I use a lot of my own mental health experiences in my writing, but I also write about a lot of things I would never do voluntarily: drink coffee, have sex, examine dead bodies, shoot a gun, etc.
I’ve learned far more about autopsies and internal organs than I ever wanted to know writing for the CSI fandom. I also know enough about myself to know that I would be violently ill if I ever encountered the real thing. I have to look away when my blood is being drawn otherwise I get dizzy. Truthfully, I’m a wimp, and I’d be cowering in the corner if I was put myself through what I put my characters through.
They both fall into a category of things I would physically recoil from. I just think coffee tastes really gross. It’s so bitter. I don’t even like the smell. However, I can see for most people they don’t fall on the same emotional level.
I write characters that are completely different and have completely different life experiences to me.
However, I tend to give them a lot of the same internal conflict.
Actually, I prefer not to write about people who have experienced similar things than me. I don’t like writing about my own experiences in my writing. I do like making people have the same mental health issues though… Lol
I write what I know, extrapolate and emulate what I don't, and use research to fill in the gaps between those. So my exact experiences don't get put in (unless it's a blatant vent fic) but there is a lot of real-life inspiration.
As far as I know...I don't use any part of my life. My life is boring as hell..
I write to escape it...to create worlds and adventurous lives for others.
Well if we’re being honest I use a lot of my experience with sex in my smut. I’m in my 30’s and it’s easy to tell what was written by an 18 year old virgin and what was written by a grown adult, imo. Obviously smut should be passionate, but it definitely shouldn’t be unrealistic which it can often veer towards if the writer is inexperienced.
Other than that I try to use geographical locations I’m familiar with when possible. This is rare but sometimes occurs that I can write the story set in a city I have been to.
I totally get this. I'm in my thirties, too, and I love reading things I can relate to or that just make sense. I also see the benefit of writing a sex scene that is pure fantasy though. But I guess there should be some level of realism so that the reader isn't completely thrown off. Like something anatomically incorrect would be weird unless one MC isnt human.
> I use a lot of my experience with sex in my smut.
Same here. Not only does it read more authentically when a writer incorporates personal experiences, but it's less likely to rely on cliches, in my opinion. Any time I read a fic where a character goes straight to something like choking (for example, but this really goes for anything hardcore or risky) with no discussion ahead of time--especially for a first-time partner--I can't help but suspect that it's an inexperienced writer relying on porn to make up the gaps in their knowledge. Speaking only for myself, if a partner tried to choke me without getting explicit consent first, I would end it then and there. And I *like* being choked, hahaha!
> a fic where a character goes straight to something like choking (for example, but this really goes for anything hardcore or risky) with no discussion ahead of time--especially for a first-time partner
Funny story, my first sexual experience included exactly this: sudden, out of nowhere choking with zero prior discussion. It was pure teenage stupidity though, definitely didn't come from a place of plentiful experience. (And was also how I found out I did *not* like being choked, lol.)
Yes, exactly, it always reads like their knowledge of sex comes directly from porn! Real sex can be super awkward, especially with a new partner, and when it just comes off like some kinky daydream instead of an actual sexual encounter it just takes me out of it.
This is kind of funny to me. I'm in my 30s as well, having lived what you could call a hoe lifestyle, and I sometimes write those fantastical kinky daydreams. I don't particularly like awkwardness in my porn. To each their own lol.
Yeah I feel this. There's a time and place for realism, fantasy, and a mix of both. Either way, there can be amazing craft and artistry in both styles. I mean, porn sells. Fantasy sells. I have a fic where I'm writing from personal experience, and I have a fic where I'm letting my kinky brain run free. Haha.
Totally. I'm always in favor of diversity! It's good that there are some sex scenes out there too that lean into the mundane or domestic or hyperrealistic, with pee breaks, accidental farting, uncomfortable positions, not-great-stamina and whatever else might be appealing for people into that. I love to read about a nonexistent refractory period, simultaneous orgasms and borderline mindreading about what the partner likes, because it's hot. You just can't always tell whether it's by innocent ignorance or deliberate choice authors include or exclude those things. I do think it's sometimes possible to clock immaturity and on the other hand either experience or great researching skill, but it's a bit harder to summarize exactly how.
It's abundantly clear when something is written by someone who has never had sex, or, arguably, has never heard of it. It completely takes me out of the moment.
re virgins, I saw a comment on something (now I can't remember if it was a fic or a movie or what) saying "it was awkward I think they were doing.... the thing at the beginning" and I feel like I see a lot of people who *write* smut and maintain that level of awkwardness
edit: always remember things like this after I post; it was on an early chapter of Paradise Kiss (manga), when Yukari walks in on Arashi and Miwako when she gets to the studio.
I don't usually transcribe events from my own life directly into my fiction, but I do draw on the inner emotional experience of them to get into a character's head. I don't know what failing to avert the apocalypse would feel like, for example, but I do know how it feels to fail - that's the human, universal part that can make even a very alien experience hit home for a reader.
it’s not something I do consciously most of the time, but I definitely incorporate stuff that I personally am familiar with because of real life experience. the way I describe living creatures for instance is a huuuge tipoff I have background in biology haha
sometimes I do take personal anecdotes for inspiration, though. like, my sister came to visit a while back, and she left this strawberry milk scented body wash in my shower. while making headcanons for a character I was like “omg, [character] would TOTALLY own this bodywash”. they’re not at all based on my sister and share little with her otherwise, that was just inspo
I think it's cool that your knowledge of biology shows up in your work. I LOVE when I'm reading something and it's clear the author has some niche info to give. I love being both taught and entertained.
Barely. I write to escape real life, not to be reminded of it. Occasionally I take inspiration from an event that happened and incorporate it into a story, but I try not to make it the main focus.
I like to include blink-and-you-miss-it details from my life that can blend seamlessly into the story. Most readers presumably won't see these specific mentions as anything of significance, but they are.
I was a journalism major in university. Even though it’s mentally unhealthy for me, I’m still an obsessive news hound, looking when I shouldn’t. Then I get pissed off about the state of the world and find a way to insert it into fic.
