Ever have something you wrote happen in real life?

JoNightshade · May 9, 2007

Okay so I'm starting another thread. Sorry, but I'm having fun!

Has anything you've written ever "come true" in real life? Bizarre coincidences?

Here's mine:
I wrote most of a novel wherein the MC: 1) Wears glasses, 2) Is a computer programmer, 3) Is shorter than his romantic interest, 4) Has father issues, 5) Reads sci fi compulsively.

Just for posterity's sake I have to mention that this was an unusual MC for me; I knew essentially nothing about computers and I don't know why this guy just turned into a programmer.

A couple of months later, I met the guy who would ultimately be my husband. He fit every description listed above. Okay, so there are also quite a few things that aren't identical about them, but the similarity was just eerie. So did I fall in love with my MC and then my brain just picked the guy who matched???

Scrawler · May 9, 2007

No, but my real life happens in what I write

Parkinsonsd · May 9, 2007

If in your novel, the characater turns into a slasher, terrorist, rapist, or line dancer, get out of that relationship fast!

Saundra Julian · May 9, 2007

Seems every city I write about, I move to.... :Ssh:

that's scary!

Anthony Ravenscroft · May 9, 2007

I had a story rejected because it was "outlandish" that the U.S. would ever go to war in the Middle East in order to overtly install a friendly oil-supplying government. That was before Gulf War I a.k.a. Desert Shield. Since then, there's less & less purpose for that poor story.

Similar reaction for the one predicting that India was going to hit a boom by taking over brain-intensive portions of high tech.

blacbird · May 9, 2007

Twice recently. I wrote a soft-SF story set in a near-future society where impoverished people in a devastated Earth are victimized by a gimcrack guru who fools them into sending all their wealth with him on a journey to the allegedly opulent colonies on Mars. It turns out to be a suicidal mission. I wrote this a few weeks before the infamous Heaven's Gate people under the spell of Marshall Applewhite in San Diego all committed suicide, believing a Mother Ship was following Comet Hale-Bopp to pick them up and take them all to some cosmic nirvana.

Then I wrote a story in the guise of a fable set on a mythical, primitive South Sea Island, where a man afflicted with the hubris of being the best, most perfect person in his little society is punished by a goddess for his vanity, losing his wife and daughter to the goddess' vengeance through the agency of a tsunami. That was written right before the great Indian Ocean tsunami disaster of Dec. 26, 2004. It's probably the best story I've ever written, and is equally probably unpublishable for all time, now.

These are both short stories, but the question in the OP is pertinent for any length of fiction.

caw

Novelust · May 9, 2007

That's why I like fantasy. There's little chance I'll become psychic. Or, you know, a werewolf.

Kristin Landon · May 9, 2007

Hah! You should see the third of a novel I've got from five or six years ago, where all of a sudden the stars go out and it turns out the Earth has been encased in a bizarre alien dimensional anomaly that cuts it off from the universe, including the moon and geostationary satellites. I mean, isn't it weird?

Er, I guess that's actually a case of having an idea I had turn up in another novel by someone who independently had a very similar idea and then, er, won the Best Novel Hugo for it last year (Robert Charles Wilson, Spin, which I enjoyed very much after the initial screaming).

Heck, my version was a stupid novel anyway. <punts it>

maestrowork · May 10, 2007

My novel is about rekindling a past relationship... after the book was published, the girl who inspired part of the book, whom I hadn't heard from for more than a decade, emailed me. What freaked me out was that her life sort of resembled my character's...

Weird.

allenparker · May 10, 2007

Actually yes.

My very first novel attempt was a story about identical twins from a small town near Richmond, Virginia. There is DNA evidence that one of the twins had a sexual relationship with a murder victim, causing them both to be suspects one and two. They played football on the high school team and were very close.

The novel idea was okay, but the book was poorly written. I used it for a few trunk novel tests of publishers.
Last year, a set of twins was accused of being part of a murder. There was much confusion about the dna results. Being set in the same small town, there was little in the way of jury choices that would understand the slight differences in the science that led to choosing one twin over the other.

They both played football for the high school team. They drove the same vehicle I assigned to the characters. The victim had the same job as the story victim. The murder occurred in the same month I assigned in the story. The only real difference in the storyline between the real story and the story I made up was the outcome.

