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Stop me if you've heard this one before.
A writer is showing you a draft that has an improbable situation in it, that makes no sense in the context of the story, and does not seem to add anything useful to the narrative. There isn't even much of a buildup to it; it just happens.
You ask the writer why it is there, or comment that it needs to be changed; either fix it so that there is a buildup to it that explains its significance to the conflict that is being established by the plot, or get rid of it because it is distracting the reader from everything else in the story that does this (or that could be doing this once it gets fixed, but that's a side issue).
The writer pleads to you: "but… this really happened!" This asserts that the passage cannot be changed because the writer wants to express something that is true to life, wants to have a certain cathartic release, or thinks that the incident was so pivotal in his or her life that it must be laid bare for all to see.
Here's the thing.
One's own personal experience is not all that special. If that was the only thing that mattered in life, we would not value such things as education, professional certification, or research effort. We'd give PhDs to people for just being past a certain age, since after all, experience would matter just as much as any other form of knowledge. There is nothing bad about having experience, but generalizing from it is often a weak induction at best and a wild guess at worst. As far as writing is concerned, there is a very good chance that the readers (or the slush readers, acquisitions editors, and agents who the writer is courting) will have experiences that diverge from the writers, will not be able to relate to the passage in question, and in consequence be underwhelmed by it. I will risk making a monstrous generalization by saying that one's goal should be to not underwhelm any readers.
Here is the other thing about experience: there is a good chance that it didn't happen the way you remembered it. How many times has someone told you a story, even in conversation, about something that you were there for yourself; and you recalled details that contradicted much of what you heard from this person? How many times have you had a "remember when?" conversation that was interrupted by your friends calling BS on you, even though you believed that what you said really happened? There is nothing wrong with embellishing, changing, or outright falsifying the nature of an actual event for the purpose of making interesting fiction. That's a fiction writer's job, for crying out loud! All this is to say, then, that there is no reason to render a "real" recalled incident exactly as it is remembered because there is a good chance that it didn't happen that way anyway.
The readers are the center of the equation, not the writer. What might have been fascinating, compelling, or life-changing in a profound way to the writer can be mundane to the person reading it. Everybody's gone to school, fallen in love, met some eccentric person, or experienced a situation that left them flabbergasted at least once in their lives. Writing about the same thing as you recall it having happened to you is not enough; chances are that somebody reading it will have experienced something similar, yet more vivid and think "so what?" You still need to work it into the plot so that it reflects the conflict and theme and to write about it in a way that makes it interesting to the readers. Otherwise, nobody will care if it really happened to you.
A writer is showing you a draft that has an improbable situation in it, that makes no sense in the context of the story, and does not seem to add anything useful to the narrative. There isn't even much of a buildup to it; it just happens.
You ask the writer why it is there, or comment that it needs to be changed; either fix it so that there is a buildup to it that explains its significance to the conflict that is being established by the plot, or get rid of it because it is distracting the reader from everything else in the story that does this (or that could be doing this once it gets fixed, but that's a side issue).
The writer pleads to you: "but… this really happened!" This asserts that the passage cannot be changed because the writer wants to express something that is true to life, wants to have a certain cathartic release, or thinks that the incident was so pivotal in his or her life that it must be laid bare for all to see.
Here's the thing.
One's own personal experience is not all that special. If that was the only thing that mattered in life, we would not value such things as education, professional certification, or research effort. We'd give PhDs to people for just being past a certain age, since after all, experience would matter just as much as any other form of knowledge. There is nothing bad about having experience, but generalizing from it is often a weak induction at best and a wild guess at worst. As far as writing is concerned, there is a very good chance that the readers (or the slush readers, acquisitions editors, and agents who the writer is courting) will have experiences that diverge from the writers, will not be able to relate to the passage in question, and in consequence be underwhelmed by it. I will risk making a monstrous generalization by saying that one's goal should be to not underwhelm any readers.
Here is the other thing about experience: there is a good chance that it didn't happen the way you remembered it. How many times has someone told you a story, even in conversation, about something that you were there for yourself; and you recalled details that contradicted much of what you heard from this person? How many times have you had a "remember when?" conversation that was interrupted by your friends calling BS on you, even though you believed that what you said really happened? There is nothing wrong with embellishing, changing, or outright falsifying the nature of an actual event for the purpose of making interesting fiction. That's a fiction writer's job, for crying out loud! All this is to say, then, that there is no reason to render a "real" recalled incident exactly as it is remembered because there is a good chance that it didn't happen that way anyway.
The readers are the center of the equation, not the writer. What might have been fascinating, compelling, or life-changing in a profound way to the writer can be mundane to the person reading it. Everybody's gone to school, fallen in love, met some eccentric person, or experienced a situation that left them flabbergasted at least once in their lives. Writing about the same thing as you recall it having happened to you is not enough; chances are that somebody reading it will have experienced something similar, yet more vivid and think "so what?" You still need to work it into the plot so that it reflects the conflict and theme and to write about it in a way that makes it interesting to the readers. Otherwise, nobody will care if it really happened to you.
But this really happened before.
