In her New York Times review of the documentary “Phyllis and Harold” — a movie about the filmmaker’s unhappily married parents — Jeannette Catsoulis raises a point that any sort of writer or storyteller would be well-served to keep in mind when mining their own experience for their work:

The problem with these my-family-was-messed-up-and-I need-to-share projects is that they require an audience of complete strangers to give a damn. And while we sometimes do, it’s usually because the material is inherently compelling (“Tarnation”) or the filmmaking uncovers truths beyond the template of family therapy (“51 Birch Street”). Sadly, “Phyllis and Harold” fulfills neither requirement.

A little acidic, yes, but also very, very true. And, as I’ve said before, the real purpose of a mean review is to instruct: to turn a piece of bad art into a model for what good art should be, to warn people away from common artistic missteps, to give a reader the tools of criticism.

Frederick Barthelme, in his “39 Steps: A Primer on Fiction Writing,” made basically the same point Catsoulis makes, though in a pithier way: “Remember: Many things have happened which, to the untrained eye, appear interesting.”

So much fiction falls into this trap. I teach undergraduate creative writing workshops, and it often strikes me that people are not very good judges of their own lives. The trick, I think, is to at some point in the writing process, truly make yourself — if you’re writing about yourself — into a character, and to think of that character as a character (if you start jotting down notes about the story that refer to the main character in the third person, that’s a sign that you’re on the right track). And, similarly, to start thinking about the story as a story, instead of an anecdote. Mess with the facts. Give it a shape. Play around with the point of view. At every turn, ask yourself: Why should anyone give a shit?