But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are.
If you write a story based on a real person, you're trapped by the details of the real person and his life. It gets in the way of writing your own story.
When a story is told really well and is real, even if it's not about their own lives, people can apply it to themselves.
Sometimes stories are inherently important whether or not they have a direct relation to your life.
One of the main reasons I write fiction is to try to understand what life is like for people other than myself, to try to see the world through my characters' eyes. I often find that I'm able to understand certain emotional truths about my own life by exploring things from different vantages.
It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.
You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life - or criticize it - but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.
Other people are talking about writing books about my life, or about some of the things I've done. I find it strange, but I also feel it's my life and my story, and I guess I better be the one to get it on paper the way it actually happened.
I just live my life and do what I want to do and don't think about what is written about me.
Even if a story has nothing to do with my life, if I can recognise something of myself in the character and think, 'Oh yeah, that's what I'd do...' Yeah, that's what I look for.