Episode 2: Fictionalizing True Stories: Mining Real Life for Plots & Characters

Summary: It has been said that all fiction is autobiographical to a degree. Writers can't help but filter everything through their own experiences and beliefs, so even the most outlandish stories are shaped by their own lives. But how can a writer borrow overtly from their past -- or someone else's? How does the writing process change when a elements in a narrative are clearly torn from real life? How do writers disguise them as fiction? How do they decide what facts to keep and what to change? How can they protect the "innocent" -- or should they? How does writing about past events and relationships affect our understanding of them? And do writers sometimes use real life people and events without realizing it? At our February 18, 2016, Third Thursday, moderator Jennifer Ziegler spoke with authors Charlotte Gullick, Varian Johnson, Ruth Pennebaker, and Mary Helen Specht on these issues and more.