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Injecting stories with personal experience

  • LV Ditchkus
  • Sep 19
  • 2 min read
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Over the course of writing sci-fi—both short stories and longer works—I’ve come to realize something that might sound obvious, but it’s worth saying out loud: human emotions are universal.


Even when my characters are stranded on a remote planet or navigating a dystopian hellscape, they still grapple with the same core feelings we all do:


fear,

love,

isolation,

hope, and

conflict


One of the most powerful tools I’ve found for bringing depth to my characters is memory—personal recollections from past relationships and real-life encounters. Sure, my alien beings may have a few extra limbs or some curious habits, and the oppressed citizens of my futurescapes might face enemies we’ve never imagined—but the emotions that drive them? They’re often pulled straight from my own experiences.


Want to write about a time your boss crossed a line? Or when you started questioning your parents’ beliefs? Or even that moment you felt left out or unseen? Good. If you write those emotions honestly, they’ll translate—no matter what form your characters take.


When it comes to small worldbuilding details, I’ve learned it’s helpful to borrow from the familiar, but give it a twist. In one story, I created an alien animal with ears that inflate and deflate with mood. I could’ve said, “like a toy balloon,” but that might yank the reader out of the off-world setting. Instead, I wrote, “his ears went flaccid like deflated spore balloons.”


Do spore balloons exist? Nope. Not on Earth, anyway. But readers intuitively understand the image, because they’ve seen a toy balloon deflate. It’s a subtle trick: familiar sensation, alien context.


My advice about injecting real experiences into your writing? Write the truth, even when you're inventing everything else. Let your heat-seeking, green-skinned, multi-headed octopods feel things. Let them ache, rage, and love. If their emotions ring true, readers will follow them anywhere—even to the farthest corner of the galaxy.

 
 
 

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