What do you write about?

Do you write from personal experience? Completely made up scenarios?
I use a lot of themes that I have personal experience with such as isolation, insecurity, loss, love etc.. and I use them to form a rough idea for the story.
Then I include a lot of completely made up scenarios which revolve around those main themes. They say write what you know, but I suppose I'm trying
to write what I don't know, using what I do know - if that makes sense!

What interests you in terms of subject matter?
I like darker themes, and grittiness. I'm a big fan of transgressive fiction, though I don't write it myself. I enjoy taking well established tropes and using them in new ways.

Also vampires, I like vampires - but only if they don't sparkle

 

It sounds like you and I have really similar taste. I really enjoy dark and gritty themes as well.

Minus the Vampire bit, haha. No judgement, just not my things.

 

I was just doing a review of my author bios! Old versions are:

Kate:
Since her first book was published in 2010, she’s kept herself busy with novels, novellas, and short stories in almost all the sub-genres of m/m romance. Contemporary, suspense, scifi or fantasy–the settings are just the backdrop for her characters to answer the important questions. How much can they share, and what do they need to keep? Can they bring themselves to trust someone, after being disappointed so many times? Are they brave enough to take a chance on love?

Kate’s books balance drama with humor, angst with optimism. They feature strong, damaged men who fight themselves harder than they fight anyone else. And, wherever possible, there are animals: horses, dogs, cats ferrets, squirrels… sometimes it’s easier to bond with a non-human, and most of Kate’s men need all the help they can get.

and for Cate:
She likes to write stories about real people struggling with real issues. YA, NA, or contemporary romance, her books are connected by their emphasis on subtle humor and characters who are trying to do the right thing, even when it would be a lot easier to do something wrong.

Within those boundaries I've written Science Fiction, Fantasy, lots of contemporary, some action/adventure... lots of different sub-genres. I have a monster-hunter project that I really want to finish, but I never seem to get around to it. Too little time...

 

I have a few attractions when it comes to themes etc. I like future-set stuff, where I can play about with tech and recreational drugs (inventing drugs is immense fun). I also have a bit of an obsession with road trips - where characters are on a journey in the truest sense of the word.

I like authentic sounding dialogue and don't even mind reading the apparently forbidden rule of having characters talk trivialities. This works best when using humour - like two life-long friends arguing and the familiarities and language that brings to such a conversation. Iain Banks uses it to great affect in, I think, Dead Air.

Again, supposedly a big no-no, is when characters take time out of the story and just chill. It has to be written well, and engaging in its own right. For this reason I loath the 'rule' which says every scene has to have a purpose and drive the plot. I mean, how literally is that meant to be applied?? If my characters are exhausted from travelling and need to find a place to rest, why shouldn't I write the scene where they check into a motel and get lucky with two of the room maids? Even if this liaison has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, why can't I share it with my readers if written well enough?

To be honest, complex plots hold little appeal for me, from a reader's perspective, and certainly from a writer's.

 

My main focus is on literary short fiction. An MFA and a few hundred rejections later, I wonder how long I can maintain this focus. At the same time I don't know what I would do without it. I feel like I have put too much in to quit but never thought it would be so hard.

 

I usually write fantasy or Sci-fi. I like writing about different worlds and people or creatures. I make up characters that relate with something of my own character or a characteristic I wished I had. I would also write about things that I wish was real or something I don't have.
I would gain ideas from my dreams or I think of an idea while I'm daydreaming. I would gain ideas from where I'm sure a lot of people get it from: from books you read or other material. I would think of what if this happened instead of this? It sometimes ends up completely different from what I read or experienced.
I'm not really funny when it's on purpose so I normally don't have much comedy in my stories. It's usually pretty serious or really dumb like being a sixteen-year-old and acting like a five-year-old wanting cookies.
I like writing about having strong relationships with people. When a character is pessimistic and had a hard life but meets someone (maybe from a different dimension, if you watch anime think about a key wizard from fairy tail) and that person helps the character out in the conflicts she may face (I usually write in a girl's point of view).

 

What do I write? An interesting question I hadn't really considered. I have just been writing stuff.

My first novel, Portal To Elysium, is based on a fragment of a dream that I had and was lucky enough to remember when I woke up. That fragment got a bit turned around and upside-down before I was done with it but made for a offbeat modern fantasy/magical realism/paranormal romance story that is pretty much impossible to market. The story really takes a back seat to my characters and is just a vehicle for them to have great conversations and fall in love. Having completed it I don't see myself writing anything like it again...unless another inspired dream comes to me.