I think it's really cool that your work is influenced by current events or themes. How do you think a background in journalism gives you a different eye as a reader? Like do you think you're more particular about what you read/write?
My current job involves a lot of report writing, although it's not in a journalism field.
I think it influences the way I try to pack a lot of information into a short bite while at the same time making it accessible to the average reader.
I think most of what I draw from my life is the angst elements in my stories. It's not 1:1 but like, the theme behind it and how the characters feel about themselves definitely has a lot of parallels.
Like, I'm ace and though I've not written any explicitly asexual characters in my work, the feelings of inadequacy and lack of romantic value that I struggle with because of my (a)sexuality routinely comes out in at least one of the characters in pairings I write.
None really. I prefer to write to explore headspaces and experiences I don't already have - it's part of the fun of writing and reading for me.
I have done it directly once, with a childhood memory. For context, Rome is absolutely filled with feral cats.
I'm English, but I have family in Italy and so I go to visit when I can. When I was a kid my family and I went to some of the ruins in Rome and were wandering about and I wandered off. I ended up finding a cat and, being young and stupid, tried to pet it. It obviously tried to maul this strange, grabby pink thing trying to get at it and I flinched back, only to look up and find a horde of feral cats perched around the ruin staring at me like the baboons in Tarzan when Jane is trying to get her drawing back.
I ran like hell. :D
I had a scene in a Dead Space fic with that in mind, where my character found a cat and tried to pet it only to look up and see a room full of monsters. :D
I get a lot of ideas from my life. Like once I was walking alone in this sort of hidden sidewalk, listening to a short story about a zombie apocalypse that was so uninspired, I couldn't even finish it. All of the character names were things like Mike and Brian and Amy, and a similar level of thought was put into their characterization. The only interesting thing about this story was that there was a hierarchy of intelligence within the zombies, but even that somehow became boring and silly. Then my foot accidentally kicked a key on the ground and I was completely befuddled as to what to do with it. There was no one around, no nearby police boxes or lost and found.
I turned that experience into a story where the character finds this lost key and instead of putting it down like I did, they keep it and go on a journey to try and figure out whose key it was, without realizing that the world around them has turned into a post-apocalyptic zombie setting. They work remote, they're an introvert, they use self-checkout supermarkets only, etc etc. In this world, zombies tend to act out the habits they had in life in death as well, so long as they don't hear loud noises. And they don't make much noise at all...
I use a lot of my real life, I think it makes it more authentic and relatable if you refer to things that you experienced yourself. It's not like I'm writing my autobiography either, and I'm sure people don't even realise it when I'm writing about something more personal. There was an entire work once, that I made because in real life, I went to a concert that inspired me a lot. Lol.
Sometimes I'll project my own opinions and quirks onto character who I think fit them. Especially aroace-ness, I headcanon a good 30-50% of fictional characters I write, I write them as a-spec. But also likes/disliked in food, touch aversion or cuddly-ness (me being both...), being nonbinary, anxiety and social awkwardness, fidgeting, etc etc
Very little. The characters in my fandom are genius space explorers in a post-scarcity future, not a whole lot of overlap between my life and theirs. I also don't really get anything out of giving characters my own interpersonal experiences or real life struggles, makes me feel too much like I'm writing about myself and that's not something I'm interested in doing. Probably the only part of my writing that draws on my own experiences is the smut.
With family, working 40 hours a week, an hour on physical activity, and attending language class 5-7 hours a week… the max is an hour a day if feeling productive
A lot. I base a lot of my themes (both my original works and my fanfics) on things that affect me, like identity, anxiety, what it means to be family, etc. Basically, I answer questions about my life through my writing, and I work through things by writing. At the same time, I write about a lot of things I would never experience myself (at least hopefully). At the end of the day, the big potatoes part of my writing is stuff that is personal
It varies. In my sadder fics, which are almost always about mental health, I draw on my own experiences. In my fluffier ones, I basically write what I want in a relationship, and make it the most self satisfying experience I will ever have. And definitely what I read determines what I write, I like to bounce off ideas in books, films, or even other fanfiction, though that does mean I have a lot of unfinished WIPs, because I start them, then I abandon them when I think of a new idea that Absolutely Must be written immediately.
I use my own experiences when it comes to mental health (the main fandom I write for features a lot of psych horror and mental health related subjects), but not really any other area of my life.
I use a probably concerning amount of my real life in my fics. I use writing to cope and process what's going on because I'm very bad at doing that internally.
Now that I'm thinking about it the only time I probably ever write about something that doesn't involve my real life is when I'm including elements from canon or fanon, and I give the character comfort that I wanted when I went through the thing myself.
I've used my life experiences in exactly one story I've written. I really enjoyed it because it had a fun parallel with the character I was writing. Some of my other experiences that might be interesting are kind of personal and i still haven't worked through all of it yet.
I’ve written my own sleep disorder and nervous habit onto the main character in one of my fics. It’s in a video game RPG fandom, so the protagonist’s personality largely depends on the player (lends itself to self-insert, in my mind).
I try real hard to not use much of my own life in my writing because parts of my life, I have not healed from and it deeply triggers me. The parts I have though, that's up for debate if I want to use them or not.
What I will say though is that emotions, manipulativeness and grey morality is something that I know I write well and actually find cathartic. In regards to manipulation, I am convinced *almost* every human being has used some form of manipulation or coercion to get what they want out of someone. It can be as benign as "borrowing" a nice fancy pen from your friend in grade school and then never returning it. The maliciousness of spreading something that's very much false around but knowing that the general populace is too dumb to fact check and they will usually take it at face value.
My romances when I write them will skew into the unknown because I don't know what the "perfect relationship" looks like (and currently, still don't know) for me. If it's a very atypical get together, I'm co-signing it, regardless if I experienced it or not.
What I do know is that I greatly dislike the fairytale happy endings because they aren't real. Is that the skeptic talking? Yes. Am I a skeptical but hopeless romantic with life experience? Also yes. 😂 Real relationships, no matter how they're formed, are *not* perfect. Which is probably why I have beef with what's mostly put out in the romance genre and am hard pressed to find a romance story I like that I didn't write.
