Writing a book is hard. That goes for any kind of book: children’s or adult, graphic or prose, fiction or nonfiction. But that doesn’t mean they’re hard in the same ways. I talked to Sophia Glock, creator of the graphic memoir Passport and the graphic novel Before We Wake, about the unique challenges she faced when working on each of these books.

Before We Wake is the story of a young teen, Alicia, who is struggling to cope with her father’s death and her best friend’s drifting away into other interests. While the story is fictional, there are superficial similarities to Glock’s own teen years: both she and Alicia grew up in the early 2000s, for instance.

“Much of [Before We Wake] was inspired by actual events, and dreams, in my life,” Glock told me via email. “It’s a different sort of truth telling.”

She was also able to use her own experiences to inform Alicia’s sense of loneliness:

“When I reflect on my work, I realize I usually am almost always talking about isolation and connection. It may be because of how I grew up, moving from place to place, but I have always felt like an outsider, someone who exists between clearly defined groups and worlds. I also think that struggle, between connection and isolation, is quintessentially adolescent, which is a liminal, in-between state.”

Glock explored parts of her own life story in the nonfictional Passport, about how she grew up moving around Central America because, as she eventually discovered, her parents were CIA agents. This book presented much different — and, for Glock, much more difficult — challenges than Before We Wake did.

“It was much harder for me to craft a cohesive narrative out of the messy intricacies of my real life than it was to create a new story,” she says. “I wanted to be fair to everyone in Passport, because when you talk about your own life, you are talking about many other people’s real lives as well, and the idea of ‘fairness’ complicates writing.”

There was also the matter of getting CIA approval before publishing. As Glock discusses in the book’s author’s note, publicizing certain of her memories could jeopardize the safety of active agents. The book was combed over by the CIA’s Publication Review Board to ensure it did not give away critical details.

That last hurdle is something most writers won’t have to deal with, but you will have to determine what is the best outlet for your feelings and ideas. Is it more rewarding to directly adapt one’s experiences and hard-won insights into a memoir, or to transform them into a work of fiction where you can change the facts to suit your tastes or goals?

Obviously, that is something every writer has to find out for themselves. For Glock — at the moment, at least — fiction is where her heart lies.

“I’m sure I will tell more true stories from my life,” says Glock, “but right now I feel much more drawn to fiction […] There is a lot more play and discovery in fiction. Feeling unfettered is a lot more fun. You can take a cultural trope or cliche and lift it up and peer underneath, turn it on its head, maybe kick it around a bit, see what happens.”

That, after all, is why writers write: a desperate need to “see what happens.” Whether you figure it out through fiction or nonfiction is entirely up to you.