• Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
Book Cave: Authors and Publisher promotional services and features
Book Cave
Authors & Publishers
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
  • Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
Writing for Authors
31 Oct 2018 at 04:38 PM PDT
Updated 4 years ago

Turning Personal Experiences into a Novel

By Catia Shattuck

Advertisement

JutohWe at Book Cave prefer Jutoh for ebook creation because it gives us more control than most other ebook software out there, while still maintaining a friendly interface.

Browse by topic

All Posts Ebook Formatting Grammar & Punctuation Publishing Tips Author Website Promotion & Marketing Social Media Mailing Lists Cover Design Tutorials Author Pages Technical Tips Writing for Authors

personal experiences into a novel

I'm a book wyrm
We hope you enjoy reading this post!
If you’re like us and love to read, then click here to score tons of free and discounted ebooks.

Your own life and personal experiences can be great inspiration for your novels. Whether it’s one scene you slip into your novel, or an entire novel based on a real event, personal experience can bring life and realism to your writing.

Here are some tips to help you turn your personal experiences into a novel.

Write it Down

If something interesting, weird, or funny happens to you or someone you know, write it down right away. Include the basic events, what actions people took, and how everyone reacted to the events. Brainstorm why each person reacted the way they did as well. This way, when you turn your personal experiences into a novel, you can choose which of the characters in your novel react the same way or even change a reaction slightly if it doesn’t fit with your characters.

Distance Yourself

The event is real, but if you’re writing fiction and not a memoir, you need to distance yourself from your story. Once you put the action on paper, those characters are no longer the people you know in real life. They are now your characters. Let go of some things that happened that aren’t interesting or believable and focus on the main beats to get across the emotion and events. That means you may have to change the original scene a bit or combine several experiences to keep it interesting in written form.

Add more Plot

Real-life experiences are great, but you may need to add a little more drama to the events to keep the plot moving, especially if your entire novel is based on a personal experience. The experience is a great springboard that will need to be spruced up a little bit. Think drama! Any idea you have seen has likely already been used in some book somewhere, but your unique spin, the adjustments you take to increase the emotion and drama, is what makes it stand out and become yours.

Change Details that Are too Similar to Reality

You’ll need to adjust the scene or characters so it’s not obvious who the characters are based on in real life, protecting their privacy and preventing any lawsuit. This could involve changing the hair color, profession, backstory, or hobbies of your character to not match their real-life counterpart. By the time you’re finished, many times your real-life inspirations will read your book and not recognize themselves and maybe only see a slight similarity in events.

How have you turned personal experiences into a novel? We’d love to hear in the comments below!

If you’d like to learn more about Book Cave promotions and receive more writing tips, please enter your email below and click the “Learn More” button to receive our author newsletter.

Copyright 2018 by Book Cave
Reuse notice: Non-commercial users, feel free to print out “Turning Personal Experiences into a Novel” for personal use or give to friends, share online, or make a meme of, as long as you attribute and link back to this post. Commercial users, you may share a link to this post or quote a short excerpt from it with attribution and a link to this site, but you may not use this post in its entirety. Thank you for caring about copyright.

Share this authorpost

Keep Reading

inspiration for your next novel

Where to Find Inspiration for Your Next Novel

Inspiration for your next book can be one of the hardest things to find. But you don’t have to wait for your muse to hit you over the head with a bestselling idea. Here are some ideas to help you actively search for your next story.

content rating for cozy mysteries, clean romances, and children's books

What Content Rating Is Appropriate for Cozy Mysteries, Clean Romance, or Children’s Fiction?

At Book Cave, we’re often asked what the appropriate rating is for cozy mysteries, clean romance, or children’s fiction. Let’s take a look at what the ratings really mean, and what ratings these three genres usually fall into.

Author Newsletter

15 Reasons Why You Need an Author Newsletter

A lot of authors don’t have a newsletter, but author newsletters are an incredibly useful tool. Having a newsletter can be the very best way to reach more readers and sell more books.

Hello fellow book lover! We hope you are enjoying this post.
If you want free, content-rated ebooks that you can download straight from your favorite retailer, just sign up for our free newsletter
Sign me up!

Leave a Reply

Cancel


Comments

    Receive free ebooks on Amazon Kindle from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Apple Books from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Google Play from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Kobo from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Nook from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Smashwords from Book Cave
    Book Cave
    Book Cave Direct
    My Book Ratings
    MY BOOK RATINGS
    Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
    • Sitemap
    • Contact Us
    • Free ebooks
    © Book Cave - All the rights reserved!