Using real events in your fiction?

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moderntimes
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Using real events in your fiction?

Post by moderntimes »

When you write fiction, do you sometimes incorporate fragments of real events or experiences into the story? I do, all the time.

For example, I live in Houston and my mystery novels are set there. So I occasionally use a real restaurant or tavern as a locale in a chapter. I'm of course careful to not say bad things about the place.

I have also used things people have said to me, events in my life, and naturally I edit them but still use the fragments to build a scene or event in my fiction. I'm a pretty good pool player and I have used a pool game as a story sequence. Same for firearms, as I go target shooting occasionally and know guns fairly well, so I can incorporate them into my stories accurately. Likewise my passion for opera and classical music, as well as modern jazz and such.

I rarely use a real person as a pattern for a fictional character however. Too close to the skin for that.

How do you use real events or your own interests to flesh out a story?
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Post by MaySage »

Yes, definitely.
Things in real life very rarely inspire me, but when they do? I use it and abuse it :) It's almost like a freebie - something you can use without asking yourself "is that actually realistic? would someone do that?"
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Post by moderntimes »

Good feedback, May.

Since I write realistic modern mystery novels I have to be careful not to speak ill of a real person or place -- if I want to do that I disguise what I say in changing the locale and so on, and the person's characteristics, so that I don't libel anyone.
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Post by DATo »

In the short story (I Was Not Fit To Live ) which I contributed to the Creative Original Works: Short Stories section of this website, everything which is not an obvious invention really did happen to me when I was five years old in the experience I describe.
“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”
― Steven Wright
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Post by zeldas_lullaby »

Most of my characters are completely made up, but a few of them are direct images of people I know or knew.

Also, many of the books in my series feature a church. It's a large church with a complex layout. It's an exact replica of a church I went to as a teen, and even though I haven't been to that church in, maybe, fifteen years, I can still picture exactly how it's laid out. And so I follow that as a template for the church scenes. That makes it incredibly easier than making an effort to visualize and remember a pretend church.
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Post by moderntimes »

Similar to Zelda, I've got a prospective mystery story that deals with priests. The private eye is called by a priest he knows from his teen years as an acolyte and the priest is now on the bishop's staff and asks his old friend for help on the QT.

The setup is located in the diocesan office that I'm familiar with so I use the general layout as my template too.

The hitch in the setup is this: The priest jokes with my PI about how the PI as an acolyte accidentally dumped a flask of communion wine all over the priest. The priest has an Irish heritage name and of course is wearing his clerical garb, and during their meeting, the secretary buzzes the priest, "Father Mike? It's your wife on line two."

Turns out the priest is high church Episcopal. A young priest in the diocese is in the closet, gay, and is being blackmailed. Since gay priests are accepted nowadays in the Episcopal church, the kicker is that the priest's father is a hugely influential bishop up east, and he's slotted to be named presiding bishop for the USA. And the bishop is strongly anti-gay, estranged from his son (he knows the son is gay) and therefore if the priest son is outed, the bishop's sunk. Hence the blackmail.

I often put local restaurants and bars into my stories, being careful to only say good things about the real places.

But the bad ones? A rough biker bar or corrupt cops? Well, south of Houston proper is the satellite city of Pasadena Tx (Mickey Gilley's club - Urban Cowboy) was there, and it's a refining center and solid family town. Just east of this is Deer Park Tx, a smaller but similar type satellite city -- the two are hard against one another. So... I "invented" the small township of Mid City Texas, between the two, along a state highway named Spenser Highway. So I stuck the imaginary town between the two and here's where there is prostitution, rough biker bars, etc. That way, I can say bad things about imaginary bars or whatever.

Some of these bars are amalgams and pasteups of real rough bars I've been to -- my earlier years were not very placid to say the least -- so I can also tap those very real memories and tweak and disguise these things for my stories. Works fine.

By the way, if your book or story is picked up by a publisher, it's always vetted for legal infringement, so you'll be maybe asked to alter some things so that you don't tread on any existing organization or place, and avoid a lawsuit.

For example, in my first novel I had my private eye driving along and listening to a rock song, "Do It Again" by Steely Dan. I had inserted the lyrics from verse one, and the line editor said that getting permission was not an easy thing and might cost money, so she recommended that I just paraphrase the lyrics instead. So I had my PI singing along about loving a little wild one but didn't quote the lyrics. Stuff like that is needed in your writing to avoid legal problems.

So be careful if you self publish because there's nobody to vet your writing for potential copyright infringement or maybe risk a libel suit.
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Post by zeldas_lullaby »

Oh geez. I could probably be sued six ways to Sunday if the wrong people were to read my books. _________ comes to mind, right off the bat. (I'm afraid to even name her.) Followed by Judge Judy. And then a whole bunch of private citizens.

On the plus side, both of my parents are lawyers.

"Go back, Jack, do it again. Wheels turning 'round and 'round. Go back, Jack do it again.."

I was an acolyte, and while I never spilled the wine, I did get candle drippings--hot wax--all over my hands. It freaked me out.
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Post by moderntimes »

Yes, those lyrics were in the first novel, then the line editor said I had to paraphrase them, which I did, story essentially unchanged.

