Fact or Fiction

Quote by colin123

A certain amount of truth is needed I believe.

Hmm. I think so, but the truth need not be in the story itself. Setting, characters, situations could be the true part, the story, i.e. how they are put together, could be entirely fictional. Or you might tell a true story but fictionalize the characters or situations. I mean, I've taken my occasionally stroking off in the woods and spun fantasies about lesbian sex and anonymous teen hookups from it and the masturbation in the woods is the only "true" part.

I would rather hear a well thought out lie than the bland truth.

I think you write better detail if you have experienced something close to the thing you are writing about.

This would be for general story creation and what characters might do or not do in circumstances.

However, most of the target audience is not going to have done this themselves. So perhaps you might be better to watch a dozen porn films if you are writing a gang bang. I would imagine that an actual gang bang might be boring as shit unless you were actually taking part that instant

Quote by Jogman

I think you write better detail if you have experienced something close to the thing you are writing about.

This would be for general story creation and what characters might do or not do in circumstances.

Speaking with my fantasy writer hat on, I question this. Fantasy worlds are often built in exquisite detail entirely from the imagination. And how a character reacts to magic, dragons, etc., while it can be gauged how people react to certain real life experiences, is ultimately also entirely imaginary and dependent on the world. So I guess I am saying that while your suggestion has merit for a certain segment of literature (e.g. real world erotica), it only gets a writer so far in others. Imagination matters and there is no harm in letting it run wild sometimes.

Quote by Seeker4

Speaking with my fantasy writer hat on, I question this. Fantasy worlds are often built in exquisite detail entirely from the imagination. And how a character reacts to magic, dragons, etc., while it can be gauged how people react to certain real life experiences, is ultimately also entirely imaginary and dependent on the world. So I guess I am saying that while your suggestion has merit for a certain segment of literature (e.g. real world erotica), it only gets a writer so far in others. Imagination matters and there is no harm in letting it run wild sometimes.

I think there's less actual fantasy in fantasy than you might believe. Fiction writers are rarely creators in the sense of having produced or invented a universe from nothing but their imagination. Rather, the process is about gathering bits and pieces from life experience (if not your own, then vicariously through others) and cobbling them all together to 'create' a world. There might be some figurative transformation - i.e. your pet dog becomes your pet dragon, for instance, but the essence of your relationship to your pet remains pretty much drawn from your own real-life experience as you reinterpret it on the page. Further, I'd argue that it's an essential feature of good writing - that is having some connection to reality helps the work be relatable, and draws the readers in. When characters act in ways no one would ever act because the writer has gotten too "creative" (or lazy), readers become alienated from the story because they can't relate.

That's not to say that everything in a story needs to be literally true, but there are deeper truths than literal fidelity to objective facts that every writer should aim to communicate - the truth of emotion and subjective experience - and to do that, it is necessary to have experience of those feelings so they can be communicated accurately. A virgin can write a successful erotic story without having experienced actual sex, but they do need to draw on some personal experience of sexuality and eroticism. They don't just invent it out of nothing. Imagination can only take you so far. It's a tool for processing and refining, not production of information. Taking this a step further (and maybe a little more personal), I find that this perspective on writing is actually a kind of spiritual practice in which we orient ourselves towards life (all of it; the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, everything) as potential material for our work, which means that all of it is valuable and worth appreciating. To be a writer or any sort of creative person, one must take a keen interest in the world around them and within themselves. The more that you do, the more material you give your imagination to work with.

Look out for my new story coming soon, it will be about a true experience.

I operate thematically entirely on my imagination but utilize memories of previous sexual acts as a platform to create extended fantasies.

I make stuff up. I write it down.

It's all I have to work with.

Quote by Seeker4

Speaking with my fantasy writer hat on, I question this. Fantasy worlds are often built in exquisite detail entirely from the imagination. And how a character reacts to magic, dragons, etc., while it can be gauged how people react to certain real life experiences, is ultimately also entirely imaginary and dependent on the world. So I guess I am saying that while your suggestion has merit for a certain segment of literature (e.g. real world erotica), it only gets a writer so far in others. Imagination matters and there is no harm in letting it run wild sometimes.

I will take a look

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

I think there's less actual fantasy in fantasy than you might believe. Fiction writers are rarely creators in the sense of having produced or invented a universe from nothing but their imagination. Rather, the process is about gathering bits and pieces from life experience (if not your own, then vicariously through others) and cobbling them all together to 'create' a world. There might be some figurative transformation - i.e. your pet dog becomes your pet dragon, for instance, but the essence of your relationship to your pet remains pretty much drawn from your own real-life experience as you reinterpret it on the page. Further, I'd argue that it's an essential feature of good writing - that is having some connection to reality helps the work be relatable, and draws the readers in. When characters act in ways no one would ever act because the writer has gotten too "creative" (or lazy), readers become alienated from the story because they can't relate.

That's not to say that everything in a story needs to be literally true, but there are deeper truths than literal fidelity to objective facts that every writer should aim to communicate - the truth of emotion and subjective experience - and to do that, it is necessary to have experience of those feelings so they can be communicated accurately. A virgin can write a successful erotic story without having experienced actual sex, but they do need to draw on some personal experience of sexuality and eroticism. They don't just invent it out of nothing. Imagination can only take you so far. It's a tool for processing and refining, not production of information. Taking this a step further (and maybe a little more personal), I find that this perspective on writing is actually a kind of spiritual practice in which we orient ourselves towards life (all of it; the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, everything) as potential material for our work, which means that all of it is valuable and worth appreciating. To be a writer or any sort of creative person, one must take a keen interest in the world around them and within themselves. The more that you do, the more material you give your imagination to work with.

I don't think we are disagreeing here. My sense of the thread was that we were talking more about literal truth, about writing stories that are actual incidents from life or based heavily thereupon. And fantasy definitely does not fit that bill. It's mythology rather than history or biography.

But, yes, Tolkien drew heavily on his experiences in The Great War and my fantasies certainly draw on my real life attitudes and ideas. But I have never personally met a healer who is also a powerful sorceror. Nor did Tolkien ever meet dragons and orcs. So drawing on life but then giving life a powerful twist to maybe better get to the heart of the story rather than the literal facts is pretty much the basis for most fantasy.

It is a fact that my wife enjoyed a bulk ale today, check out the pictures in my gallery

Quote by kistinspencil

I make stuff up. I write it down.

It's all I have to work with.

Come by sometime. I’ll drag out a jar of chilled pickles and a bottle of wine and between the two of us we will discover the the vastness of our imagination. BTW I do realize your tastes and mine in sexual partners differ but I would only want to get inside your mind for a while…that is a lie, but I have an adequate amount of self-restraint.

Quote by Icarus4

Come by sometime. I’ll drag out a jar of chilled pickles and a bottle of wine and between the two of us we will discover the the vastness of our imagination. BTW I do realize your tastes and mine in sexual partners differ but I would only want to get inside your mind for a while…that is a lie, but I have an adequate amount of self-restraint.

I like pickles and wine so that sounds good.

I have a true TRUE category series, "The Sexual Autobiography of MC1982" and all the others are pretty much pure invention.

Quote by MC1982

I have a true TRUE category series, "The Sexual Autobiography of MC1982" and all the others are pretty much pure invention.

I will take a look.

Quote by ScreamQueen
I will check it out

I knew that as soon as I read the doorknob scene


Mine are fiction typically with bits of my real life sprinkled in
Or some are inspired by real events then i add slightly.

Quote by colin123
As an author I base most of my stories on true events, dressed up a little for story purposes but based on real events. Who else writes like this ? or do most authors write mostly fiction.

This is what I do as well. Often I find myself in a situation, maybe even an innocent one, and my naughty mind goes wild on it. But sometimes I take a sexual experience and then make it even more naughty or add it into a different scenario. Most inspirations are from real life.

