How Much of the Book is Real?

Photo by fotografierende on Unsplash

This question has been asked by several people who have read early drafts of my book, Bit Flip. Like most novice writers, the ideas in this first book originated with my own experiences. “Write what you know” is a common mantra for aspiring writers, and what I know is startup companies in Silicon Valley. Many of the scenes in the first draft were experiences I had lived first-hand.

That started to change after I shared the early manuscript. It was gratifying to hear friends who have had similar career trajectories in Silicon Valley identify with the characters — convinced they were based on people they knew, when that actually wasn’t the case. What I began to realize is that the characters had become archetypes — amalgams of hundreds of people I had met over the years. The book was becoming less autobiographical and more fictional.

This month I started working with a fantastic developmental editor, Josh Mohr, who is an accomplished author himself. His advice has been invaluable in pushing the narrative forward. What I’ve come to realize is that, while my life experiences may be interesting to me, they make for a boring novel.

With each revision, the story has morphed further away from my own life experiences. Certainly, in my professional life, I have never witnessed fraud, extortion, death or many of the other dramatic twists that are depicted in the book. And the protagonist acts in ways I never would. That is what makes it fun to write, and, hopefully, to read.

The further I get in honing this story, the more I realize how naive I was to declare I had "written a book" upon writing a first draft last fall. It was like claiming victory for running a marathon at mile five — you may be on the path, but you’re a long way from finished. That said, just like running a marathon, the satisfaction comes from the process. It’s the journey that makes the conclusion so sweet. I look forward to getting there.