10 Writers Whose Fiction Reflect Their Life Stories I

Many writers have had dreadful and I mean dreadful experiences. As a result, their books have become fictionalized versions of their life stories. Some of them have built their life around these terrible ordeals and triumphed in channeling their passion into their works. Others have not been very lucky and eventually, they choked on the dirt of their indecision.

Ten great writers are cited here followed by a brief bio of their travail and/or triumphs. You get to decide which ones pulled through and which ones blew it.

1. H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

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Lovecraft’s nearly five decades of suffering spawned his weird but genius writing. As a matter of fact, his life story is stranger than fiction! His dad was acutely psychotic and passed away in an asylum. Later on, his mom hit by hysteria was also confined to the same mental home.

Lovecraft suffered from night terrors–a rare parasomnia disorder. His poem, Night Gaunt was spawned off his fear of what H.P called night gaunt. Prior to his high school graduation, Lovecraft experienced a nervous breakdown. He married and moved to Red Hook in New York only to be separated from his wife when he couldn’t land a job. These are some of the unusual experiences, which fed one of the weirdest minds of the 2oth century. Lovecraft was one of the first writers to combine horror and science fiction.

2. Stephen King (1947- )

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King considered the Master of Modern Horror, had a disturbed childhood. When King was just two, his father abandoned his family leaving his mother to take care of two kids without any stable source of income.

As a child, King witnessed his friend struck and killed by a train. The ordeal left him speechless with shock, for days. It is believed this event, among others, triggered his interest in horror. King once recalled being drawn to the horror genre after reading books by H.P. Lovecraft his dad left behind. A onetime drug addict, King’s life story recurs again and again throughout his fiction.

You undoubtedly have your own thoughts, interests, and concerns, and they have arisen, as mine have, from your experiences and adventures as a human being… and you should use them in your work.

Stephen King, On Writing.

3. Danielle Steel (1947- )

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Steel has her romance stories cut out for her often involving rich families facing a crisis, threatened by dark elements such as jail, fraud, blackmail and suicide.

Steel married a banker divorced him and married a man jailed on robbery and rape charges, in the prison canteen. She divorced him in 1978 but the relationship spawned Passion's Promise and Now and Forever, the two novels that launched her successful career (which incidentally has garnered about 800 million copies in sales making her the bestselling author alive). Next, she married a former drug addict… Do you see a connection between the general storyline in Steel’s books written above and her life story?

Steel’s mother was the daughter of a diplomat and this gave her access to study the life of the wealthy and famous (stuff which make up the main ingredients of her prose).

Her parents divorced when she was eight and this could have stimulated her hunger for affection, which she tried to satiate by writing romance novels.

4. Terry McMillan (1951- )

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McMillan, the author of the book-to-movie, Waiting to Exhale, which featured Whitney Houston in a leading role, has quite the profile for a writer with books based on her life story.

In 1998, Terry McMillan hooked up with a Jamaican named Jonathan Plummer who was soon to set McMillan’s heart plummeting to the pits.

McMillan was in her late 40s and Plummer in his early 20s (see where this is headed, yet?). In December, 2004 Plummer told McMillan he was gay and the relationship ended. McMillan’s book How Stella Got Her Groove Back which, has a similar storyline and was adapted into a movie featuring Whoopi Goldberg, was inspired by this episode from her life story.

Four down, six to go. Catcha next time around.

Bleed your pen.

Akpan