My other books are all modern suspense/thriller type stories with 'normal' characters (no black ops, professional spies, etc). I like sticking common folks into uncommon circumstances. Gun fights, car chases and the occasional explosion may sound mainstream but I take great pains to make them not only believable but accurately possible. Again, the story is the vehicle for the characters to jump over hurdles I create and struggle with their own problems. By the end of any book I want them to have improved in their own lives is some way.

I'm not interested in other worlds, future science, vampires, zombies or super hero powers. I only write about what I know or am willing to learn about. Everything thus far has taken place in modern times but I am not opposed to tackling a 'period' piece in the future. I do have an idea for one set in the late 1940s/early 1950s that would be a real challenge.

My first novel was based on a lot of personal experiences. Subsequent books have required me to invest time in learning about new things (weapons, locales). I write about the things that interest me or that I enjoy in books or movies. I need to be having fun; if its not fun for me, it won't be fun for the reader.

 

I feel like writing realistic character-driven stories IS different in today's market. But maybe that's just me.

To answer your other questions, I utilize a lot of real-life experiences and interests in my writing. I'll often create slightly altered versions of humorous or frightening things that actually happened to me and include them in my stories. My very first short story was basically a "what if?" scenario based on something terrifying that happened to me at a bonfire in high school.

As for subject matter, I'm like you. I'm intrigued by the dark, gritty side of life. Happy endings don't work for me. Horror stories are by far my favorite to write, and most of my non-horror stories still contain horror elements. I can't help it--that's just what stews in my mind. Other people dream up dramatic romances or epic fantasies, and I think about finding a corpse in the storm drain on my way to the post office...

 

@Spencer1990 My daughter's house is a terraced town house, in a reasonably well-to-do area and she shares a wall with her neighbours. The house next door is a halfway house, but not for drug addicts; it serves the needs of extremely mentally challenged people. I'm talking very extreme cases of paranoid schizophrenia, and other conditions of similar, debilitating ilk. Living next door is not for the faint hearted. There's always something going on and it's usually loud. As you might imagine there were all sorts of calls for relocation from the locals — 'How dare mentally ill people be in the vicinity of my children!' My daughter would be sympathetic given that her mother has spent periods of time being an absolute basket case. And it's not like I've ever hurt anyone other than myself. People shouldn't make that jump in logic but they do.

I was doing an overnighter, minding my grandson for her. He's 4. We were both woken up in the middle of the night by all manner of shouts and bangs, feet running heavily up and down the stairs. My grandson poddled out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes, asking if he could kip in with me. He wasn't in the least bit scared. He's used to it, and my daughter has went out of her way to explain how the land lies. I went to roll over and fall back asleep, but he was wide awake, pressing his ear to the wall.

"Oh, nanny," he said, pulling a face.

"What?"

"He's seeing angels again," he said. "He thinks they are coming to take him away and he doesn't want to go."

There's no question in my mind that my grandson was sympathetic to what was going on next door. He felt bad for the hallucinating person. He has enough empathy already that he can understand just how traumatic seeing things that aren't there might be. His genuine acceptance provided such a start contrast to the opinions expressed by other neighbours. That got me thinking.

It's a prime example of a random occurence that stimulates a story idea in my head. Just revisualising that small scene, makes me realise it's something I could run with. Ask a couple of pertinent 'what ifs?' and I might end up with a decent premise to work with.

Recently, I've been using elements of things I've actually experienced in my stories and it's given me a real boost. At the outset, I didn't think I'd have much to work with, but I am constantly surprised. It's always worth remembering that we all get to experience things on our lifes journey that other folks haven't. These can be put to good use.

 

I'll write to make a moral or amoral point.

 

Hey. I think I have a tendency to write about (lonely) somewhat strange people. I have no idea which genre, but I like to add more fantastical elements from time to time (like magic realism). It's not supposed to be hyper realistic. Therefore I also try not to write from a real place, I just make something up. I don't want to be bound. And I believe I focus more on the characters than the plot. I've had many stories where the characters would just be sitting around, walking or talking (love dialogue). But this might have more to do with my poor planning skills. Anyway, characters learning about each other while solving? some kind of conflict. Actually, I have not been thinking much about what I write about.

 

I generally write about people that could live next door or in your city. Characters who are trying to make sense of the world and maybe finding some sort of validation despite body blows to their integrity. Men and women who exude a certain lyrical stoicism and rationale in a society that embraces neither.

 

Most of my ideas come about through thoughts I have while driving. I love driving, especially long drives, and for some reason I find my mind (and therefore my imagination) seems to feel clear and limitless while I'm behind the wheel. The thoughts and ideas that come could come from any source. Once, I was listening to the radio and heard a disturbing story about a man arrested for bestiality with his dog, and I thought "It's really fortunate that the species barrier prevents horrible monster offspring from happening in situations like this." And then my mind started to wonder what such a wretched creature would look like. That led to a series of thoughts that eventually resulted in a story idea, very, very far removed from the original radio story. In fact in the end it has nothing at all to do with bestiality (thank goodness) but rather that thought launched a train of others.