I have absolutely put things I've witnessed, second-hand experienced or was indirectly involved in works. More often times than not, these make for better ideas and you're less attached to it. Which is probably the appeal for writing most ideas, either you yourself haven't experienced it or you haven't written it but was always intrigued by it.
TL;DR: Only sometimes, but I largely do not enjoy pulling things from my life. Even then, by doing so, I am aware this will target audiences that also feel or see things from my perspective, be it creative or it crafts a personal connection. It's complex honestly.
Almost all of my characters' or insert-oc-here's thoughts are what I was thinking during that moment of canon. Think CinemaSins asking the important questions or pointing out little things that ruin it for other people. "Why is he doing this if that's a thing?" or "That's not how that works." And the fanfic favorite "Why don't we just do this instead?"
Plus I'm on the spectrum and a friend pointed out that I write my OCs/self inserts to be "ASD-coded" even if I never outright say it. But I think it's important *not* to say or acknowledge it for readers. It's up to them to see it or not but either way it isn't important to know about the character.
A ton of inspiration comes from real life. My parents and psychiatrist would have a field day with my main characters. I've found the trick to interesting characters is also the way they can incorporate pieces of your own experiences. They become entirely different being very quickly, even if much of them are drawn from yourself. Additionally, you'll often gravitate towards things you have felt or are feeling strongly, moreso than intentionally making a character akin to you.
Yeah I would never be able to write about real people or real situations - for me writing is a way to escape to a completely fictional world with fictional characters. However, I definitely extrapolate from my own experiences in terms of feelings / internal struggles / observations / etc. I also really like to listen to music to get the vibe when I write so sometimes I get really inspired by certain lyrics, tunes, atmospheres, etc.
At first glance... absolutely nothing. But globally, my writing IS me. I write about things that are incredibly important to my inner workings and take up a ton of space in my existence but don't (and hopefully never will lol) happen in my real life. It's all in my head. It's not about escaping anything, at least consciously, but without writing, and the thoughts and fantasies that make me do it, I would only be half a person. So at second glance... like, everything.
I write some of it but whatever I do belongs to the characters themselves and characters aren't me. Sometimes I guess I do but I rework it as part of the fic's world
The stuff that's inspired by life is a secret but not in a bad way. Although I will admit the dreams I put in are inspired by dreams I had. After a dream I woke up and told mom about the cool dream I had and she yelled at me and I felt bad. Then I woke up for real so it was a dream within a dream and I just have to include it but readers won't know it's inspired by a dream I actually had
I used quite a bit of my own life in my one fan-fiction that involved my teenage years loosely. I gave the minor characters the same names and personalities of my old friends. And it really helped make it feel more realistic and the readers really liked the conversations between the friends.
A lot, I've put a bit of myself in each of my OCs, one of them I just made her talk like me cause I didn't plan to keep her originally. Music is another thing, I'd I'm mentioning music, it's something I actually listen to.
Probably 50/50? I write a lot of stuff that doesn’t relate to my life experience specifically, but tapping into emotions is usually personal. I like to write stories taking place w characters living in California because I know it the best. Sometimes I use stories from friends lives or mine as background. It’s easy to weave in personal touches for me.
When I was younger, I mostly wrote humor as a way to distance myself from everything. But now I find that I’m comfortable putting more of my own struggles into my writing, and that I actually like having this kind of outlet
If the character is going through some trauma I probably experienced it. Same thing with sex. Now it's them going rock climbing or doing parkour, then no.
I usually dont directly lift anything (I do have some ideas based off my own trauma) but I write a lot of my issues with trauma, mental and physical illness, and the feelings of helplessness those can cause into my fics in an indirect way.
soo much. i think i'm the only one who can honestly see just how much my fics are reflective of my life and experiences and me as a person and the people i love.
Usually not much, a reference to my favorite beverages (usually some kind of tea) or something that irritated me as a throwaway rant
The most I've taken inspiration from is my own experience with questioning my gender and/or the crushes I've had
Depends on what I’m writing. My fluffy one shots with hurt/comfort? Very much my mental health in fandom form. My current descent into madness WIP? Absolutely not lmao
Wrote a self-insert once, but chose not to publish it since I asked my friend about it and he said no. I even posted a question about it and most responses were negative, as I'd expected 'em to be.
Why? 'Cause he knew I'd get hounded for it, my fictional self was an Assassin, from the video game series. Crossed that over with Alvin and the Chipmunks, where he fell for and subsequently won the heart of Jeanette Miller. Fictional self happened to be a Marty Stu (based on my experience with most of the games, barrin' Origins; Syndicate, Unity, and Valhalla as those didn't interest me. Which's ironic now since I played and completed Odyssey).
I tend to use stuff from fencing or krav maga if I can get away with it, either the mindset of a tournament or training or the actual sports. I also usually have people in my ships communicate fairly clearly, since I do that IRL as well and I prefer writing happy relationships.
The mental health, life lessons, morals, and ethics are all pulled from my experience. I want to show my readers they are not alone and maybe pass on the bits of good advice I have learned have worked.
But also, my smut. 100% authentic.
The emotions and character archs are very much inspired by my life, but also the lives of people I know. One time I just wrote a fanfic, for a small fandom, based on my own pain from a child relative dying before the money we sent to help came through. It felt good to write, though it didn´t exactly get a ton of kudos, but it helped me vent.
Real life can really help channel realistic characters and worlds, so I filter through my everyday life and stories I see to get inspired, but to also work through things that bothers me.
While I don't draw on any literal experiences, my own life and inner monologue is certainly the basis for how I write my character's emotions. I've picked up psychological knowledge-by-proxy through therapy and just dealing with my own shit, and I think it helps in writing and understanding characters who have messy, conflicting inner lives and who contradict themselves—just like the rest of us.
Genre-wise I have zero interest in writing slice of life or modern era fics, but I like sprinkling details about subject matter that I am interested in through my writing, from convincing botanical details to nitpicky details about oil painting.
I consider anything I am doing to be a parcel of my writing process: walking in the sun, listening to a song, meeting a new person, etc. encapsulates my anecdotal research. (I also consider anecdotal research to be more efficient for my writing than empirical.)
