I often wondered if we all think our lives would make an interesting story. What is at least ONE thing in your life that you think would make an interesting story or even anecdote? I BELIEVE (?) I have several, but, it's hard to be unbiased about your own life..... Thoughts?
I was a military pilot, have traveled a lot, worked for FEMA and the Coast Guard after Katrina and have had a reasonably complicated romantic history. For the most part, I don't think any of it is interesting drama, despite sounding like the less traveled path. I could probably do a stand-up set on dating, though.
I've nearly killed meself so many times; flipped a car, hit-and-run on my street bike (three total crashes), almost shot meself cleaning a rifle, been shot at, crashed a dirt-bke so many times (I'm a desert rat), river rafting, camped everywhere, took a 240z up to 135mph before the front end started to lift, Lots of thrills, chills and spills. Plus severe ADHD. I should be dead.
i think everyones life is an interesting and unique story. whether you travelled or not. whether you survived bungy jumping or just visited the library every day. one of the most dangerous and stupidest things ive done is do rugby style tackling of a car driven by a friend. But is that what readers want to read? or the first time i tried weed. or my disastrous first year of teaching? or the time i dated a girl picked her up at her home. half way through the night she told me that another guy would take her home?
I like that you're taking this approach. WHAT would make a story about your life interesting to others? What would make somebody want to read about your life? Most people who want to write memoirs need to come up with an 'angle,' in order for their life story to be appealing to others. (I presume writing a memoir is what you mean. Writing a piece of fiction based on your life is a different issue, and would be sold to others as a fictional story, not as something that really happened.) Celebrities don't really need an angle, I suppose. But you, as a non-celebrity, have to draw readers in with some other kind of hookâbecause they don't know you (yet) and consequently won't care. If you have done something unusual (like hitchhiked around the world) that can be the focus. If you've overcome a huge handicap of some sort, you can write a memoir focused on 'how I overcame my (whatever) and became a (whatever.) Or have you experienced something particularly unique, like survived a near-death experience? Have you got a particular talent or skill that people would be interested in reading about? Did you live through an era that you would like to commemorate? Think up an angle. That will not only provide a hook for readers, but it will also help you to focus on the parts of your life that underpin this angle. It makes it easier to create a 'story' about your life, rather than just a rambling day-to-day diary of everything that has ever happened to you. ............. As for me, I use my life experiences to underpin certain aspects of my fiction, but nothing direct.
Moonlit field and I had been drinking a little. Only Thunderbird, maybe it was Buckfast? She was black and white, her bulbous beautiful eyes somehow reflected my own yearning. We spent the night together. I awoke in that field, she was gone. Sometimes I think it should be a short story, sometimes a novel series, searching for her kind, her kin.
My life is boring and uneventful but there was a bout that could be written about a few years ago. I won't go into detail but if it was a book, it'll be darkly similar to 'The Killer Inside Me' by Jim Thompson or Black Mirror's Shut Up and Dance. Think of it as a twisted, unique romance novel where you can somewhat sympathize with the protagonist but pity him too much to root for him.
What is it's true, biographical or autobiographical but, something unabashedly honest and real? You still don't think people would be interested? I'm just not sure. Maybe you do need an angle but maybe if a different "voice" is used?
When I sketch it out, outline it, whatever, on paper, I realize that it's not been a "quiet ordinary life." But it feels that way to me.
I think mine is the opposite, in my head it seems outrageous and crazy, but, on paper or thinking about explaining to others, I probably seems moderately ordinary. I'm wondering if you could build an entire story on the ONE most extreme part of your life, and the direction you would go with it....
I doubt if the story of my life would be worth writing about, but I'm dead certain it wouldn't be worth reading.
