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Thanks so much, Pat, for having me on your blog. I’m delighted to be here.
In talking about writing, the question of whether what’s written is “true” seems to come up a lot, and what our responsibility is to those we love. Anne LaMott has written somewhere (in her witty and wonderful writings—if you haven’t read her on writing, you have a big treat ahead!) that people will either think everything you write is about them or never see themselves in what you write, even if it is about them. If it’s fiction, we at least have deniability, but if one is writing poetry (where people seem to assume it’s personal experience, whether or not it actually is) or memoir, then what? The author Mark Doty in his memoir Firebird shares a scene in which his alcoholic mother brandishes a gun at him:
She’s standing at the other end of the hallway, by the doorway to the kitchen, holding the black pistol in both hands, my father’s Luger, holding it the way he taught her to years ago, when we used to shoot at bottles and cans in the desert: well out in front of her, away from her face.
She holds the gun out, and she waits; I stand in the line of fire, and I wait.
If this was my mother, who is still alive, I could not publish this scene. (Just to be clear, my mother has never done anything like this.)
I don’t propose to answer to this question of honesty and responsibility, as I think each writer has to answer it for herself. It depends on our relationships with those we love and what we are writing. It takes incredible courage to be a writer. We are required to dig deep into our emotional selves, and represent those emotions as honestly as we can on the page. Yes, it’s about telling a good story, but story comes from inside character, resides in the agonies that the character feels. The power in Doty’s work above is the waiting they do, staring at each other. We wait with them, our hearts hammering.
Some writers I know have let their loved ones read their work before it is published to give feedback. Others have waited until the people they are writing about are no longer with us. Some avoid creating any character that has any trait of anyone they know. (How do they do that?) Some take their loved ones’ reactions after publication, good or bad. Maybe it depends on how tolerant we are of conflict. Maybe it depends on how clever we are.
In my novel Shadow Notes, the main character, Clara Montague, has an epic fight with her socialite mother and leaves home to travel the world for fifteen years. Her father is dead. These are not my parents, nor is Clara me. Clara has a psychic gift, but I do not (although it would occasionally be useful). There is a best friend, a love interest, a villain. None of them are people I know, although some of the socialites I portray mimic aspects of people I’ve met in wealthy Fairfield County, Connecticut.
But I write from experience, so all the characters contain parts of me or people around me. The conflicts I’ve experienced are fodder for the misunderstandings in the story—but fodder and traits are parts, not wholes. I think writing what we know isn’t literal, although it might be, but instead refers to our experience of, investment in, understanding of the world around us, a voice unique to each writer.
So, here’s my position on it: My story is completely made up. How about you? How much of yours is true? What do you feel your responsibility is to those who might partly or fully appear in your pages? I’d love to hear comments!
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Laurel S. Peterson is an English professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. Her poetry has been published in many literary journals and she has two poetry chapbooks. Her first mystery, Shadow Notes, has just been released by Barking Rain Press, and she is currently serving as the town of Norwalk, Connecticut’s poet laureate.
You can learn more about Laurel and her book at her website. She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
It’s interesting to think about using real people in fiction, but inventing the stories themselves. This kind of raises the question of whether you actually can be writing about someone, for real, if you have that character doing something the real person never did. Are we as people the sum of our experiences? Are we a set of Things That Happened? Are we a physical description? A name? Are we the attitude we project into the world? Are we something truly interior that no one can ever really get “right” without access to that interior? In other words… we may think we’re writing “about” someone, and/or they may think so, but it’s a funny thought: what is it exactly that makes a character somehow the written version of a real person? It seems to me what people are really worried about/looking at is the way we portray things they actually did.
My stories are completely made up, on has a ghost, but the accuracy of the travel industry people I write about is very accurate. If airlines, agencies, operators and flight and counter agents don’t like it: Too Bad.
Patg
There are feelings, experiences, and occurrences in my books that are bits of me and bits of others. I think it’s hard not to draw upon what we’ve seen and felt.
I agree, Diane! Thanks for stopping by!
Laurel
Laurel, I’m so pleased to have you here as my guest today.
I had a tough time keeping myself out of my two Sylvia and WIllie mysteries because I made Sylvia too close to my age and used the farm where I grew up as the setting for much of my first novel. That probably wasn’t such a good idea because I had to do a bunch of cutting where I’d been guilty of “memory dumps.” I’ve moved past that tendency…for the most part. 😀
That’s a really interesting comment, Pat. In my first couple of (unpublished/practice) novels, part of my problem was that I saw the main character as too much like me. It made it harder for me to let her get hurt or into trouble, which is so key for characters! Great insight.
Laurel
What an interesting discussion on telling real stories within the context of fiction. It is important that the writer tap personal experiences; after all, they are the stuff of what makes us human. They make stories real. It’s a question of how the writer uses those experiences to make an engaging story. I think in that sense, writing is as much a catharsis as it is anything else.
Hi Margot: I agree that writing is a catharsis, and for me also, a way to shape experiences so that I better understand them. I think that’s one of the central reasons I write. Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing your insights.
Best,
Laurel
I think one reason we as readers are always asking how much of the writer is in the story is in the cases where the story is so good it seems like it has to be from real life. I would think it would be hard not to add a trait here and there of someone you know or have seen when writing, especially when you’re exposed to unique individuals around you. Great post, Laurel. Wishing you much success.
Thoughts in Progress
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Thanks, Mason!
Hi Laurel, I also use my experiences, but my stories are all fictional. Without my experiences with dogs and special needs people, I would have to rely on only research. I love the creative time of letting my imagination go free, And yes, I do remember events, and peoples reactions, and get to turn them upside down! Looking forward to reading Shadow Notes.
Sheri Levy
http://www.sherislevy.com
Thanks for stopping by, Sheri. Research is so useful, but experience gives us a different kind of depth, I think, and protects us from mistakes that happen from looking a place up on Google maps (guilty!). I love that creative time, too! Good luck with your work–your books sounds interesting. I will have to track them down. Cheers, Laurel
Well said! My stories contain fragments of past experiences mixed up with facets of personalities and snapshots of settings. Even when I start with a detailed backstory and outline, my characters take over and fashion the story to their own perception. I’d call that entirely fictional 🙂
Yes, CT, isn’t that fun? I love it when a character takes over and starts writing the story for me! Some days, I wish they’d do a little more of it. Ha. Thanks so much for stopping by and reading.
Cheers,
Laurel