“Stop Reading My Fiction as the Story of My Life” by Jami Attenberg in New York Times Book Review: She avoids the real issue of how novels are written.

If there is anything more annoying than a reader who asks if a novel is autobiographical, it is a writer who pretends to misunderstand the question.

Readers are not really asking if the author had been fat like a character. They are asking how novels are written.

Here is what Attenberg says about her creative process:

“…I write fiction because it is a beautiful place to hide…It is a fictional universe. And how do you even explain the creative process…I have the possibility with fiction to make a character feel more real than with nonfiction…Fiction is a magic trick of sorts…at best it doesn’t just conjure up an imaginary world; it makes the real one disappear, it makes the author disappear…” (1).

Although some of the above is meant to describe the reader’s experience, all of it is probably Attenberg’s experience as the writer: She does not understand her creative process, but her fictional universe is a beautiful place to hide, where her regular self disappears, and her characters feel more real than real.

That is what readers are asking about, but they find it annoying that Attenberg and other authors do not elaborate.

1. Jami Attenberg. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/books/review/stop-reading-my-fiction-as-the-story-of-my-life.html