We’ve talked about this in class, and it’s one of those things that are never clearly answered–unless you’re James Frey and have never been a dope addict.
Lisa at Eudaemonia has an excellent post today on how much of ourselves we decide to put into a story and what influences that decision. It can become as important an issue as life and death in guessing who will read and how much they will believe as taken from the author’s own experience. Of course everything we write in fiction is based on some factual information, our experience of living, reading, seeing.
Just having finished reading Henry Miller’s classic, Tropic of Cancer, which is largely based upon Miller’s own time spent in Paris, I find the best approach to take is that some embellishment on real life events can and should be accepted as fiction; the most minor of glossing or emphasis placed on reality (remember, perception and perspective makes truth impossible to provide) may be acceptable as fact. You cannot, for example, claim your grandmother is Queen of England if she ain’t.
Harder however than proving something true, is proving to your friends and family that the trollop in your new short story isn’t you.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology