Everyone writes from their experience. That is all some writers ever do. Henry David Thoreau only recorded his life experiences. James Baldwin and Ernest Hemingway wrote semi-autobiographical novels in addition to non-fiction essays and articles. Hemingway’s fiction contains thinly veiled characters who existed in real life. In his first novel, The Sun also Rises, the group of expatriate friends were recognizable enough to be embarrassed to discover the author’s opinion of them. Author’s friends don’t want to see themselves in the form of a character behaving badly, or even worse, the major villain of the novel. When a book is fictional and not a biography or autobiography, it is polite to alter characters taken from real life so they are not identifiable, at least to other people. 

Writers often start with their own experience because that is the easiest way to create a plot. Louise May Alcott and Leo Tolstoy both wrote lengthy novels including people who are easily recognized as their family members in kindlier portrayals. However, most authors run out of material if they continue to write about their own experiences or those of family members, even an adventurer like Hemingway. 

Authors will also write fiction about historical characters who are no longer living, using their actual names–one of my favorite kinds of fiction as an adolescent. However, I’ve often felt that authors owe it to their reader to note what is factual about historical characters, as massive portions of these novels are created in the mind of the author. I recall helping the middle school student who chose to write a biography of King Arthur cope with lack of factual information. I explained that he probably never existed. The teacher who allowed her to choose him as a historical character should have been aware of his fictional nature. However, many people are not.

When I decided to write a novel portraying Arthur as a real chieftain trying to re-establish order in the unrecorded historical times after the Romans left Britain, I knew I had no facts as a basis for my novel. However, I did have experiences: picking wild berries, watching an uncut stone wall being built, visiting my grandfather on his small dairy farm, listening to a museum docent describe how swords were made, and even learning how to create thread through drop spinning. Parts of my life helped me describe details of how people lived in more primitive times.

An author definitely does not have to live through what they write about. Otherwise we would never have any science fiction or fantasy novels. But, imagination also has a basis in observation of real life. That is why writers typically become more proficient with age and a wealth of more experiences from which to draw.

Photo by K.N. Listman of Carcassonne, France