I had a conversation with friends about certain authors and was interested in other examples.
There's a lot of death in Harry Potter because Rowling's mom died when she was 25, so she put the pain from that into her books, contributing to Harry being an orphan, Cedric and Sirius being killed off, and all the new orphans at the end of the series.
Much of the backstabbing in Game of Thrones comes from Martin growing up poor having to buy turtles for a nickel as pets, which were in bad health and died frequently. This contributed to people like Ned, Robert, Robb, and Tywin being killed off.
King writes horror because he discovered a dead body behind train tracks when he was a kid.
What other examples do you know about where this occurs, where a writer's decisions and style are informed by traumatic experience from their lives?
by MarcusQuintus
4 Comments
I feel like an author writing to cathart some of their own trauma has gotta be like 80% of literature.
[Anne Rice’s daughter died of leukemia at age 5, which inspired her to write Interview with a Vampire.](https://www.mentalfloss.com/literature/books/tragic-real-life-inspiration-interview-with-the-vampire)
Dates back to Greek tragedies and even older, as long as stories have been told. Nothing new.
I saw all kinds of crazy stuff when I was a kid. Time to write a book I guess??