative liberties. After all, castle-prisons are far more romantic than regular prisons.
I had someone ask me if my first story was based on my life. I told them no and they said “Just a little?” I said: “I didn’t run off with my older boyfriend when I was 17 and get pregnant, no, but if you mean she’s a bookworm and I am sort of one, then yes.” That was about it. I didn’t come from an abusive relationship and I was closer to my mom than my dad, unlike my character. I liked writing something that I didn’t know much about. So, yeah, I get it..sometimes writing a story realistically does raise odd questions!
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The only person who picks up on which things I slip in from real life is my husband, lol. I’ve never had anyone else make correct guesses.
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