is there truth in origin

One question last night posed to the author concerned his inspiration for a trope that emerges in three of his novels, whether he had personal experience that contributed to his use of the device or whether he simply saw great promise in employing it, to which he responded yes, he had experience with it and then detailed the experience with it, provided details and dates no names and places and events, all of which happened to him, at least. He was present for the events that occurred and saw them play in front of him. The participants were people. In the promise of these meetings he saw potential to explore more fully the disconnect (ah, there it is again, but reality is nothing if not persistent) between us and how these meeting sought to fill or lessen that gap. And so he wrote it down and wrote it down and made all of the participants fictional and all of the details fictional (inasmuch as a glass of water is fictional, or and overweight person scratching his stomach is fictional) and it became representative of a bigger idea, and then he repeated it and it became a trope.

This frustrates people, I’ve found: that fiction is just removing some details and adding others.