One of our goals here at Today’s Author is to help all of the writers among us to do what we love to do: write. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by talking to each other and learning from each other. Our Writers Circle series is designed to do just that – provide a chance for us to discuss writing, editing and publishing questions.
This week’s topic is:
Works of fiction often use elements of nonfiction. For example, Stephen King’s recent novel 11/22/63 borrows Lee Harvey Oswald, Marina Oswald, and JFK, and interweaves elements of their lives (both real and imagined) into a fictional narrative. How do you feel about this kind of appropriation? Do you think anything is fair game, even if the people you use or the events you reference are being changed for your own story-telling purposes? Do we owe anything to history to leave nonfiction out of our fiction?
Let’s discuss this in the comments and see what our community thinks.
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Today's Author 
I’m interested in starting a writers group. Any suggestions on how to go about it?
If you have interested efriends, collect their ideas, and send out a interest tweet/FB. It can be as a poll, form, or whatever works for you. Definitely have some idea of when, where, focus–that sort of information.
I once mixed essay style accounts of real environmental issues with stories akin to parables on the themes of the essays. The book entitled ‘Awkward News for Greenies’ did not sell well!