I was recently looking at David Sedaris' website, trying to find something to blog about. In all honesty, the website is not great. It is maintained by his agency and the only interesting things on it are the links to other websites that have interviews with him or reviews of his work. Most of these interviews are a little old, but he is hilarious and refreshingly honest about himself -- although I guess considering he writes creative nonfiction he has to be comfortable having people know a lot about him. Anyway, here is one of the quotes from an interview where he discusses his book Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. He says, "I wanted to write about aspects of human behavior that sicken me, but I never had to look further than myself. I just thought, 'What do I hate about myself today?' I'm constantly selling out my friends in order to get somebody's approval, or I'm blaming sick people for being sick, or I'm stabbing somebody in the back, or I'm lying… I'm a horrible person." Although I can't be sure what he means by selling out friends, I feel like he might be talking about his use of friends and family in his stories (which although he admits are not always 100% true, are marketed as creative nonfiction and do use his siblings and parents as main characters sometimes).
I know even when I write fiction, if I base a character on someone I actually know, I am a little nervous about it. I question whether my portrayal is accurate enough, or whether that matters (because in most cases these people won't know it is them and probably no one who reads it will). My final project this semester (wait for it, because this will be a shocker for everyone in my fiction class -- not) is closer to creative nonfiction than most of the work that I usually write. And although I am fine with this, I blame the poetry class from last semester because that is the first time in years that I wrote from a more personal, less fictional place. Because of this I am a little worried about letting certain people read it. Some of the characters are pretty much just the people I know, but thats mostly because they are very minor characters. Others, are more fictional, but still based on some elements of reality. I think it would be hard for my mother to read and not think of herself as the mother. I don't think she would be flattered by the comparison and would probably be angry that people in my class read this story, even though she doesn't know any of them and they don't know her. Is it necessary to paint these people in the most positive light as character? I don't think it is possible. It would be too fake. Obviously, the main character, while not entirely me, is largely me -- and I don't think that I've painted him in the most flattering light. But I am fine with that. I am fine with finding my inner David Sedaris at times and straight up saying, "I am a horrible person." and I would stand by my story, but I don't know if I can show it to my parents. If I were to have it published, they obviously could read it (much like David Sedaris' family probably reads his stories about them) but I don't really want them to. I am trying to put myself on the other side, as the person who someone else based a character on, and I am starting to think that I owe it to them to allow them to read it. But is that all I owe them? If any of these people said "that didn't happen" or "I didn't say that" or "I want you to change this" would I owe it to them to? cause I really wouldn't want to.
I think all fiction is based in reality. I also think that many people who don't write fiction, and almost anyone who doesn't Read fiction, can't help but try to find the author in the story. My mother is always comparing me to my characters and if there is a mother, she just assumes its her. I think if you base a character on a real person, it might be nice to show it to them, but in the end, it is still just a character. I don't think writers take a whole person and just transplant them into to stories. Hopefully the people who inspired you to write them, would be willing to accept that. Definitely something to think about though.
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There was a TV show kind of about this, several years back, called October Road, where a guy leaves home after high school and is only meant to be gone from his small town for the summer, and he ends up being gone for ten years. While he's gone, he becomes this super successful writer, and his first novel is extremely critically acclaimed, but many of his characters are based on friends and family that he left behind back home, and when they read the book they are NOT happy with him.
ReplyDeleteMy ex-boyfriend always wanted me to write poems about him; whenever I was stuck, he would just say, write about me, and to a large extent, I think he really did want me to. But people don't want to read themselves, not the way they are perceived by others, because it's often more accurate than the way they perceive themselves. I never did write poems about him, but now that we've broken up, he's a great subject, I have to admit. The nicest thing is that he broke my heart, so I don't owe him a thing.
And I agree with Tim. The characters we write, or at least the ones that I write, are never the whole person. People always think that we write what we know, but imagination and creativity plays a part in all writing as well. Maybe the trick is to place familiar characters in unfamiliar settings, so that if they read themselves, they don't necessarily place themselves? My character in my designer babies story was largely based on my beautiful, amazing artist friend, but I don't think she'd ever guess it from the context.
I think that fiction free you in a certain way. When I admit to myself that I am writing non-fiction, I freeze. I ask myself all those questions you are asking. I don't think that I would like to read myself in someone else's story. Especially since I think that our perception of others is never "true." It is always a little deformed by our point of view. But I think that it is ok to get inspired by real life. If you label it "fiction" (and anyway what is not fiction? even memories are fiction) no one should get insulted. But I know, some might get insulted anyway. It's never simple.
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