Using real incidents as foundation for your fiction

[moderntimes]

Sometimes we use our real experiences as background to our fiction. Here’s an example from my soon-to-be published private detective novel “Blood Spiral” featuring Houston private eye Mitch King. Some years ago I was asked by a casual lady friend to give her a ride to a place in Houston’s old 4th ward. What I saw was nearly as grim as my fictional depiction posted below. Needless to say, that was the last time I had anything to do with her. Some harsh language has been redacted:

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I pulled up to a row of aging wooden shotgun houses, all alike, all sad in their squalor. Some were abandoned and boarded up. Others were occupied, mostly by the dregs of society. But this was fine with me because it was a dreg I wanted to find.

“I got to go in, ask this friend. He knows lots of bikers,” Jimmy said. Then his voice took on a plaintive whine. “Uh, Mitch. Could you spot me, say, twenty?”

I pulled out the money and handed it over. “Remember,” I told him, “looks like Mel Gibson.”

Jimmy clambered from the truck and wandered along the row houses, turning in at the last one on the right.

I waited. And waited.

After a while, I figured Jimmy wasn’t coming out, so I decided to go get him. I climbed out and walked over to the houses, reaching under my jacket to make sure the big revolver was riding free in its holster.

The sun had baked the nearby earth to broken clay, and all the moisture from the previous rain had long since evaporated. Nothing beside remained. A scrawny hissing cat scuttled from my path as I traced Jimmy’s steps. I edged carefully between the little houses and saw a side door standing open, its screen torn and hanging from the broken wood frame. Voices were coming from inside, one Jimmy’s.

I went up to the door, put one hand on the grip of the Colt and pushed the door open.

As soon as I stepped inside, the terrible stink of raw and rotting [crud] shoved at me like a pressure wave. Used to the intense sunshine, my eyes acclimated slowly to the interior gloom. I stood there trying to adjust to the stench and the dimness.

A single naked bulb hung from a frayed cord to illuminate the depravity in stark chiaroscuro. The room was piled high with trash stacked against the walls. There were empty beer cans, whiskey bottles, rotgut wine empties lying everywhere. Rivers of brown and black cockroaches slithered in and out of the rags and shredded newspapers that were cast in rotting heaps about the room.

Stuck in one corner was a large metal can, a makeshift toilet. It was full and overflowing. Piles of [crud] lay near the can, covered with a layer of newspaper as if that would make it all right. Hordes of flies swarmed and buzzed over the filth and the odor was choking.

Welcome to the shooting gallery.

The only furniture in the room was a stained and ripped sofa. Jimmy sat on it, wedged between two older men, one black, one white, both wasted. All three stared vacantly at me as I walked in.

“A minute,” Jimmy said.

In front of Jimmy was a cheap fold-up TV tray, and on it, cooking gear. There was a little votive candle, a spoon with blackened bowl, cigarettes and some matches, and a small foil packet of brown flake heroin. Jimmy had just finished cooking his fix in the spoon over the candle flame and was now sucking the liquefied junk into a dirty 5cc syringe, the filter from a cigarette stuck onto the tip of the needle to strain out debris. He’d already tied off his left arm with a scrap of clothesline.

Jimmy tapped at the syringe to get the air bubbles off the cylinder walls, squirted a tiny droplet from the tip of the needle, slid the point into an already bruised and pockmarked vein. He pulled back on the plunger to suck a little blood into the syringe, ensuring that all the air was gone from the needle and also ensuring that whatever pathogens were swimming in his blood would be shared with the next user. Then he pressed the plunger home and the expression on his face transformed from hunger to ecstasy.

The needle is all. The needle is life.

“Jimmy,” I said.

He looked at me with empty, uncomprehending eyes as though I were an alien creature, a wholly different species. And I was.

Human.

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Comments appreciated. And please add some of your own posts, telling how you've used personal experiences in real life to insert into your fiction. Not overall life modes, but specific scenes or events. Thanks.

[zeldas_lullaby]

Drugs scare me! I think this scene is vibrant and well-written. It's dark and unpleasant, but that's the reality of drugs. Scary!

I do put stuff from my own life into my writing. Hold on while I find a sample to share as well...

Do you remember the book I told you about where the kids are snowed in and they're messing around with a Tarot deck? Well, they also have a lot of conversations about stuff... weird stuff.

“I have a story like that. The summer after fourth grade, we went on vacation,” Andi announces, her voice deep and sedate. “Me, my dad, and Aunt Berry—we stayed in a secluded condo on the beach. My dad gave me some change and asked me to get him a Coke from the machine. The machine was all the way up the walkway at the end of the condo unit. I approached it and put in the proper change, and I hit the Coke button. Nothing happened, no Coke. I hit the coin-return button, and again, nothing happened. I tried hitting the other buttons, but I couldn’t get a drink to come out of the machine.”

Andi shudders. “I panicked, and even at the time, it didn’t make sense. I knew my dad wouldn’t be mad, since it wasn’t my fault that the machine had eaten his change. I mean, can any of you picture my dad flying into a rage over something like that?”

No. It’s laughable.

“What happened?” I ask, when it doesn’t seem that Andi is going to continue.

“I just stood there, and I silently begged the machine to give me a Coke. I pleaded with it. I prayed to God to give me a Coke. Nothing happened.” Andi gulps. “When I finally accepted that a soft drink wasn’t coming, I turned around and walked back to our rental unit very slowly, like a condemned prisoner on his way to the electric chair. When I got there, Aunt Berry was comforting my dad over the sink—he’d picked up a hot pan and burned all of his fingers. If I had seen that—if I had been there when that happened—it would have terrified me. I don’t think I could’ve handled it.”

She stares at the flickering flame and blinks hard several times. “I just stood there in the doorway and knew, somehow, that there was a higher power out there, looking out for me. The knowledge punched me in the stomach and overwhelmed me. It was undeniable.”

****** ****** ******
Only with me, it was my mom who burnt her fingers, and my aunt who comforted her. Weirdness.

[WilsoRoy]

I like your writing especially the word The needle is all. The needle is life.

[moderntimes]

I like your writing especially the word The needle is all. The needle is life.

Thanks. That's from my first novel which is now just released on Amazon. If you're interested, PM me and I'll give you my website to check out the other books and info.

[zeldas_lullaby]

HA HA! I liked that line too. Very apt.

[TrishaAnn92]

I'm actually giving this a try in my second story I decided to start working on. I'm using how my husband and I met and after we got married to base the foundation for an apocalyptic type of book. It is coming from the memory I have of having an End of the World party in May of 2012. It was interesting to say the least and I think with a twist it could be fascinating.

[moderntimes]

Sounds like a good idea. I use all sorts of real incidents from my life -- most humorous, some not so. It can serve as a good starting point for a story or chapter of a novel. Just don't get too concerned about trying to be 100% faithful to the actual event.

[TrishaAnn92]

Oh I don't plan on it. I'm changing names and trying to keep it from getting boring. The event was pretty hilarious. Marines drinking, talking about preparing their guns for a Zombie Apocalypse was pretty entertaining and with the idea i have in mind to take it. I believe it will be an interesting read.