For a few years now, I’ve had a small end-of-year ritual.

I sit down and write about the people I met or dated that year.

Not as journal entries, but almost like short character studies:

what attracted me, what I ignored, what eventually didn’t work.

What surprised me wasn’t how much it helped emotionally,

but how much it sharpened my writing.

Patterns became clearer.

My language got more precise.

I stopped romanticizing and started observing.

It made me wonder:

Has anyone else used real relationships as a structured writing exercise?

Not for venting, but for clarity?

If you do something similar, how do you keep it honest without turning it into self-indulgence?

  • I haven’t done so, yet :)

    parent

    Try it, it's not bad :)

    parent root

    I certainly will! And, let’s remember we’re just a character too, so no need to indulge one character over the other :)

    parent root

  • George Sand got a whole book out of her relationship with Chopin (Lucrezia Floriani, although she claimed that it totally wasn't, in any way, based on him, even though... yeah, it kinda was), so people have been turning their relationships into writing for a very long time. There are lots of suggestions as to who certain books are actually about, so this is a fun mental exercise for readers as well as writers—"see if you can recognize the real identity of the love interest..."

    This, if anyone is interested in actually publishing those stories, is a very, very bad idea if you want a relationship to continue.

    parent

  • "If you do something similar, how do you keep it honest without turning it into self-indulgence?"

    It's going to become self indulgence because it's incredibly personal to you and you're going to focus on the most traumatic parts. The only thing I can say is maybe disassociate yourself from it a bit. How? Write something else but have it be a made up character (with a different personality and lived experience than you) and have through trials and imagine how they would realistically react.

    That or just not worry about being self indulgent since this appears to be for therapy for you and no one will ever see it.

    parent