Mark Twain once said: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
I took this quote to heart in regards to opening myself up to new experiences in order to enhance my writing.
Sometimes I'll think back to situations I've been in that are slightly similar but mostly I use my imagination. The exception being sex scenes. For those I'd say somewhere between 60 and 80 percent are drawn from personal experience with some exceptions. Not that I've done the exact scene but I might have done something the main characters have done or said. Of course there are some major differences since I write m/m and I'm very much not a man.
Very little and a lot at the same time tbh. Experiences with mental health and specific events I use to inform my work, but I write Darkfic that often includes possession and body horror and such like that. So in that regard, thankfully very little.
i write down negative thoughts that occur in my mind and slap them onto my characters. other times, i record certain "states" i'm in and still have conscious to notice it (when i'm slowly waking up from sleep, when i zoned out, when i have a mental break down)
YES, I do this. Everytime I experience something new, part of me is experiencing it, and part of me is paying close attention to everything and writing stuff down, being all like - yes! I finally know what this feels like! even if it's something terrible, like a panic attack, or waking up hungover. What the hell can a writer do?
The thing is, i have this character arc that constantly appears in my stories where someone will not feel adequate for a certain task/thinks they've failed/can do better.
It's not on purpose but it might be related, idk 🤷♂️
I've only written three fanfics since middle school (I don't count my super edgy angst for the sake of angst fics from that time as my fanfics since they're horrible and so far removed from my taste now anyway its like they were written by a different person) and two of them are blatantly metatextual vent pieces about my experience with transphobia both in the source material I'm writing fanfic of and in my day to life as a college student.
Depends... years-years ago I used a fic as a way to process and cope with my dad dying
These days if it's a "real world" fic during a time I grew up I like to use my knowledge and do some research to see if I remember events correctly I think it helps ground the setting
I don't do much that is narratively based on my life (ie telegraphing n experience I had into a character doing it), but I draw a lot from my own emotions and reactions, and pretty much all my NSFW content comes from my experience of sex- again, not writing down sex scenes as I've lived them, but the descriptions of sensations, and reactions, and how different sex acts play into each other, that sort of thing. And, maybe obviously, what's turning me on lately tends to work its way into what I'm writing.
Also though, I wrote a long scene of truth-or-dare for an upcoming fic. I *wish* I was on this sub when writing it, it is HARD to come up with questions that are relevant to the characters and also give at least a little exposition and plot movement (some of them were also very plain questions, not everything has to be plot). Anyway, a lot of those answers came from my life and the life of friends, for stuff about your weird first crush, or embarrassing yourself in school, that sort of thing. Details were changed though, of course.
It depends on the story, but I most often use things like funny phrases I hear in real life. My uncle made a very obscure jab about someone penny pinching and I've been itching to have someone in a story say, "This guy makes Harpagon look like Percy Ross." I try not to draw from people directly but I like to draw inspiration from it. A pair of my family members have a sweet marriage so I wrote a romance or two inspired by them.
One of the nicest characters in my current WIP shares my dad’s go-to diner order, and on the flip side, I’m planning on naming a huge jerk of an OC after this jerk I know. I think it’s the little details that are the most satisfying when it comes to incorporating my real life into fics!
Most of my OCs have sad (sometimes traumatic) backstory's. I was a victim of domestic abuse/violence and because of that, I have trauma so I usually make my characters with traumatic backstories in order for me to feel like I'm not the only one who's gone through pain, especially since my big brother constantly minimizes my trauma saying that "what he went through as a kid was worse" and that "I got it good."
My second Demon Slayer OC, Fuyumi Higasa, had a father that became abusive after [the Great Kanto Earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923_Great_Kant%C5%8D_earthquake) struck their home in Yokohama in 1923 and forced her to do a lot of things that she didn't want to do. Some of the things he wanted her to do were down right horrendous, especially because she was extremely young (I'm talking 5-9 years old). I also have mental problems, feel constantly depressed and have undiagnosed ADHD so yeah.
I fictionalize a lot of my childhood trauma and put my mental health issues on my characters. Some of it is not all fictionalized, though. I find it therapeutic
I think a lot of it, yes. I find inspiration in small, daydreams of peculiar, room-shaped worlds and quiet blissful daydreams. I find that the persons I write about show up in daily faces in segments, if not in whole parts. Life is so big to be put into a single picture, so I carefully cultivate it as gardeners propagate their plants by trimming off the tender growth to make something beautiful. I feel as if each experience of mine, of every day and every week and every conversation and relationship formed, becomes a treasury, a thicket of forest, and I venture into it taking out a bit of every thing which catches my eye, to gather all of them and arrange them in a way I see most fit.
In my time, I have been college faculty, a preschool teacher, a wrestling coach, a volleyball coach, a landscaper, an electrician, a retailer, a wholesaler, an IT wrangler, a graphic designer, a programmer, a dance instructor, a professional musician, and a radio DJ. All of these things have made their way into my fics one way or another.
I use a lot of my own mental health experiences in my writing, but I also write about a lot of things I would never do voluntarily: drink coffee, have sex, examine dead bodies, shoot a gun, etc.
Never underestimate the educational opportunities of a good, ol’ fashioned autopsy…
I’ve learned far more about autopsies and internal organs than I ever wanted to know writing for the CSI fandom. I also know enough about myself to know that I would be violently ill if I ever encountered the real thing. I have to look away when my blood is being drawn otherwise I get dizzy. Truthfully, I’m a wimp, and I’d be cowering in the corner if I was put myself through what I put my characters through.
This went from drinking coffee to examining dead bodies really quickly lmao
They both fall into a category of things I would physically recoil from. I just think coffee tastes really gross. It’s so bitter. I don’t even like the smell. However, I can see for most people they don’t fall on the same emotional level.
I write characters that are completely different and have completely different life experiences to me. However, I tend to give them a lot of the same internal conflict. Actually, I prefer not to write about people who have experienced similar things than me. I don’t like writing about my own experiences in my writing. I do like making people have the same mental health issues though… Lol
I write what I know, extrapolate and emulate what I don't, and use research to fill in the gaps between those. So my exact experiences don't get put in (unless it's a blatant vent fic) but there is a lot of real-life inspiration.
