I don't think it's possible to separate out the strands of a writer's history, circumstances, life events, and that writer's themes.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I can't remove the autobiographical slant from the things I write. You always bring yourself into what you're writing.
I think any writer keeps going back to some basic theme. Sometimes it's autobiographical. I guess it usually is.
Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.
So I think a writer should write what he loves, the people he relates to.
Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.
In the broad sense, as a processing of everything one hears or witnesses, all fiction is autobiographical - imagination ground through the mill of memory. It's impossible to separate the two ingredients.
I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains no pertinent facts.
It's actually easier to do autobiographical stories. The story is already there. It's a matter of carving away what doesn't fit rather than building up from nothing.
A writer doesn't write about just anything. He writes about things he has an affinity for.
We want a world with both historians and novelists, don't we? Not with one or the other. Every fiction writer crosses the line that divides artistry and documentation - or erases it.