When fiction isn't fiction

If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages." -- Elaine Liner

I wanted to share this post from my writing blog (Buffy's Write Zone) because many of you know the true story from which this was taken. In my novel, Tom works in the ER. 

Here's a scene from WIP that came from "real" life:

Joe told me that the paramedics brought a toddler into the ER who had been bludgeoned to death by her mother’s boyfriend. He had whipped her repeatedly with a video game controller and she had so many bruises on her tiny body that the doctors couldn’t find a patch of white skin anywhere. He beat her because she had a dirty diaper. She was two.

The neighbors heard the toddler screaming for her mother. She was in the next room stuffing her face with potato chips and watching the soaps. The screamin' got so bad that the neighbors called the cops. But it was too late. Katie was dead.