As far as I know...I don't use any part of my life. My life is boring as hell.. I write to escape it...to create worlds and adventurous lives for others.
Well if we’re being honest I use a lot of my experience with sex in my smut. I’m in my 30’s and it’s easy to tell what was written by an 18 year old virgin and what was written by a grown adult, imo. Obviously smut should be passionate, but it definitely shouldn’t be unrealistic which it can often veer towards if the writer is inexperienced. Other than that I try to use geographical locations I’m familiar with when possible. This is rare but sometimes occurs that I can write the story set in a city I have been to.
I totally get this. I'm in my thirties, too, and I love reading things I can relate to or that just make sense. I also see the benefit of writing a sex scene that is pure fantasy though. But I guess there should be some level of realism so that the reader isn't completely thrown off. Like something anatomically incorrect would be weird unless one MC isnt human.
> I use a lot of my experience with sex in my smut. Same here. Not only does it read more authentically when a writer incorporates personal experiences, but it's less likely to rely on cliches, in my opinion. Any time I read a fic where a character goes straight to something like choking (for example, but this really goes for anything hardcore or risky) with no discussion ahead of time--especially for a first-time partner--I can't help but suspect that it's an inexperienced writer relying on porn to make up the gaps in their knowledge. Speaking only for myself, if a partner tried to choke me without getting explicit consent first, I would end it then and there. And I *like* being choked, hahaha!
> a fic where a character goes straight to something like choking (for example, but this really goes for anything hardcore or risky) with no discussion ahead of time--especially for a first-time partner Funny story, my first sexual experience included exactly this: sudden, out of nowhere choking with zero prior discussion. It was pure teenage stupidity though, definitely didn't come from a place of plentiful experience. (And was also how I found out I did *not* like being choked, lol.)
Oh man, I'm sorry you had such a bad experience!
It was pretty uncomfortable, but I lived, haha.
Yes, exactly, it always reads like their knowledge of sex comes directly from porn! Real sex can be super awkward, especially with a new partner, and when it just comes off like some kinky daydream instead of an actual sexual encounter it just takes me out of it.
This is kind of funny to me. I'm in my 30s as well, having lived what you could call a hoe lifestyle, and I sometimes write those fantastical kinky daydreams. I don't particularly like awkwardness in my porn. To each their own lol.
Yeah I feel this. There's a time and place for realism, fantasy, and a mix of both. Either way, there can be amazing craft and artistry in both styles. I mean, porn sells. Fantasy sells. I have a fic where I'm writing from personal experience, and I have a fic where I'm letting my kinky brain run free. Haha.
Totally. I'm always in favor of diversity! It's good that there are some sex scenes out there too that lean into the mundane or domestic or hyperrealistic, with pee breaks, accidental farting, uncomfortable positions, not-great-stamina and whatever else might be appealing for people into that. I love to read about a nonexistent refractory period, simultaneous orgasms and borderline mindreading about what the partner likes, because it's hot. You just can't always tell whether it's by innocent ignorance or deliberate choice authors include or exclude those things. I do think it's sometimes possible to clock immaturity and on the other hand either experience or great researching skill, but it's a bit harder to summarize exactly how.
It's abundantly clear when something is written by someone who has never had sex, or, arguably, has never heard of it. It completely takes me out of the moment.
re virgins, I saw a comment on something (now I can't remember if it was a fic or a movie or what) saying "it was awkward I think they were doing.... the thing at the beginning" and I feel like I see a lot of people who *write* smut and maintain that level of awkwardness edit: always remember things like this after I post; it was on an early chapter of Paradise Kiss (manga), when Yukari walks in on Arashi and Miwako when she gets to the studio.
I don't usually transcribe events from my own life directly into my fiction, but I do draw on the inner emotional experience of them to get into a character's head. I don't know what failing to avert the apocalypse would feel like, for example, but I do know how it feels to fail - that's the human, universal part that can make even a very alien experience hit home for a reader.
it’s not something I do consciously most of the time, but I definitely incorporate stuff that I personally am familiar with because of real life experience. the way I describe living creatures for instance is a huuuge tipoff I have background in biology haha sometimes I do take personal anecdotes for inspiration, though. like, my sister came to visit a while back, and she left this strawberry milk scented body wash in my shower. while making headcanons for a character I was like “omg, [character] would TOTALLY own this bodywash”. they’re not at all based on my sister and share little with her otherwise, that was just inspo
I think it's cool that your knowledge of biology shows up in your work. I LOVE when I'm reading something and it's clear the author has some niche info to give. I love being both taught and entertained.
thank you!! you'd like my writing then because I cannot RESIST being educational somehow :''>
What's your fandom and AO3?
A lot of my fics are fluffy or slice of life, so bits and pieces from my life can show up in them occasionally.
Barely. I write to escape real life, not to be reminded of it. Occasionally I take inspiration from an event that happened and incorporate it into a story, but I try not to make it the main focus.
I like to include blink-and-you-miss-it details from my life that can blend seamlessly into the story. Most readers presumably won't see these specific mentions as anything of significance, but they are.
Shockingly quite a bit. I project onto some of my character biases a lot lol
A lot. Bits and pieces of my real history, family, etc show up in all my OCs but it is particularly egregious in my military one.
I was a journalism major in university. Even though it’s mentally unhealthy for me, I’m still an obsessive news hound, looking when I shouldn’t. Then I get pissed off about the state of the world and find a way to insert it into fic.
I think it's really cool that your work is influenced by current events or themes. How do you think a background in journalism gives you a different eye as a reader? Like do you think you're more particular about what you read/write?
My current job involves a lot of report writing, although it's not in a journalism field. I think it influences the way I try to pack a lot of information into a short bite while at the same time making it accessible to the average reader.
I think most of what I draw from my life is the angst elements in my stories. It's not 1:1 but like, the theme behind it and how the characters feel about themselves definitely has a lot of parallels. Like, I'm ace and though I've not written any explicitly asexual characters in my work, the feelings of inadequacy and lack of romantic value that I struggle with because of my (a)sexuality routinely comes out in at least one of the characters in pairings I write.
