One of the hardest gigs is mentoring a 16-year-old who desperately wants to write fiction. It was clear she was gagging to write (and yes, to BE an Author, not necessarily the same thing) and mainly wanted tips on finding material, what to write about. Easy enough for an 80+ but hell for a 16 yo, who hasn't yet seen much life.
So I pointed her at short stories, said to hone her skills on them for a few years, before tackling anything bigger. Ten years from now she'll have some life experiences to explore. And besides, I'm a great believer that you have the innate drive or you don't. It's a compulsion or it isn't. If you have the compulsion you'll find the subject matter. It's all around us.
Anyway, got me thinking about it, and so analysed the 40 short stories I currently have up on The Workshop, to see if that tells me anything useful. I found (for what it's worth) that of those...
30% only are totally fabricated, while
70% are taken mainly from actual events (both first hand and second hand)
Also, of that 40...
40% could be from any Time (not tied to an era as part of the story)
9% are from a childhood (but only a third of those are from my own)
8% are "philosophical" (exploring inner thoughts and all that)
6% are "looking back" stories (the adult past being an essential element of the story)
....and the rest a bit of a mish-mash.
Okay, that's it. Hope this helps.
My own current project is up to first full draft, clearly too big - I got too involved! - so now to the fun part of culling and exploring and finding great words to replace the mundane words. Geez I love this bit! More on that soon.
Cheers....
T.R.E.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>