The Best Stories Are Yours: Experience and Autofiction

Writers are often asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” Answers to the question vary, but one common response is—experience.

Memoirists and fiction writers have a lot in common. Besides the fact that most writers now work in both genres, we share a foundation best described by memoirist Vivian Gornick in The Situation and the Story. “Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance … the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say [about the circumstance].”

No fiction genre captures this better than autofiction.

Short for autobiographical fiction, autofiction draws a lot from the writer’s life, especially critical events, turning points, discoveries and lessons. But since autofiction writers aren’t replicating our entire life to create the story, we have more in common with memoirists than autobiographers. We have situations to explore, and we usually have a lot to say about them.

Here are three key features of autofiction:

• Names: The names in our stories may be real, including the name of the protagonist.
• Parallels: There are key similarities between the writer’s life and that of the protagonist. The protagonist may even be a writer, and the story may explore the role of writing in the character’s (writer’s) life.
• Uncertainty: In a genre that already blurs reality, there’s an organic tension over what’s real and what isn’t. This engages the reader in thinking deeply about the work and the protagonist’s (writer’s) life.

Here are three examples of autofiction and why the authors chose this genre:

• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019): This work by Ocean Vuong is a letter from a son to a mother that discloses a family history rooted in Vietnam; the story serves as a window into aspects of the son’s life his mother never knew. Normally, our parents (mothers especially, in some cultures) tell us our family history and secrets. This work reverses that tradition.
• Every Day Is for the Thief (2015): This bestselling first novel, in diaristic form, by acclaimed Nigerian-American Teju Cole, depicts a young man’s journey to Nigeria to discover his roots. Discovering one’s heritage often generates epiphany, as we suddenly recognize ourselves, for better or worse.
• A Death in the Family (2013): One of The Guardian's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, this novel series by Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard examines childhood, family and grief. Even without knowing the details of the stories, the order of the trilogy is telling.

If you’re interested in mining your life to develop a work of fiction, try the dreamstorming technique described in From Where You Dream, by Robert Olen Butler. Here is Butler's general principle:

• Go to your writing space, and give yourself time to remember, to watch yourself move through your life. The journey doesn’t have to be linear or chronological.
• As you recall your life, note critical events, turning points, discoveries and lessons, and why they might figure into your story.

In each case, there is a situation and a corresponding emotional experience that makes the situation memorable, even worth writing about. These are the insights, the wisdom, the thing the writer has come to say about that event. Only you can tell that story.

Resources:

• Elements of Fiction, by Walter Mosley: How to master essential fiction elements.
• From Where You Dream, by Robert Olen Butler: How to use dreamstorming to reveal story and develop scenes.
• Steering the Craft, by Ursula Le Guin: A craft guide to sailing the sea of story.
• The Elements of Story, by Francis Flaherty: Nonfiction techniques that work for fiction.
• The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick: How to compose and explore the events of life.