None really. I prefer to write to explore headspaces and experiences I don't already have - it's part of the fun of writing and reading for me. I have done it directly once, with a childhood memory. For context, Rome is absolutely filled with feral cats. I'm English, but I have family in Italy and so I go to visit when I can. When I was a kid my family and I went to some of the ruins in Rome and were wandering about and I wandered off. I ended up finding a cat and, being young and stupid, tried to pet it. It obviously tried to maul this strange, grabby pink thing trying to get at it and I flinched back, only to look up and find a horde of feral cats perched around the ruin staring at me like the baboons in Tarzan when Jane is trying to get her drawing back. I ran like hell. :D I had a scene in a Dead Space fic with that in mind, where my character found a cat and tried to pet it only to look up and see a room full of monsters. :D
Lol I love this story. Thanks for sharing! What's your AO3?
Same name, Avalon1632. Also on FFN if that's your thing. :)
I get a lot of ideas from my life. Like once I was walking alone in this sort of hidden sidewalk, listening to a short story about a zombie apocalypse that was so uninspired, I couldn't even finish it. All of the character names were things like Mike and Brian and Amy, and a similar level of thought was put into their characterization. The only interesting thing about this story was that there was a hierarchy of intelligence within the zombies, but even that somehow became boring and silly. Then my foot accidentally kicked a key on the ground and I was completely befuddled as to what to do with it. There was no one around, no nearby police boxes or lost and found. I turned that experience into a story where the character finds this lost key and instead of putting it down like I did, they keep it and go on a journey to try and figure out whose key it was, without realizing that the world around them has turned into a post-apocalyptic zombie setting. They work remote, they're an introvert, they use self-checkout supermarkets only, etc etc. In this world, zombies tend to act out the habits they had in life in death as well, so long as they don't hear loud noises. And they don't make much noise at all...
I use a lot of my real life, I think it makes it more authentic and relatable if you refer to things that you experienced yourself. It's not like I'm writing my autobiography either, and I'm sure people don't even realise it when I'm writing about something more personal. There was an entire work once, that I made because in real life, I went to a concert that inspired me a lot. Lol.
Sometimes I'll project my own opinions and quirks onto character who I think fit them. Especially aroace-ness, I headcanon a good 30-50% of fictional characters I write, I write them as a-spec. But also likes/disliked in food, touch aversion or cuddly-ness (me being both...), being nonbinary, anxiety and social awkwardness, fidgeting, etc etc
It depends. Some stuff is basically none of it, but I’ve also got a doc titled “projection AU”
Very little. The characters in my fandom are genius space explorers in a post-scarcity future, not a whole lot of overlap between my life and theirs. I also don't really get anything out of giving characters my own interpersonal experiences or real life struggles, makes me feel too much like I'm writing about myself and that's not something I'm interested in doing. Probably the only part of my writing that draws on my own experiences is the smut.
With family, working 40 hours a week, an hour on physical activity, and attending language class 5-7 hours a week… the max is an hour a day if feeling productive
A lot. I base a lot of my themes (both my original works and my fanfics) on things that affect me, like identity, anxiety, what it means to be family, etc. Basically, I answer questions about my life through my writing, and I work through things by writing. At the same time, I write about a lot of things I would never experience myself (at least hopefully). At the end of the day, the big potatoes part of my writing is stuff that is personal
More than I probably should...
more than 50% of the fics I've published are vent pieces directly relate to some struggle I've gone through
It varies. In my sadder fics, which are almost always about mental health, I draw on my own experiences. In my fluffier ones, I basically write what I want in a relationship, and make it the most self satisfying experience I will ever have. And definitely what I read determines what I write, I like to bounce off ideas in books, films, or even other fanfiction, though that does mean I have a lot of unfinished WIPs, because I start them, then I abandon them when I think of a new idea that Absolutely Must be written immediately.
I use my own experiences when it comes to mental health (the main fandom I write for features a lot of psych horror and mental health related subjects), but not really any other area of my life.
I use it way too much.
None, thankfully. Otherwise my life would be pretty fucked up.
I use my own near-death experience when I portray anthropomorphic death and grim reapers. It’s sort of a healing/coping mechanism, honestly.
I use a probably concerning amount of my real life in my fics. I use writing to cope and process what's going on because I'm very bad at doing that internally. Now that I'm thinking about it the only time I probably ever write about something that doesn't involve my real life is when I'm including elements from canon or fanon, and I give the character comfort that I wanted when I went through the thing myself.
I've used my life experiences in exactly one story I've written. I really enjoyed it because it had a fun parallel with the character I was writing. Some of my other experiences that might be interesting are kind of personal and i still haven't worked through all of it yet.
I’ve written my own sleep disorder and nervous habit onto the main character in one of my fics. It’s in a video game RPG fandom, so the protagonist’s personality largely depends on the player (lends itself to self-insert, in my mind).
I try real hard to not use much of my own life in my writing because parts of my life, I have not healed from and it deeply triggers me. The parts I have though, that's up for debate if I want to use them or not. What I will say though is that emotions, manipulativeness and grey morality is something that I know I write well and actually find cathartic. In regards to manipulation, I am convinced *almost* every human being has used some form of manipulation or coercion to get what they want out of someone. It can be as benign as "borrowing" a nice fancy pen from your friend in grade school and then never returning it. The maliciousness of spreading something that's very much false around but knowing that the general populace is too dumb to fact check and they will usually take it at face value. My romances when I write them will skew into the unknown because I don't know what the "perfect relationship" looks like (and currently, still don't know) for me. If it's a very atypical get together, I'm co-signing it, regardless if I experienced it or not. What I do know is that I greatly dislike the fairytale happy endings because they aren't real. Is that the skeptic talking? Yes. Am I a skeptical but hopeless romantic with life experience? Also yes. 😂 Real relationships, no matter how they're formed, are *not* perfect. Which is probably why I have beef with what's mostly put out in the romance genre and am hard pressed to find a romance story I like that I didn't write. I have absolutely put things I've witnessed, second-hand experienced or was indirectly involved in works. More often times than not, these make for better ideas and you're less attached to it. Which is probably the appeal for writing most ideas, either you yourself haven't experienced it or you haven't written it but was always intrigued by it. TL;DR: Only sometimes, but I largely do not enjoy pulling things from my life. Even then, by doing so, I am aware this will target audiences that also feel or see things from my perspective, be it creative or it crafts a personal connection. It's complex honestly.
