Separating Fact from Fiction
July 19th, 2007 by Allison Winn Scotch
One of the things that has surprised me most, now that The Department of Lost and Found is out there in the world, is how so many people assume that the book is true to my real life. As if the word “fiction,” is really just code for thinly disguised memoir. I’ve even had close friends say to me, “So, you’re obviously Sally, right?” or “Ooh, I recognized all of your ex-boyfriends in the diaries.”
Erm. No. Actually, when the book says “fiction,” it really is.
It’s funny, and maybe I was naïve, but I never thought that people would make these leaps. I think that the best fiction writers take aspects of their lives and spin them into entirely different scenarios, which is what I did with The Department of Lost and Found. True, there are details littered throughout that actually echo my life – my husband and I did really get married in Puerto Rico (because, side note, we figured why the heck not?), but Sally’s story isn’t my own, and certainly, neither is Natalie’s. I don’t have unresolved issues with my mother (something I’ve been asked about), my husband isn’t Dr. Zach (for better or worse!), and my relationship with one of my close friends never spun out of control due to my work issues…or any issues really. (Again, something I’ve been asked quite often.)
I know why people do this. I’m guilty of it myself. You look at the dust jacket picture and think about the author and wonder what inspired them to draft this plot with these words with those characters and their motivations. And it’s easy to take that leap and assume that the writer didn’t work hard to dig into the trenches of her imagination and come up with the goods. Again, certainly, I’ve done it myself. But the truth is that this sells the author short a bit. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. I recently read an interview with Kristin Gore, author of the newly released Sammy’s House, in which she became a little indignant when the interviewer implied that she’d merely culled her own D.C. experiences and turned them into a book. In fact, she states, “”I make things up for a living. It would be pretty boring to just fictionalize real people.” And to that I say, hurrah!
Fictionalizing real life situations, which, to be fair, some authors certainly do and do so without apology and with great success (for example, my email pal, Anna David’s Party Girl is a fictionalized version of her road to rehab…and is juicy and good, so pick it up!) isn’t the aim of most novelists. Crafting entirely new worlds is. Remember that the next time you want to ask your favorite author if he ever actually chopped up his father and buried him in the backyard, just like his protagonist did in his latest best-seller. Chances are, his answer will be a firm no.
The funniest story I’d ever heard of regarding readers thinking that fiction books were loosely disguised biographies was the effort a fan of Margaret Mitchell’s went to finding Tara. They combed all the rural areas of Georgia trying to find the likely place. Finally they wrote Margaret Mitchell, and she wrote them back saying, “nope, I made the whole thing up.”
But to this day, folks still drive around trying to locate the unlocatable Tara.
I’ve thought about this a lot lately, and I don’t think my characters are even loosely based on real people. Themes those people might be connected to, yes, but not real people.
But folks believe what they want to believe. I guess it’s a part of the reality-TV world we’re living in that they imagine drama in every dusty nook.
i just read a fictional something with a quote in which the man’s mother whispers to him on her death bed: “always trust a stranger, because it’s the people closest to you that always let you down.” It’s my (my, as in the fictional characters that i’ve created) strangers that really end up living up to who they are supposed to be, as opposed to some real life characters!!! i also remember taking a creative writing class and, of course, some guy INSISTED my story MUST be autobiogaphical, which was SO not the case. But Walter Mosley, in a great article entitled “This Year You Write Your Novel” in the (August ‘07) O Magazine said that when you write, “The story you tell, the characters you present, will all have dark sides to them. If you want to write believable fiction, you will have to cross over the line of your self-restraint and revel in the words and ideas that you would never express in your everyday life.” I guess the trick here is to translate that concept to an acceptable answer to those people who ask questions about how close to real life the characters in your story are. Food for thought. Thanks, WU
You are so right about people assuming a writer’s writing is somehow intricately linked to her own personal life. In my first writing workshop, after submitting my story, hearing the verbal critiques, I got back all the copied manuscripts. I was amazed by all the comments made by virtual strangers, people I had only met weeks ago, asking when this happened to me, and why was I so upset with my life?! The story was a piece of angsty teenage venting, I was attempting to write for the young adult market… But, it certainly wasn’t my story…
When I’m not doing children’s fiction, my characters are almost always based on one of my personalities
Love this! I admit, even though I write fiction, I still sometimes can’t remember whether something I read was in a novel or an article and maybe just once or twice (a year? a month?) confuse fact and fiction. Not as a writer though. Thanks for your (as always) eloquent take on the topic!!
GG