The Delicate Art of Writing About Real People
We all do it; we write about real people, whether we use just a few details about a person we know. Then there are those who will base whole characters on real people, but attempt to fictionalise everything. Both fiction and non-fiction are based on real life, and how close we are to the specific details that inspire our writing depends on genre and style.
These and other issues were the subject of a panel discussion held yesterday at the UC Davis extension center in downtown Sacramento. Titled "What Would Mother Say?", the panel discussion featured local writers Jan Haag, Jodi Angel, Elain Corn, and Jennifer Basye Sander, who discussed the different ways they balance between truth and fiction, loathing and love. It was a very inspiring discussion which made me realize that even at its most fantastical, my fiction borrows heavily from people I know, their lives, their dreams, failures--there is always a thread that connects everything.
The discussion went into issues of what's safe to include in our writing, and what's worth leaving out. Jodi Angel believes that a writer's job is to contextualize, to include the details as they occur in particular contexts and not worry about self-cencorship. Allowed to develop naturally, a story that taps into real life will sort itself out, will seek its meaning, will become a complete entity, which may even make a character modeled out of a real person do things that the real person may or may have not done. By the time the story is ready for publishing, much of the raw details would have been distilled and all the emotions, the sentimentality, removed and we are left with a work of art.
The one or two story collections I have been working on that borrow information from people I know, most in my family, are slowly acquiring their independence and no longer anchor much on the real events they are modeled on. I am beginning to call this the internal structure of the story, the internal unity, which does not depend so much on what inspired the work, but which is borne out of the story's desire to stand alone as complete. It's all in the writer's willingness to trust the story's ability to grow.
Of course, in portraying traits of living or dead people, there is the danger of misrepresenting them. I can see this being a problem for biographical writing, and other forms of non-fiction, but remember, if it's a memoir (me-moir), there is room for creativity. In fiction, misprepresentation of the facts about the person the story is based on may have a liberating--weaning--effect, and the story may see the light of day sooner. Maybe something my brother did triggers the story, but by page three the brother in the story is not my brother anymore, that could be a mark of creative effectiveness (independence).
The workshop was empowering, to know that you can write all you want about people you know, then when you decide to publish some of the material, after you have worked on it for a long time, you may be surprised that the stories may bear little resemblance to the stories of the people who inspired them. And that's a good thing.
These and other issues were the subject of a panel discussion held yesterday at the UC Davis extension center in downtown Sacramento. Titled "What Would Mother Say?", the panel discussion featured local writers Jan Haag, Jodi Angel, Elain Corn, and Jennifer Basye Sander, who discussed the different ways they balance between truth and fiction, loathing and love. It was a very inspiring discussion which made me realize that even at its most fantastical, my fiction borrows heavily from people I know, their lives, their dreams, failures--there is always a thread that connects everything.
The discussion went into issues of what's safe to include in our writing, and what's worth leaving out. Jodi Angel believes that a writer's job is to contextualize, to include the details as they occur in particular contexts and not worry about self-cencorship. Allowed to develop naturally, a story that taps into real life will sort itself out, will seek its meaning, will become a complete entity, which may even make a character modeled out of a real person do things that the real person may or may have not done. By the time the story is ready for publishing, much of the raw details would have been distilled and all the emotions, the sentimentality, removed and we are left with a work of art.
The one or two story collections I have been working on that borrow information from people I know, most in my family, are slowly acquiring their independence and no longer anchor much on the real events they are modeled on. I am beginning to call this the internal structure of the story, the internal unity, which does not depend so much on what inspired the work, but which is borne out of the story's desire to stand alone as complete. It's all in the writer's willingness to trust the story's ability to grow.
Of course, in portraying traits of living or dead people, there is the danger of misrepresenting them. I can see this being a problem for biographical writing, and other forms of non-fiction, but remember, if it's a memoir (me-moir), there is room for creativity. In fiction, misprepresentation of the facts about the person the story is based on may have a liberating--weaning--effect, and the story may see the light of day sooner. Maybe something my brother did triggers the story, but by page three the brother in the story is not my brother anymore, that could be a mark of creative effectiveness (independence).
The workshop was empowering, to know that you can write all you want about people you know, then when you decide to publish some of the material, after you have worked on it for a long time, you may be surprised that the stories may bear little resemblance to the stories of the people who inspired them. And that's a good thing.
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