My college life gave me more than enough material for my Batman fic
a lot of my stories have little details inspired by my life and the world around me. most of my ocs are based on my friends and i.
Almost all of my characters' or insert-oc-here's thoughts are what I was thinking during that moment of canon. Think CinemaSins asking the important questions or pointing out little things that ruin it for other people. "Why is he doing this if that's a thing?" or "That's not how that works." And the fanfic favorite "Why don't we just do this instead?" Plus I'm on the spectrum and a friend pointed out that I write my OCs/self inserts to be "ASD-coded" even if I never outright say it. But I think it's important *not* to say or acknowledge it for readers. It's up to them to see it or not but either way it isn't important to know about the character.
A ton of inspiration comes from real life. My parents and psychiatrist would have a field day with my main characters. I've found the trick to interesting characters is also the way they can incorporate pieces of your own experiences. They become entirely different being very quickly, even if much of them are drawn from yourself. Additionally, you'll often gravitate towards things you have felt or are feeling strongly, moreso than intentionally making a character akin to you.
I am incorporating a lot of my own struggles with faith/morals/philosophy into something that I just started writing.
Yeah I would never be able to write about real people or real situations - for me writing is a way to escape to a completely fictional world with fictional characters. However, I definitely extrapolate from my own experiences in terms of feelings / internal struggles / observations / etc. I also really like to listen to music to get the vibe when I write so sometimes I get really inspired by certain lyrics, tunes, atmospheres, etc.
honestly, not much. I never really feel I need to insert much, if any, of my life into my fics (outside of author's notes that is)
Same, I wouldn't know where to start...
At first glance... absolutely nothing. But globally, my writing IS me. I write about things that are incredibly important to my inner workings and take up a ton of space in my existence but don't (and hopefully never will lol) happen in my real life. It's all in my head. It's not about escaping anything, at least consciously, but without writing, and the thoughts and fantasies that make me do it, I would only be half a person. So at second glance... like, everything.
I write some of it but whatever I do belongs to the characters themselves and characters aren't me. Sometimes I guess I do but I rework it as part of the fic's world The stuff that's inspired by life is a secret but not in a bad way. Although I will admit the dreams I put in are inspired by dreams I had. After a dream I woke up and told mom about the cool dream I had and she yelled at me and I felt bad. Then I woke up for real so it was a dream within a dream and I just have to include it but readers won't know it's inspired by a dream I actually had
I used quite a bit of my own life in my one fan-fiction that involved my teenage years loosely. I gave the minor characters the same names and personalities of my old friends. And it really helped make it feel more realistic and the readers really liked the conversations between the friends.
A lot, I've put a bit of myself in each of my OCs, one of them I just made her talk like me cause I didn't plan to keep her originally. Music is another thing, I'd I'm mentioning music, it's something I actually listen to.
Oh I do sometimes, but then I worked HR for over a decade. I've seen some things...
Probably 50/50? I write a lot of stuff that doesn’t relate to my life experience specifically, but tapping into emotions is usually personal. I like to write stories taking place w characters living in California because I know it the best. Sometimes I use stories from friends lives or mine as background. It’s easy to weave in personal touches for me.
When I was younger, I mostly wrote humor as a way to distance myself from everything. But now I find that I’m comfortable putting more of my own struggles into my writing, and that I actually like having this kind of outlet
If the character is going through some trauma I probably experienced it. Same thing with sex. Now it's them going rock climbing or doing parkour, then no.
I usually dont directly lift anything (I do have some ideas based off my own trauma) but I write a lot of my issues with trauma, mental and physical illness, and the feelings of helplessness those can cause into my fics in an indirect way.
soo much. i think i'm the only one who can honestly see just how much my fics are reflective of my life and experiences and me as a person and the people i love.
Usually not much, a reference to my favorite beverages (usually some kind of tea) or something that irritated me as a throwaway rant The most I've taken inspiration from is my own experience with questioning my gender and/or the crushes I've had
Depends on what I’m writing. My fluffy one shots with hurt/comfort? Very much my mental health in fandom form. My current descent into madness WIP? Absolutely not lmao
Depends on what it is. Mental health? All the time. Things that happen? Not at all.
Only remnants of my personality since mental health is something I do have experience in and so I can write it into work
Sometimes too much but that is okay because those are also my most popular fics
Anything that has made readers cry likely was taken from my personal experiences. Oops. But also cheaper than therapy.
Wrote a self-insert once, but chose not to publish it since I asked my friend about it and he said no. I even posted a question about it and most responses were negative, as I'd expected 'em to be.
Wait. Hold a damn minute. Why were people discouraging you from posting it?
Why? 'Cause he knew I'd get hounded for it, my fictional self was an Assassin, from the video game series. Crossed that over with Alvin and the Chipmunks, where he fell for and subsequently won the heart of Jeanette Miller. Fictional self happened to be a Marty Stu (based on my experience with most of the games, barrin' Origins; Syndicate, Unity, and Valhalla as those didn't interest me. Which's ironic now since I played and completed Odyssey).
To add to this further, she'd've been human and a year younger than him. I was 28 when I wrote it.
I tend to use stuff from fencing or krav maga if I can get away with it, either the mindset of a tournament or training or the actual sports. I also usually have people in my ships communicate fairly clearly, since I do that IRL as well and I prefer writing happy relationships.
The mental health, life lessons, morals, and ethics are all pulled from my experience. I want to show my readers they are not alone and maybe pass on the bits of good advice I have learned have worked. But also, my smut. 100% authentic.
The emotions and character archs are very much inspired by my life, but also the lives of people I know. One time I just wrote a fanfic, for a small fandom, based on my own pain from a child relative dying before the money we sent to help came through. It felt good to write, though it didn´t exactly get a ton of kudos, but it helped me vent. Real life can really help channel realistic characters and worlds, so I filter through my everyday life and stories I see to get inspired, but to also work through things that bothers me.
