I am working on a script that draws heavily from incidents in my own life and the amusing, if exaggerated, anecdotes of people I have met. Some of the anecdotal accounts of events I was actually there to experience and yet I still prefer the grossly distorted retellings by my friends. Some of the anecdotes were told to me by complete strangers while stuck in a subway during the usual rush-hour slow-downs.

Some I am almost completely sure are made up.

Still, sometimes I wonder… At what point to the casual anecdotes of others transform into unique story elements of my own? Of course, I would never lift a tale word-for-word from the teller, but is it still mine if I’m inspired by it?

I like to think of an example from Freaks and Geeks whenever I am incorporating true stories into a fictional universe. There is a funny, yet bitter-sweet scene in which Sam Levine’s character finds a garage door opener in his father’s car that does not match with their house. He proceeds to try the opener on every door in the neighborhood, eventually confirming what he suspected all along: his father was having an affair.

This incident was based on the real experiences of one of the staff writers on the show. It is such a specific story that it seems the use of it in the show is a lazy lack of imagination, and yet the scene is touching and unique. I feel that it was the writers’ reaccomadation of the anecdote into the life of their imagined character that made this work as something distinctly Freaks and Geeks rather than simply a rehashed cocktail party confession. Sam Levine’s maturely naive performance, the integration of his two friends who help an then protest the garage door search, and the final moment where, alone,  he sees his father’s car at another woman’s house… All of these things made for a compelling three-act subplot that was both structurally sound (something most oral anecdotes are not) and pregnant with emotion.