When instructors recommend writing what you know or advise a person to write from life experiences, the idea would seem to contradict the purpose of fiction. Or does it?

If I were to draw upon my measly life experiences to tell stories, we’d have a better time in Snoozeville. The reason for writing is to create a false reality, a world in which you may or may never want to visit, a world far from mundane, boring, and uneventful events in an ordinary person’s life. Isn’t that the reason people read? To be entertained and transported to a place they’ve never been? To meet exciting characters—heroes and villains, confidants, instigators and problem solvers, jokesters, optimists and risk-takers?

Doesn’t a reader want to envision himself as the irate character who waltzes into his boss’s office and, in eloquent profanity, tell him off and why he’s a dick? Doesn’t the reader dream of bold moves he would never personally enact? Haven’t you always loved the phrase in a wedding where they ask if there is anyone who has a reason why this marriage should not be granted and secretly thought it would shake things up if someone did come forward? Only in novels and movies, right? I have attended many weddings, but never witnessed the drama you experience in books. One thing is certain, writers have fun (not just blonds).

Books give the reader a chance to see life from others’ perspectives. And that is the crux of writing from experience, from what you know, not just details of an incident. The phrase ‘writing from experience’ should be reworded ‘write from your deepest emotional center.” When people read, they connect with character emotions—fear, anger, frustration, worry, happiness, grief, etc. That has to be why romance novels are so popular. Everyone wants to be “loved” and experience love’s emotional power. It’s an addictive feel-good emotion.

Tapping into the emotional realm is what keeps the reader turning the pages, and as a writer, that’s a heavy onus. If a story is written strictly as an account—Joe got up, put his clothes on, went to the store, stubbed his toe, came home and burned his food, knocked over his TV and broke it—what does the reader care? Character reactions and feelings keep us on a character’s journey, whether it be an international landscape in a thriller or the living room in a family saga, a coming of age story or exploration of space, but in every story someone is affected by conflict and challenges. Readers share a gamut of emotions along the way which can either hold them captive or let them go. That’s what keeps readers engaged—connecting through the heart.

This is also one way writers create page-turners.