So, should I revamp the story, add the real names, and call it non-fiction?

zornhau · May 10, 2007

Some of my fight scenes come true...

... on Monday nights, but with less blood.

scarletpeaches · May 10, 2007

Why yes, only the other day I wrote a poem about James Purefoy asking me out to dinner, and...

No, wait. That was just a dream.

Ol' Fashioned Girl · May 10, 2007

Yes! And it was incredible!

I wrote this 110000 word novel about this English King who wants out of his first marriage 'cause she can't give him a male heir to the throne. He dumps the Catholic Church 'cause they won't give him a divorce and puts himself as the head of the church. He marries his mistress and even she can't give him a son! So he has her beheaded and marries again! This one finally gives him a son, albeit a sickly one; but she dies shortly thereafter. In all, he marries six times!

Come to find out, it was Henry VIII!

Kristin Landon · May 10, 2007

Well, as long as you didn't reveal his name until the final paragraph, that sounds like a real page-turner.

Chumplet · May 10, 2007

I had a dream back in February. It involved a hostage taking in a European city. So, I started the novel. I decided to make the hostage takers Basque freedom fighters because I was curious about them.

Two weeks after I submitted the first chapter to my critique group, the ETA cease fire ended with a bombing in Madrid.

I decided to keep going with my story. I took a book out from the library to research the Basques.

I found an entry about the physical characteristics of Basques. I found the name Bastarache dit Basque on an Acadian website.

I asked my dad if we have any Bastaraches in our family tree. He said my great-grandmother was a Bastarache.

I guess I'd better finish this book.

The Lady · May 10, 2007

Names, that's whats beginning to freak me out. Even when I invent weird fantasy type names, somebody turns up with it. It's getting so I have to explain to people that I don't hate them, it's just that I wrote in this arch villain part with this name and I'm not changing it, just because they've turned up.

brokenfingers · May 10, 2007

Has anything you've written ever "come true" in real life?

No, but I've come pretty close a few times.

Fortunately, they've always come to their senses and paid the ransom...

DeadlyAccurate · May 10, 2007

Anthony Ravenscroft said:
I had a story rejected because it was "outlandish" that the U.S. would ever go to war in the Middle East in order to overtly install a friendly oil-supplying government. That was before Gulf War I a.k.a. Desert Shield. Since then, there's less & less purpose for that poor story.

Similar reaction for the one predicting that India was going to hit a boom by taking over brain-intensive portions of high tech.

Forget novel writing. You have a career as a psychic ahead of you!

Monkey · May 10, 2007

Few of my MC's survive my stories, so I hope like hell none of them ever come true!

Of course, the magic would be nifty cool for the short time I was around to enjoy it...

Yay Fantasy!

JoNightshade · May 10, 2007

allenparker said:
The novel idea was okay, but the book was poorly written. I used it for a few trunk novel tests of publishers.
Last year, a set of twins was accused of being part of a murder. There was much confusion about the dna results. Being set in the same small town, there was little in the way of jury choices that would understand the slight differences in the science that led to choosing one twin over the other.

They both played football for the high school team. They drove the same vehicle I assigned to the characters. The victim had the same job as the story victim. The murder occurred in the same month I assigned in the story. The only real difference in the storyline between the real story and the story I made up was the outcome.

Allen, I think maybe you should only write nice, happy books from now on.

ChaosTitan · May 10, 2007

I started writing a novel in which a main plot point had a Category Five hurricane hitting the Mid-Atlantic states and killing thousands.

Two months later, Katrina hit.

Ever have something you wrote happen in real life?

JoNightshade

has finally arrived

Scrawler

Bored fanatic

Parkinsonsd

Saundra Julian

A work in progress

Anthony Ravenscroft

Scribble, scribble, scribble

blacbird

Novelust

*Does not molest books.

Kristin Landon

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

allenparker

Naked Futon Guy

zornhau

Swordsman

scarletpeaches

Ol' Fashioned Girl

Hand? What hand?

Kristin Landon

Chumplet

This hat is getting too hot

The Lady

Critical Member

brokenfingers

Walkin' That Road

DeadlyAccurate

Absolutely Fazed

Monkey

Is me.

JoNightshade

has finally arrived

ChaosTitan

Around