When I was in my youth, I sang in the boy's choir (I was a soloist, LOVED Handel arias, my fave is "Let The Bright Seraphim" -- you can find this on Youtube sung mostly by sopranos, Renee Fleming is the best, but boy soloists also sang this. It was a fairly "high" church large parish and there were lots of acolyte, with whom the boy's choir had a running friendly rivalry, all sorts of practical jokes.

As small sidebar (thread drift for sure) as my voice matured and I began to sing semi-professionally as an an operatic baritone, one of the high points of my singing life was being asked to sing "The Trumpet Shall Sound" from Handel's Messiah, a very demanding solo but brought great joy. Check the Youtube of this by Teddy Tahu Rhodes for the best modern version. Wow. And no, I'm in no way comparable to his amazing voice. Nevertheless after 2 years of private lessons and a decent genetically-gifted lung capacity and projection, I was pretty okay in my prime, about 10 years ago. Sang a lot of weddings "Sunrise Sunset" a fave) and other venues, sang the National Anthem quite a few times (I never charged a fee for that). Great fun but very hard work, whew.
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Post by KS Crooks »

Dick Wolf, the creator of the Law and Order said he could never run out of new stories for the show, all he has to do is read the New York Times.
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Post by moderntimes »

KS Crooks wrote:Dick Wolf, the creator of the Law and Order said he could never run out of new stories for the show, all he has to do is read the New York Times.
Except that EVERY episode of "that gardening show LawnOrder" was exactly the same. Each time, the perp was a rich, snobby, white person or the equally snobby son or daughter of the same. Apparently, in New York City, no crimes are ever committed by poor people or minorities. Every episode was the same general plot: murder is committed, the 2 cops ask questions of iconic NYC stereotypes -- Jewish guys with long braids, hiphop black with caps on backwards, rude Irish descent bar owners, rough dock workers, etc. Then they'd have a potential suspect, usually some mid-level person, whom if black or not rich, you could instantly dismiss as not guilty -- only rich white people commit crimes in NYC. Then they'd focus finally on the rich white man or woman (or their kid) who had done the deed. Then Sam Waterston (an actor whom I like) would always shake his head a lot while talking, being indignant about the travesty of the rich person trying to get away with the crime, and most times he'd win the case.

Every single episode was written to the exact same template.
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Post by zeldas_lullaby »

I never liked that show, and I HATE Sam Waterston. Ew. I agree with everything else, though!
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Post by moderntimes »

I see this as lazy show production. The premise is superb -- a police procedural / lawyer show that follows the crime from its beginning to the end. But the production staff, maybe Wolf and others, just got fixated into a format that suited the liberal mantra: only rich white people commit crimes in NYC and stuck with it for years. Acting was good, scripts per se were also good. But when you already know that the richest, most snobby white person is automatically guilty, it removes any suspense.

I'm both blessed and cursed. I am a writer and I've studied both prose fiction and screenwriting. There are certain "tells" in a screenplay and they are maybe surprising to someone who doesn't know the game, but are giveaways to a writer, and therefore the story quickly becomes trite and boring.

Example: The "nuclear war" suspense drama w. Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington, "Crimson Tide" -- Hackman is a rude and abrupt sub commander and Denzel is his new 2nd in command. They go deep and there is a possible nuclear warning, and Hackman, being a white and overbearing commander, wants to launch the warheads, while Denzel is reluctant and thinks the "war" is an error. Of COURSE Denzel is proven right, being a smart, educated, and urbane black man while Hackman is rough toned. It took me about 5 minutes to learn the truth of the story line and the movie (although well made and nicely acted) was totally predictable. And understand, I am NOT prejudiced, but how about Denzel being the rude and by-the-book commander and Hackman being the distrusting 2nd in command? Then, with the roles reversed, we would not know who was "right" in the confrontation. But as it was filmed, the outcome was set in stone from the first scenes.

Anyway, thread drift, but knowing film writing and fiction, I am "hard to please" because I need something that's not instantly predictable and therefore boring. Law & Order was a total giveaway from the start.

As for Wolf reading the headlines, he somehow missed the statistics of crime in NYC, so his statement is invalid.

Realize again, I DON'T CARE if the bad guy is white or black or polkadot. What I want is a story that is unique and not formulaic. Whatever can be done to make that story different, that's my vote.

Back on topic, real events, if invoked into your fiction, need to be done so with spirit and energy and not boringly old hat.
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Post by zeldas_lullaby »

Yeah, the same rote mysteries get old when you learn how to predict who the killer is! I haven't seen Crimson Tide. I'm reminded of a recent movie, Selma, about the civil-rights movement. (Also based on real people.) It was snubbed by the Oscar nominators. People cried foul, people cried racism. I don't go to the movies, ever; but I read the movie reviews, and my thinking was that it wasn't that good a movie. (And that the Oprah is a megalomaniac who expects for her movies to be nominated, gosh darn it!)
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Post by moderntimes »

Understood. There are genuine issues that we should be concerned about. This is one thing. Then there is the act of portraying such events or situations in fiction, whether a movie or novel or biography.

This forum and thread in particular is based on the writing skills and quality of the presentation, not the underlying issues behind it. You can have a terrific issue that is important, and write an awful book about it. The two sets of values need to be disconnected when we study writing (or movies for that matter).
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Post by zeldas_lullaby »

Exactly!! That's a really good point. It's like saying that you can have a great story but horrible writing abilities. Or great writing abilities or a horrible story. There are so many layers to things, ya know?
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