![]() And it’s often painful because in many circumstances you are more directly impacted by the events than I was in the arson.īut in most circumstances, it is best to remove yourself from the story. This is the first, and often most painful, step to take when converting true events into written form. So I had to remove myself from the story entirely. I barely garner a mention in any fictionalization of the drama. ![]() Yet in reality, a bunch of other people-the arsonist, his wife, the policeman who drove over the wire that tripped the explosion, the butchers cutting meat on the other side of the concrete wall when hundreds of gallons of gasoline ignited-are the real characters of the story. Here’s the problem with all of this: In this version of the story, I’m the hero. I immediately recognized him (despite wearing a baseball cap over his eyes), as did everyone else. Then, the night of the explosion, I had a shift at the store and watched the CCTV footage that showed the arsonist walking through the building to steal the ATM. All throughout high school I worked at the grocery story and often ran cash or receipts back and forth from the adjacent gas station. I experienced the explosion, and the follow-up, as a meager (but highly interested) observer. I always filtered it through my own perspective, and I had nothing to do with the story's primary events. The first problem I had writing my gas station story came from this idea. And if they do, the entire experience becomes filtered through a heavily biased point of view: our own. Why? Because usually when true things happen around us, they don’t happen to us or with us. (Obviously memoir will be an exception to this rule.) ![]() Nine times out of ten, you, the writer, are probably not the best person to include in the story. Here are four steps on how to write a book that's based on a true story: 1. In all stories based on true events, you’ll need to make specific choices about the characters, their motivations, and the events. And in stories that directly or tangentially involve you as a potential character, then an initial, difficult choice has to be made. 4 Steps to Write a Book Based on a True Story ![]() But in the sixteen years since, I’ve struggled to know what to do with all the craziness and absurdity of my little hometown incident. However, it was just a diversion so he could haul an ATM-stolen from the grocery store-out to the woods where he’d have the time to break it open and steal the contents.ĭoesn't this sound like a great foundation for a “based-on-a-true-story” story? It did to me. Sure enough, a disgruntled employee had rigged the station to blow. The gas station was physically connected to the local grocery store, owned by the same businessman. Yet within the day, I (along with nearly everyone else) had figured out who did it. And one day in winter we all woke up and one of our three gas stations had gone from a friendly fueling hub to a black crater on the lunar surface.Īt first the town was in horrified shock. I grew up in a tiny town, the kind of place where everyone’s business is somehow public knowledge. When I was eighteen years old, someone blew up a local gas station. Want to learn how to write a book from start to finish? Check out How to Write a Book: The Complete Guide. I know this because I, too, have failed at telling what seems to be the “perfect” true story. The process vexes writers for a number of reasons, and has probably forced you to quit at least one project you’d have loved to successfully finish and publish. Yet converting true events into the written word almost always proves to be a frustratingly tough chore. After all, shouldn’t translating true events into a story be easy? You have everything you need, it seems: characters, events, and the entire plot. But how do you write a book based on a true story? How do you take those fantastical events and turn them into an even better story? In practice, it's much harder than it sounds!Īs a writer, you undoubtedly want to capture those moments in an irresistible story that readers can’t put down.īut if you’re anything like me, you’ve found the process to be a lot harder than it should. Life is filled with stranger-than-fiction moments.
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