Real life in stories

Rhobin wants to know: “Has an event in your life, or one of someone you know, or one covered in the news, ever worked its way into one of your stories?”

There is only one answer: YES. I think this is true for all of my stories, even for fantasy and science fiction.

For example, the heroes of my novella, Liberator, are small, green, have three arms and three legs, and live on a faraway planet. I wasn’t thinking of anything from my life when writing the story, but…

They are enslaved, tortured and murdered because a group of guys want to get rich, mining diamonds. You can read about my lovely little Greenies in Bizarre Bipeds

I was once enslaved and tortured, my loved ones murdered, because the English moneyed class needed fleece for their textile mills. Oh, that was in a previous life. All the same, as a result I have all too much empathy for the victims of greed and cruelty. I wrote Liberator because of the kind of person I am, and that has been shaped by what happened to Dermot, who lived in the 19th century.

You can read about this in Ascending Spiral, which also describes the effects of news items of other periods: the Second World War, the Australian gold rush, and sundry other happenings.

I am also the person I am thanks to several lovely people I call my “angels” in Ascending Spiral: they gave support and even love to a lonely boy simply because it was natural for them to make the world a better place for everyone. So, I modelled myself on them, and grew. This is what happens in my latest published novel, Hit and Run. And if my days in the dim distant past as a psychology student count as life events, then I can include the research on the influences that reform criminals. (Punishment doesn’t. Positive role models do.)

Here is one more example. I once visited Earth 1500 years into the future, and fictionalised my report in Sleeper, Awake. I wrote this book at the end of the 20th century, and it is strongly influenced by news items from approximately 2010 to the present, about the way humanity is destroying its life support system.

You calling me a liar? NO, I am a STORYTELLER. Did you come here for chronological verisimilitude, or for entertainment?

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Please comment below (that’s the only place you can, unless you want to send me an email), then visit this lovely bunch of ladies, who address the same topic. Yes, I am the only male in Rhobin’s Rounds, blessed if I know why.

Rhobin L Courtright
Skye Taylor
Victoria Chatham
A.J. Maguire
Anne Stenhouse
Beverley Bateman
Connie Vines
Diane Bator
Fiona McGier
Judith Copek
Margaret Fieland