True life experiences.

It rarely works to write scripts about your own life experiences.
Face it, for many of us that bad day in High School isn't really high drama or strong comedy.

HOWEVER, sometimes real events and experiences can be the basis for interesting moments in a script.

Time to share.

I'll go first.

Experience
When I was living out in Utah I fell madly in love with this guy.
One weekend he set up this overnight camping trip. It was supposed to be a group thing BUT only his roommate, myself, and him showed up.
In the morning his roommate took off for the the pool and I tagged along as my man went fishing. He walked through the river while I scrambled along the bank. For a while it was really romantic. Him standing in the river casting glances over at me sitting in a ray of sunshine on the bank.
Then- he moved further up the river. My path was blocked by a large rock.
He left me.
I finally managed to make it over the rock only to be faced with having to cross this large mud slide. I'd lost sight of him so I climbed up the slide to look around. At the top (about 30 feet up) I sat down, braced my feet on a rock, and rested. My guy came into view. I called to him, waving, and then....... the rock slowly pulled loose underneath me. About three seconds of mad scrambling occured as I tried to find a secure hand hold and then I went shooting down the slide on my butt, screaming.

Rob came crashing through the trees and charging up the bank to rescue me.
As he helped me to my feet I turned slightly and he burst out laughing. My entire backside from my derriere to my ankles was covered in thick red mud.

The application.
In one of my scripts the heroine is forced to climb a rock slide. As I had her starting out on this climb I thought the scene needed more.
Suddenly this experience of mine lept into my head and I knew how to do it.
She needed to slide. I knew just how to write that rock coming loose and the "Oh sh!t" reaction.
I used only a small part of the real experience, saving the rest for a rom-com, but it was just the right spark to create strong action and make a turning point in the script more meaningful.

Steph,

Geez. Did you ever do anything about it?
Did you get the chance to tell your side of the story?
My gosh. How awful.

However, it would seem like a great inspiration for thriller or action elements.

Rainy, well yes, some things you just can't distance yourself from no matter how hard you try. But other things that just happen often make great stories.
Change a few details here and there, punch up the key elements, change the names and you've got something with the ring of truth to it.
It may be easier to write because you know the feeling you want to capture.

Blank.
No, I'm not being sarcastic. Often when beginner writers start their first script it's about their life. Their story, or based on some really bad week, or year they had. Some experiences they feel changed their life.
Way too often the work carries this very dectectable note of need, or self therapy.

There is a big, HUGE difference between taking elements of a specifc event and building something new from that, and just rehashing things from your life.

What we are discussing is some kind of event that inspired a scene, or that you relied on to make the scene more believable. A stepping stone.
One of the many places from which we can draw inspiration.

Is a rock pulling loose and someone sliding down a cliff cliche? Eh, sure.
Many cliches work. People are used to them. People believe them because they have experienced them. Should we as writers strive to avoid them?
Sure, probably most of the time.
In my case there isn't any way around it. There ain't much else could happen to this chick on the cliff. The story dictates that she go down the slide with out meaning or wanting to. The most believable way for that to happen is for a hand hold to pull loose.

Lame? It was pretty funny when an exagerated version of what happened to me was done in Romancing the Stone.

My ending.

The mud on my rear end was too thick to simply brush off. (Actually it was red clay.) And, being a gentleman, he was too polite to attempt wiping it off.
Throwing me into the river was.... discussed, but deemed unsafe for him.

We put a towel down on the seat and he took me home. I changed clothes and then we went to a lake, where he did throw me in.

We dated for about two weeks and then he dropped me off one night, almost, almost kissed me and ...................

We never went out again.
He broke my heart.