On the other hand, sometimes stories come from a place much closer to home. Each of us has our own stories throughout our lives, moments that have shaped us into the person that we are today. Although not every author is interested in writing a memoir or autobiography, examining the important moments in our own lives and the ways that they’ve formed us is a great way to help create that connection between events and character in your own novel.

For example, take a particularly embarrassing moment that you had in middle school where you spilled milk all over the front of your pants in the middle of the cafeteria. How did that moment, and the feelings that it elicited, change your behavior, how you acted, and your perception of yourself and the world as a whole?

There are also the good important moments, like when you got your first job out of school or met your partner or when you and a family member had a really heartfelt moment together. How did those moments change or shape your life? How did your perspective or character change based on that moment?

Writing Prompt: Make a list of the most important character-shaping moments throughout your own life and why those instances changed you. Choose one and write a scene from that moment. As you’re writing the scene, make sure both you and your readers can see the connection between the event and character development.

Make sure that your readers can see a difference in the character (you) before and after this important event or moment. And, if you want to keep it more anonymous, feel free to change up the character names or even embellish the event if there are portions you can’t completely remember. Being good at embellishing is another important writing skill, right?

The post Writing Prompt: Based on a True Story appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

The statement itself implies that the person who wrote the book drew inspiration from a real-life event or person, but that the audience shouldn’t expect a factually accurate retelling of this event. This statement tells the reader that the author is choosing to prioritize entertainment and good storytelling over staying true to events. Therefore, readers who are interested in these books go in with the expectation that they will be reading a novel that is both entertaining and masterfully plotted. So, if you’re taking on a ‘based on a true story’ novel, here are some tips.

1) Keep the voice neutral

Whether you’re writing a ‘based on a true story’ book about something historical or something from personal experience, you need to remove your own voice from the narrative. You shouldn’t be portraying certain characters or events as right or wrong because readers can very quickly sense personal bias in a novel and, with that, you’ll lose their trust. They want to simply experience the events and have the freedom to make their own judgments about what occurred. So make sure you’re working hard to show the events to your readers rather than telling them how to think or feel about characters and situations.

2) Be the Writer & Editor

This may sound like a writer’s worst nightmare at first, but it’s simpler than it seems. When it comes to the scope of the events that took place in the story, you’ll need to put on an editor’s hat and strategically think about where to cut down. If the event you’re writing about took place over the course of a day you likely won’t have to do this much, but if it took place over weeks or years there will likely be a lot to cut around in terms of scenes and events. As a general rule of thumb, if a scene doesn’t contain a character choice, feeling the effects of a character choice, or someone discovering the motivations behind a character choice, the scene will likely need to be cut.

Just as you may need to omit some scenes, it may benefit the story to combine or eliminate some characters from the story. Remember, since this is a ‘based on a true story’ book, you are allowed to take liberties and make it somewhat fictional. If you know only a few details about a character, perhaps combine them with another character to make them more well-rounded and also less confusing for the reader. If there was someone who was part of the story but didn’t play an integral role, perhaps they’ll need to be cut for the sake of having a well-paced novel.

3) Make Additions Where Necessary

Just as you’ll need to cut events or characters who don’t serve the narrative, you may need to add motivations or events that make the story more exciting or narratively sound. Remember that, in the case of this type of novel, your goal is to tell a good story, not necessarily a true story. So if a character seemingly had a simple unexciting motivation for an action in a story, get creative and add a more complicated motivation that you feel would still make sense for their personality. If the real-life events don’t culminate in a necessarily satisfying way, add to the climax to give it more drama.

Many novels and films of this genre wind up creating stories that have very little to do with the real-life events by which they were inspired, but they created a good story nonetheless.

The post How to Write a ‘Based on a True Story’ Book appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.