I have heard it said that writers use events in their own lives to inspire parts of the stories they write. Specifically it is clear that certain of Roald Dahls books are inspired by aspects of his own life…
Like his childhood adventures with the sweet shop inspiring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and an old Gypsy caravan in his back yard inspiring Danny the Champion of the world…
…For example. So are the best authors only able to be that because they’ve led interesting enough lives to have the material to feed their imaginations?
I ask because I would love to be a writer - but I’ve led a fairly dull uneventful life. I have nothing to write about (nothing that I wouldn’t find boring writing about anyway - like how to retro-fit other people’s computer code)
You know, I was going to write up a post with half a dozen world-famous authors who lived dull, uneventful lives (not everyone can be Hemingway) but you’re going to get a lot of that. So I’ll just answer, “No, you do not need to have a wild and crazy life to be a writer.” Even the dullest life contains hundreds of minor inspiration points that can lead to other things.
I’ll just point out one, seeing as your handle is Lobsang - Terry Pratchett seems to have lead a very quiet life yet enjoyed a modest degree of success.
I did think about TP when typing. Ironically (because I’m a huge fan) I don’t know much about TP’s life. I’m going to use google to see if there is anything out there.
Edit: I think if TP has had a quiet life, then for his writing that fact is compensated by his ridiculously good imagination. So an imagination like his perhaps doesn’t need any interesting material to work with - just dull material which he makes interesting. Like a Post Office! What a genius to make a story about a Post Office interesting!
What limited experience seems to do is limit a writer to doing good work on one particular subject. It doesn’t take much experience to write at least one successful book. Even if you lived a really lonely life, you can still write a good book about loneliness.
Most of Terry Pratchett’s former life is in The Truth.
Anyway, it’s not any use to say “I would love to be a writer” if you’ve never written anything before and are just idly considering a number of exotic creative careers. If you’re making excuses this early as to why you haven’t tried writing yet, you may be in for a bit of a struggle.
Come up with a story and characters, write it down, finish it to a level you’re happy with, and see how that goes.
This is how I live: Don’t worry about things that don’t matter until they happen.
To another person, that gypsy caravan was just a shitty trailer filled with vagrants. Anything can be interesting, if you see life as inherently interesting.
The thing that keeps people from being a writer is not writing.
How many of those kids put a dead rat in one of the sweet jars?
How many of those kids endured the horror of public school caning?
I have endured none of those. My nearest connection is my primary school teacher showing the year that he has a cane inside his piano chair. At the time it simply did not occur to me that I would ever be on the receiving end of that cane. I never was. And I think the amount of time that has passed and the lack of clarity in the memory of the event can suggest that I have no idea what his motive was for showing that cane. Therefore it could well have been to point out that teachers are no longer permitted to use it.
IMO, empathy is much more important for a writer than leading an “exciting life”. If you put some effort into research and are empathetic, you can write believable fiction.
I not only strongly agree with woodstockbirdybird but I’ll go so far as to say that you’re missing the forest through the trees, Lobsang. Those are mundane, every day kind of occurrences. It’s not a “public school caning”, it’s “humiliation and punishment in front of peers by an authority figure”. It’s not a “dead rat in a sweet jar”, it’s a “childhood prank that seemed like a good idea at the time that went out of control”. You’re looking at the details instead of the themes and even when you don’t personally get involved with that you deal with people every single day who have. You don’t have to grill them, you just have to pay attention and absorb the whole human experience.
And those are the final words I’m going to say on this. Your posts read like you’re fishing for encouragement and you can’t take that from outside. You can be told what’s going on but unless you are capable of integrating the concepts (and I don’t think you can if you’re just told) then it won’t do any good.
Agreed that empathy and imagination are far more important than actual experiences. Without the first two, anyone who has merely the latter is not gonna make much of a writer. Conversely, with only the first two, you can still be a good writer. Simply setting down facts is useful in a court reporter’s career, but if your intent is to make your readers feel and live through your words, you need to be able to relay details in a vivid, engaging way. Doesn’t matter if those details actually happened or if you made 'em up.
Any fantasy writer is a perfect example – think of the remarkable universes that have been created, the never-before-seen characters who’ve lived, all wrought purely from the imagination of Tolkien and Lewis, Prachett and Lovecraft. And how many breathlessly romantic dreams have been inspired by Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters – all of whom IIRC lived fairly uneventful, normal lives without Grand Romances or epic adventures?
Learn to be a good listener and reader; absorb books and plays and pay attention to interviews and biographies. Obviously it’d be ideal to start living a fabulously exciting life, but then when will you have time to write?
My life has been pretty unexciting, but I’m still able to successfully write science fiction and fantasy. I don’t write about my life; I write about the lives of the characters I create. As for interesting things, they generally come from my reading fiction, not living the lives.
I know many writers and some have pretty routine lives. Hal Clement was a school teacher for years, in a stable marriage. Jane Yolen worked in publishing before becoming successful (she wrote the jacket copy for the original US edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Stephen King might be the best selling novelist of our times, and his life was uninteresting until he became famous. J.K Rowling has sold approximately forty-eight trillion books and did very little of interest prior to hitting the big time.
Not having an interesting life won’t stop you from being a successful writer. The main stumbling blocks are, of course, lack of talent and, even more importantly, poor work ethic and lack of drive. This is true of being successful in any profession.
I second this one. Lovecraft’s life wasn’t just “uninteresting,” it was a little sad. But, as one source put it, “he could describe a building more lovingly than Shakespeare describing his Fair Lord.”
hmm, I think there are maybe a couple of profiles.
One profile is writers that have imagination and creativity. Douglas Kennedy springs to mind, and I’m pretty sure he’s never been a woman but he’s written from a female point of view quite successfully IMHO. Not sure what other kind of life he has led.
Then there are those that write with a heavy dose of experience. Charles Bukowski springs to mind. I do not believe that a write could have imagined Ham on Rye without having lived through such a fucked up childhood.