Another WIP of mine started as I drove and contemplated a game of pretend we used to play as children. We always gravitated back to this same scenario, same game. After a couple hours of driving, that contemplation had turned into manic mental creation as the bare bones of our childhood game suggested themselves into a story worth writing. The actual writing of it turned it into this huge, unrecognizable thing that I love very much.

Anyway - because of the way my mind finds stories, they almost always begin with a "what if things were like this?" thought, and therefore do not often confine themselves to reality. I have tried writing books restricted to realism, modern, strictly the way things are now, just interested in the lives of characters in situations like those around me. I get bored quickly. My stories are pretty much always speculative fiction, because they are born in the genesis chamber of speculation.

 

My scenarios come when I'm near water, weird I know!
As for where they come from sometimes its from my life, what people tell me or somewhere from my imagination.
I write about desperation, instinct, hope and people.

 

The scene you described is actually very interesting to me. I've actually started an outline for a potential story regarding a halfway house is a well-off neighborhood. I really appreciate you telling me this as it has given me a couple ideas.

Thank you!

 

You're welcome.

 

I think I might be the first to say that I write about exotic locations, lost cities, ancient artifacts and a hero who is always saving the world, or at least someone. I try to keep the stories a little grounded in reality so the reader can go on a roller-coaster ride but at the same time still say, "Oh yeah, that sounds kind of plausible." 1000 year old wooden and rope booby traps are NOT included

 

I like deconstructions and stories that focus on the psychological aspects of characters and what they experience, no matter what world they find themselves in. So that's what I write. Character-driven psychological stories. Everything else from there doesn't really matter. It could be fantasy, science-fiction, horror, current-day drama, romance, whatever. But pretty much all my stories feature "fucked-up" people, or people that become "fucked-up", pretty much.

 

Generally, I enjoy writing historical fiction in which the sense of a particular time period and place - the issues, conflicts, major events - serve as the backdrop for individual stories. The times and places that catch my interest vary. The novel I am currently pitching, Rosa's Secret, covers 500 years, like the historical novels by James Michener and Leon Uris that I grew up devouring. I'm not sure I would do that again. Epic historical fiction these days is more likely to be seen in a series of novels, each very detailed, rather than a 400K-word tome. I've started working on an idea that may well be the foundation for a historical fiction series.

Obviously, writing about a different time, it's not about personal experiences. But I do draw from personal experiences in creating characters and relationship dynamic. I don't see how one can avoid it. And oftentimes, the issues, conflicts and events about which I write are those that resonate with me, personally.

I also have a few novel ideas kicking around that don't fit into historical fiction, including one for a crime novel.

 

I love to write science fiction/horror. I sometimes go into fantasy but I'm not nearly as frequent in that for some reason, or I feel like I should convert it into a science fiction. I'm not sure why.

Also social/political issues, unreliable narrators, and call me cheesey but a lot of times I like to have some kind of "moral" or lesson at times. Or make an example of a very foolish decision or perspective.

 

I write about aliens, but I am an alien... so personal experience?

Joking, but we're probably all aliens to some other race out there. Big ol' universe, bud.

If I write a short story about zombies it doesn't mean I've ever met one or ate a human before.

I can give imagery to the sense of smell even though I have none. Little details, such as facial expressions, or key words.

The writer doesn't have to personally experience a subject to relate to other people. Observation of how others react is more likely to resonant with a higher percentage of readers.

Myself? It's a lot about how I feel and taking my experiences, concepts of how the world works, personal interactions, etc. and turning it into something readable.

There's a million factors that make up a piece of writing. It could stop raining and the sun starts shining. You smile and the mood of your writing changes. Writing isn't set in stone unless you want it to be.

 

It's simple; What I write mirrors what I listen to (The Mars Volta, Dream Theater, Opeth etc.) and sometimes it comes out trashy but sometimes it comes out brilliant.

Also, alcohol does give me good reveries. The other night I was writing and fell asleep for only a minute and while sleeping I uttered a name: Hooperstan. Like what the fuck is a Hooperstan? I put that in my WIP.

 

Do you write from personal experience? Completely made up scenarios.

When I was younger, and starting to write, I wrote about what happened to me, observations, and less made up scenarios. Now, as an older person, I write more 'made up scenarios, but they are usually situations that I feel very passionate about, like the disabled person being exploited.

What changed? I realized how easy it is to get sued.

What interests you in terms of subject matter?

Anything is possible, but currently I have more interest in writing 'general novels'.

A long time ago I wrote a science fiction story about the end of the world from the viewpoint of two little sisters, one 5, one 6 years old.