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A question for people who write
Where do you think you should draw the line at using personal real-life events in fictional settings? See, I've written a short film script about an event that happened to me and my ex-girlfriend about three years ago. It was very traumatic at the time, and I'd not dealt with it well and found the process of creating something from it very cathartic. I'll have enough money to film it in a couple of months, and although I've changed a lot of details to make it less autobiographical it'll still be plainly obvious to her that it'll be at least inspired by that time. The easy answer would be to not film it, but I'm hoping that it could be helpful to people who see it if they're affected by it.
After the story last year about the author who'd completely alienated her son by writing about him, I'm very aware of the potential for damaging people in real life by the work you do. But similiarly I still feel compelled to go ahead with this, as it's something I went through too and would like to illuminate the experience as honestly as I can.
It goes without saying that I'll discuss this with her before acting on it, but I'm curious to know if any of you have thought about this, or maybe whether you've had similar experiences from either side of this. Is it selfish to write about experiences that affected other people? Or would we lose a lot of important work and debate with that kind of self-censorship?