Tips on how to turn nonfiction into fiction

"Truth is stranger than fiction."...this definitely is not a cliché for nothing. You always hear of situations where you would wonder if it's all made up because it's too weird to be true...sometimes, you have even experienced them yourself, therefore you know it really happened. Having these stories in mind could probably make you think that it would be worth sharing to others, and would inspire you to put them on paper.

But the thing is, sometimes, no matter how strange the truth is, you can still think up of ways on how to make it so much stranger. Therefore, you just might want to write fiction out of your real-life story...so, how are you supposed to do that?

First off, here's what you cannot do:

1) You cannot write down everything as it happened and pass it off as fiction simply because it's not. Remember, nonfiction is an account of events and people that are real.

2) You cannot just change the names of the characters either, because doing so would simply protect the privacy of the persons involved and therefore it would still be considered as nonfiction.

The major thing that you have to keep in mind in turning real-life stories into fiction is this:

Use the real-life stories as inspiration.

As simple as that. Then the fun begins. You can tweak it here and there, and just let your imagination run wild thereafter.

Here are a few tips to help you turn that nonfiction into a non-nonfiction (that is, fiction):

Think of a different scenario from the real thing

The possibilities of the "what-might-have-beens" are simply endless. Therefore it won't be too hard to think of an alternate scenario to the situation you have been in.

For example, if you've been proposed to and you said "yes" in real life, think of what would have happened if you had said "no". It won't be hard to imagine the following scenes that could surely unravel from there. The shunned lover could become an obsessive stalker. Or he could become so depressed and try to commit suicide (It will be up to you if he's successful or not). Or there could be a surprise suitor just waiting on the wings for you to be free. Just think of every possible situation that is the opposite from what you experienced, choose what you liked the best among them, and see how your story would end up.

Exaggerate or downplay

You have definitely encountered a lot of different types of people. Take a person's traits and take them to the extreme of the spectrum or make him the complete opposite of his personality. You can do this by exaggerating or downplaying their strengths and/or weaknesses, therefore creating a very different fictional person altogether.

Let's say, your roommate is fairly studious, and a lot of girls like him, and he can pretty much ignore them if he can. You could turn him into an overzealous student, very serious on his studies, and still the girls are throwing themselves at him, making it hard for him to resist the girls. Or perhaps you could make him into a misogynist because the girls are deterring him from his studies. Voila! A different character.

Mix-and-match

Get the qualities of different types of people and mix-and-match them, you will surely come up with a whole new character to add zest to your story.

Perhaps you know of someone who is very pretty, vain and a snob at the same time, add to that she's pretty well-off. Then another friend of yours is quite plain-looking and not confident. You'll have two very different characters if Girl#1 is pretty and a snob but not confident, while Girl#2 is plain, vain and well-off.

This strategy also goes well with physical traits. Just grab physical traits from different people and see how your new characters will look like. Give your main character your mother's hair color, then your friend's eye color, give her a famous model's body shape and your sister's height...the list could go on...

Think of a different setting

How would the real-story be like if it happened twenty, thirty years ago?

Surely on-line dating was unheard of thirty years ago. How would you have met your significant other? Through letters or by phone? Would that mall downtown be standing there? Or was it something else, like a meadow?

By simply changing the period when your story takes place, or the location where it happened, so many other changes in the events of the story could be unraveled. Don't underestimate how this change could make a big difference in your story,

Give it a twist

Put in something unexpected and out of the ordinary. Different realms such as magical, extraterrestrial, celestial elements in it would surely make your non-fictional tale a work of fiction.

So there you are. Given those strategies, for sure, you will be able to come up with an entirely different story that can be considered fiction. All you really needed was a real-life story as the seed of your fictional story, then just simply give it a sprinkling of your imagination to help it grow into a work of fiction.

Remember, just have fun while you create a whole new story out of the real ones, mix it all up and enjoy the very different cocktail of fiction you concocted.

If all else fails, just try writing down the real story. Creative non-fiction has a lot of readers, too.