We
experience many events in our lives, don't we? So as writers, surely we take
events from our own lives, our feelings, and express this through our workings.
Personally, I believe that this should be taken with a pinch of salt; there may
not be a straightforward answer. After all, some lives are more 'hectic' than
others.
Let’s
be honest, we all can stretch the truth a bit from time to time, or just
downright lie through our teeth. Do we write about our own experiences? Well in
a module on Textual Intervention I, I wrote an adaptation of The Turn of the
Screw, by Henry James (and my lovely self). It was in the perspective of the
children’s uncle. Now, I’m pretty sure I’m not a man (just checking this bit
out), nor have I ever lived in the 1800s (just casually waiting around for The
Doctor). Did I research it? Yes. Did I write from my own experiences where I
own a big-ass estate? YES! NO!
That’s
not to say that other don’t use their experiences; Stephen King wrote a memoir
after he was struck by a car. He also mentions ‘The Liars’ Club’, a memoir by
Mary Karr. King states: “Not just by its ferocity, its beauty, and by her
delightful grasp of the vernacular, but by its totality – she is a woman who
remembers everything about her early years.”1
1. Stephen
King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (London: New English Library;
2000; P.3)
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