Creative Writing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 18

Writing from Life: Giving a Voice to the Past

IN THIS CHAPTER

Making yourself the subject of your work

Linking fiction, autobiography, and biography

Finding a subject for biography

Imposing a structure

In a sense, all writing is autobiographical, in that, as the writer, you’re always present, observing and interpreting the world, and creating from your own consciousness. However, autobiography and fiction are very different – although many autobiographies contain elements of fiction, and many novels draw heavily from life.

Writing biography may seem a very different task but all biography includes an element of autobiography too, especially if you know the person you’re writing about. Your own interests and opinions always influence your writing about another person.

Writing biography and autobiography isn’t easy. Without a fictional framework or many of the tools of fiction writing, your prose can ultimately be deadly dull and of interest only to yourself (and maybe some people who know you). But life writing can be significant: many books that would have been considered ...