You know those “Based on a True Story” blurbs on a novel’s cover? I must confess I rather loathe them.

Then again, whenever I get asked how much of myself is there in my novel/play/short story, I want to ask back: does it matter? I never do it, though – and after the first few discomfited times, I’ve learnt to answer that no writer’s an island, and so on. Still, I am curious: does it matter so much? Why? What changes in a reader of viewer’s perception of the story I tell, if they know that a scene or a character or a bit of dialogue is based on some childhood memory – or nothing in particular? Continue reading →