An autobiography or memoir requires more hard facts than autobiographical fiction. With both you are telling about the events of your life – in an autobiography or memoir you are telling it like it is and changing only those facts which protect someone else’s identity; autobiographical fiction is a story that is loosely based on your life but not necessarily the facts.
If I am writing a memoir about my college years, I would talk about the university I attended and the fact that I majored in theatre and drama. I would probably include some tales about college parties and the months I spent at summer stock. However if I am writing fiction based on me, I would create a character who may have had the same dreams and ideals as I did, but perhaps it was a Broadway show instead of summer stock in upstate New York, and the parties would most certainly be opening night galas. You get the idea.
In the end, all fiction is based on your life to some extent. No matter how you may try to vary it, your real life experiences get incorporated into your character’s experiences in some way. When you are doing this, pick out the most striking facts; in the example above both reality and fiction involve a young girl with a desire to act and parties – everything else can be made up. Those two facts can become a thriller with some mysterious stranger lurking backstage, or a comedy with the actress dealing with an egotistical and absurd director, a paranormal with backstage ghosts or even a science-fiction with the stage being a diorama in someone’s living room.
A true autobiography may focus on real occurrences while selectively leaving some boring details out. A true autobiography would never come to life’s closing; it would be kind of difficult to continue writing from the literal grave. However a fictionalized story could definitely include the protagonist’s (you) end of life including that “aha moment” and meeting up with long lost loved ones at “heaven’s gates”.
When you are writing a story based on real life, you might need to heavily disguise one or more of your characters or settings in order to protect someone’s privacy and reputation AND to protect your legal liability. If you include negative facts about someone in your writing you risk both ire and the law. While you may be sued for Libel, (libel is defined as a false statement of fact) the burden of proof could be on you to prove that your claims are indeed based in truth. Even when there is no intended libel involved, if a character is too closely identifiable with a real person and that person says you have defamed them by saying negative things about the character (for instance, making the character a thief), you might be guilty in a court of law for libel. By the way, libel is written versus slander which is verbal – both are defamatory. So be careful when you based any characters, real or fictional, on real people.
Writing Exercise: Write about a memorable event in your life. After you have written two to three paragraphs of a factual accounting (based on your own memory and perception), start over. This time change the event to make the story into a mystery – romance – comedy – paranormal.
Writing Prompt: A famous animation company wants to recreate your story (the factual one) with animals “acting” each of the roles; make a list of the animals that would fit each character and say why.
Challenge Assignment: You are going to write a fictionalized story based on your life. Write up a Table of Contents and include one to two sentences explaining what is in each chapter.