I have written a true story because, as the saying goes, it can be stranger than fiction. That one story was, and the only word absent from it, the one I wished I had used was 'infatuation' because it was mine about her.

The rest of the time, there is a spark during an encounter that flourishes, or something from the past I wished I did or did differently.

My heroine said this: We write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely...When I don’t write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.”

I have not written anything for a month, and her last sentence is so true now, I feel something vital is missing. Just write, true or not.

We all write fiction, even if it is sometimes based on fact. My recent ‘memoir’ is ‘true’, as I remember it, but it’s based on twenty-year-old recollections and is very much abridged. So it’s true, but possibly not 100% historically accurate. The truth lies in the impact the real events had on the protagonist. The character, not the events, is always the most important part of the story. X

When I wrote Tintinnabulation, the girl and the apartment and the sex on the balcony all happened in real life, but all at different times, I sort of smooshed them all together. Being aroused when I heard the bells of Sonic the Hedgehog absolutely happened, and that’s when I got the idea for the story.

My two-parter; https://www.lushstories.com/profile/Georgia_27_8/stories/series/a-typical-wednesday is exaggerated reality.

The basis of sex on a Wednesday once I am home from Kickboxing, the emotion, time spent recalling some of those recent Wednesdays to write them and smoosh (thanks Ensorceled) multiple evenings into two parts over one "story night" (may add a third). That is reality.

Obviously there is some filler in there to exaggerate the story a little, though.

Quote by BradCarpenter
All of mine are fiction. Having said that, Friendly Neighbor and My First Affair were both triggered by real, but mundane, events. I then took those and played with what could have happened. I must admit my fictional life is much more interesting that my actual life.

😒

Quote by sprite
my Alice series is based on actual experiences.

😊

As a reader, I think it's safest to assume it's all fiction. This way, you're reacting to what's happening in the story rather than making inferences (and moral judgments) about the character of the author who is a real person. We should at least mentally compartmentalize author from narrator from protagonist when we respond to what we read. It allows the author a creative distance from their work which makes them free-er to follow where the story takes them instead of considering how their characters' actions reflect on them (the author) as a person. The characters in my stories (even the ones that share my name) often say or do things I wouldn't in real life because I'm a rational human being with a fairly well-developed sense of empathy and a generally functional moral compass. Things like seducing teens, blackmail, cheating on their partners, or generally engaging in acts of public indecency, exposure, and lewdness, etc. which often feature in my work are sexy in the context a story but shitty behavior in real life.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know
As a reader, I think it's safest to assume it's all fiction.

I might modify this to say that if the author presents it as autobiographical, then maybe I should see it as such. But any other category, yeah, this applies.

So true story. When I began here under my original account (we're talking 2012 here), my first published story was in the "I" category. Not sure why I did that because it's a category that I am generally hesitant to write and even if I did, I am not really comfortable with the relationship I wrote then. I guess I figured it was a good way to get some attention quickly. And sure enough, some dude chats me talking as if he thinks the story was true🙄. Blew him off but it kind of shook me up a bit. Shortly after, Nic closed down that category for a while, which gave me an excuse to rewrite the story to remove the "I" element.

Quote by Seeker4

I might modify this to say that if the author presents it as autobiographical, then maybe I should see it as such.

I'm pretty skeptical of the guarantees of authors in general: We're all such habitual liars. But that's what everyone loves us for.

Quote by sprite
my Alice series is based on actual experiences.

😊

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

I'm pretty skeptical of the guarantees of authors in general: We're all such habitual liars. But that's what everyone loves us for.

😉

Quote by Beffer
I actually use my own name in my stories that are based on real events in my life, so you will always know when one of my stories is fiction and when it is about an actual autobiographical event.

😊

Quote by BradCarpenter
All of mine are fiction. Having said that, Friendly Neighbor and My First Affair were both triggered by real, but mundane, events. I then took those and played with what could have happened. I must admit my fictional life is much more interesting that my actual life.

🙁