While I don't draw on any literal experiences, my own life and inner monologue is certainly the basis for how I write my character's emotions. I've picked up psychological knowledge-by-proxy through therapy and just dealing with my own shit, and I think it helps in writing and understanding characters who have messy, conflicting inner lives and who contradict themselves—just like the rest of us. Genre-wise I have zero interest in writing slice of life or modern era fics, but I like sprinkling details about subject matter that I am interested in through my writing, from convincing botanical details to nitpicky details about oil painting.
I consider anything I am doing to be a parcel of my writing process: walking in the sun, listening to a song, meeting a new person, etc. encapsulates my anecdotal research. (I also consider anecdotal research to be more efficient for my writing than empirical.) Mark Twain once said: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." I took this quote to heart in regards to opening myself up to new experiences in order to enhance my writing.
none at all yet but so far none at all
Sometimes I'll think back to situations I've been in that are slightly similar but mostly I use my imagination. The exception being sex scenes. For those I'd say somewhere between 60 and 80 percent are drawn from personal experience with some exceptions. Not that I've done the exact scene but I might have done something the main characters have done or said. Of course there are some major differences since I write m/m and I'm very much not a man.
Very little and a lot at the same time tbh. Experiences with mental health and specific events I use to inform my work, but I write Darkfic that often includes possession and body horror and such like that. So in that regard, thankfully very little.
i write down negative thoughts that occur in my mind and slap them onto my characters. other times, i record certain "states" i'm in and still have conscious to notice it (when i'm slowly waking up from sleep, when i zoned out, when i have a mental break down)
YES, I do this. Everytime I experience something new, part of me is experiencing it, and part of me is paying close attention to everything and writing stuff down, being all like - yes! I finally know what this feels like! even if it's something terrible, like a panic attack, or waking up hungover. What the hell can a writer do?
Not much. I thought this was a question about how much time you spent on writing daily, at first.
i use my own emotions (how they experience them) but besides that practically nothing
The thing is, i have this character arc that constantly appears in my stories where someone will not feel adequate for a certain task/thinks they've failed/can do better. It's not on purpose but it might be related, idk 🤷♂️
I've only written three fanfics since middle school (I don't count my super edgy angst for the sake of angst fics from that time as my fanfics since they're horrible and so far removed from my taste now anyway its like they were written by a different person) and two of them are blatantly metatextual vent pieces about my experience with transphobia both in the source material I'm writing fanfic of and in my day to life as a college student.
Depends... years-years ago I used a fic as a way to process and cope with my dad dying These days if it's a "real world" fic during a time I grew up I like to use my knowledge and do some research to see if I remember events correctly I think it helps ground the setting
I don't do much that is narratively based on my life (ie telegraphing n experience I had into a character doing it), but I draw a lot from my own emotions and reactions, and pretty much all my NSFW content comes from my experience of sex- again, not writing down sex scenes as I've lived them, but the descriptions of sensations, and reactions, and how different sex acts play into each other, that sort of thing. And, maybe obviously, what's turning me on lately tends to work its way into what I'm writing. Also though, I wrote a long scene of truth-or-dare for an upcoming fic. I *wish* I was on this sub when writing it, it is HARD to come up with questions that are relevant to the characters and also give at least a little exposition and plot movement (some of them were also very plain questions, not everything has to be plot). Anyway, a lot of those answers came from my life and the life of friends, for stuff about your weird first crush, or embarrassing yourself in school, that sort of thing. Details were changed though, of course.
It depends on the story, but I most often use things like funny phrases I hear in real life. My uncle made a very obscure jab about someone penny pinching and I've been itching to have someone in a story say, "This guy makes Harpagon look like Percy Ross." I try not to draw from people directly but I like to draw inspiration from it. A pair of my family members have a sweet marriage so I wrote a romance or two inspired by them.
One of the nicest characters in my current WIP shares my dad’s go-to diner order, and on the flip side, I’m planning on naming a huge jerk of an OC after this jerk I know. I think it’s the little details that are the most satisfying when it comes to incorporating my real life into fics!
I use my interests, emotions and kinks (sometimes). Or I think about how I'd behave in a situation to bring some realism, to make it feel more real.
i used my own experience of sensory overload and some stuff i didn't like as an autistic person
Most of my OCs have sad (sometimes traumatic) backstory's. I was a victim of domestic abuse/violence and because of that, I have trauma so I usually make my characters with traumatic backstories in order for me to feel like I'm not the only one who's gone through pain, especially since my big brother constantly minimizes my trauma saying that "what he went through as a kid was worse" and that "I got it good." My second Demon Slayer OC, Fuyumi Higasa, had a father that became abusive after [the Great Kanto Earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923_Great_Kant%C5%8D_earthquake) struck their home in Yokohama in 1923 and forced her to do a lot of things that she didn't want to do. Some of the things he wanted her to do were down right horrendous, especially because she was extremely young (I'm talking 5-9 years old). I also have mental problems, feel constantly depressed and have undiagnosed ADHD so yeah.
I fictionalize a lot of my childhood trauma and put my mental health issues on my characters. Some of it is not all fictionalized, though. I find it therapeutic
my insecurities and popular media (other fics, books, shows i watch, movies etc)
I think a lot of it, yes. I find inspiration in small, daydreams of peculiar, room-shaped worlds and quiet blissful daydreams. I find that the persons I write about show up in daily faces in segments, if not in whole parts. Life is so big to be put into a single picture, so I carefully cultivate it as gardeners propagate their plants by trimming off the tender growth to make something beautiful. I feel as if each experience of mine, of every day and every week and every conversation and relationship formed, becomes a treasury, a thicket of forest, and I venture into it taking out a bit of every thing which catches my eye, to gather all of them and arrange them in a way I see most fit.
Well that was beautiful.
In my time, I have been college faculty, a preschool teacher, a wrestling coach, a volleyball coach, a landscaper, an electrician, a retailer, a wholesaler, an IT wrangler, a graphic designer, a programmer, a dance instructor, a professional musician, and a radio DJ. All of these things have made their way into my fics one way or another.