If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
That said, I do think some effort to understand the reasons behind the bad behavior makes a deeper, more balanced story. Developing the capacity to look at ourselves from other points of view is a good thing. It’s the way we grow and it doesn’t happen without discomfort.
Wow, this is so timely. I just started sending out a short story that includes a LOT of details from my brother's life--the most "reality-based" thing I've ever written. Weirdly, it's also the first story I've written that got an overwhelmingly positive reception in a workshop. (Maybe I'm one of those writers who has "determined, through trial-and-error, that her best writing will come from this approach"...) I was strongly encouraged to send it out for publication, and I sought advice from many people on how I should approach the fact that, for instance, one character bears a striking (and not particularly flattering...) resemblance to my sister-in-law. They told me to go for it anyway, but I did end up sending the story to my brother to read before I sent it out. I knew I couldn't live with myself if it was published and he was hurt by it. (I'm less concerned about my sister-in-law, mostly because she will almost certainly never stumble upon it.) My brother's response? "Well, that is definitely the best thing of yours I've ever read. Definitely send it out. Also, it's spelled 'Spider-Man,' not 'Spiderman.' You'll want to fix that."
Such good advice. In my first book, For Better And Worse, I wrote about the many relationships I had with men (and women) while I was living in Portland, Oregon in my late-20s. Every part of every character was true, and I was brutally honest about events that transpired. Many of the men I wrote about bought the book. To my astonishment, one of the least likeable characters wrote to me after he read it. He said, "You nailed the 2011-2013 version of me to a T. I cannot argue with anything you said, and I'm sorry for all I did if I hurt you. I'm so glad you remember all the good times, and I can't believe how many quotes of mine you remembered. I thank you for this." I was shocked and still take this as a high compliment. Of course, I don't expect that to happen with everyone, but it was a pleasant surprise!
When writing about my relationship with my father, sometimes I feel guilty. Really bad and guilty. But I've realized that writing this stuff down has given me a deeper understanding of things, the past, and also re-writing stories I thought I understood makes clear that I actually held competing thoughts in my head. Writing called me out on my own bullshit thoughts and beliefs. I wouldn't have understood anything, or untangled any of the mysteries (my father conned people, changed his name dozens of times, he started families and then abandoned them...but didn't bag out on me for some reason. I've met four siblings and will meet a new nephew from a fifth brother next week) and the best part is that other people who knew my father have connected with me so I have more wild stories about his life. Writing about this difficult subject (I loved my dad and love him more knowing more details through research) has made me work harder on being "clear" in my thoughts and communications in other ways. Writing sort of untangled the past, and also my brain.
This reminded me of D.H. LAWRENCE who used people in his life and never bothered to even try to hide it. Like you, I'm blue collar. I work in a sawmill and have been there since I was 19. It's been 45 years in the same place. People always tell me I should write about the mill. It's a colourful place, with colourful characters. Bit I always say I'll never write about the mill. One of my workmates said if I did, I had to change his name. He said he was partial to Marlon. But the workplace was anything but "normal." It was the 80s, and there was lots of drugs, drinking on the job, and all the other things that go along with that. We had hookers come in, and the guys lining up waiting for blowjobs. They dropped acid, and speed, shot heroin in the bathroom, snorted coke, smoked dope. How can you write about that sort of stuff? No one would believe it for one thing, and those who did all of that would scream bloody murder. (And yes, I will confess, I did just as much as they did.)
It's been a struggle my whole life coming from a very artless family. Nobody listens to music aside from what's just on the radio at the time. Nobody really watches film or television aside from those dime-a-dozen police/medical dramas. And nobody reads as well. They own no physical art, and just don't have any amount of interest or understanding of most art. Though, I have found this all to be a blessing, at least just for this kind of issue.
They've always been supportive of my choice to become a writer, but I'll be honest and say they also have really no interest or knowledge in my writing itself. I could write a New York Times Best Selling book and I guarantee they would never read it. I've learned not to be too broken up about it because it really just gives me free reign to write about them without them ever getting upset. A silver lining I suppose.
I had the same kind of experience our teacher had with his roofing story. I was called out on it, and I replied with perfectly good…rationalizations. The subject was deceased and the story was true. But I felt really bad because I knew the complainant (a friend of the subject) was right. And the offending bit wasn't necessary. I must have been intoxicated with my own glibness. How shameful. It was an unforced, hurtful error I regret. I'm still seized by a sick feeling when I think about it.
I shall consider this post the equivalent of: 3 Hail Marys, 1 Our Father, 1 Act of Contrition, and a vow to go forth and sin no more.
George, as always, has covered it beautifully with his answer to your question. But he ends with asking us what advice we'd give you--and you know I can't stop myself from weighing in. So I'll add this: If you are using someone else's experiences, that may be problematic (or not), especially if they are also a writer! So I think you do have to be careful. Is there, perhaps, a way to write about the feeling of the experiences without using the exact experiences themselves? Or is that not possible? I mean, if the two of you got drunk and crashed a car, you could change it to the two of you smoked some pot and then broke something big and expensive. You see what I mean? The emotional core would be true, but the experience would be tweaked. Just a thought. (I also like George's idea of asking the other person how they feel about it, but if they say no then you are out of luck.)
Another thought: It's possible the person won't recognize themselves. I know this because I wrote a book with lines straight out of my mother's mouth--that character was pretty much my mom--and when she read the book she said, thank God I'm not that mother. So, there's that. (Conversely, I had a friend claim that a character was based on her and it was not! So you never know what people are going to think.)
Lastly, I wrote an entire book based on an old boyfriend. I changed a lot of things, but anyone who knew me during the decade when I was dumb enough to be in love with him recognized him immediately. As did he. Well, he was flattered, even though he comes off as an asshole in the book. So, you never know. Your relative may like the fact that you wanted to write about them.
I’d say you gotta write what you gotta write. The time to worry is later, when and if someone wants to publish it. But don’t let that stop you now. Just write the story. You've got all the time in the world to make changes later.
While I’ve not written books (yet), most of my writing is about my real life. Some of my recent posts include bits about my 21-year-old son being in rehab the last three months. I also did a series on being a stem cell donor where I talk about my brother, who is battling leukemia. In both instances, I got permission first. The last couple of times I’ve visited my son, I’ve let him read the posts (he doesn’t have internet privileges yet). He loves them. Truly. Now that he is sober and understands how the power of story can help another, he is glad for what I write.
I would love to read Paula's book. Family stories are what drew me to writing in the first place. Trying to crack the mystery of the people I lived with and the dynamics of our relationships and our family system. We have many choices to make as writers. What stories to tell and how to tell them. If our aim is true and we wish to write something for the greater good, even as we write of real people, there are ways to accomplish this without totally exposing or hurting someone. I have family stories I would write about, one in particular, that I am not ready to write. But if the time comes, I may use that story, because I agree with Anne Lamott. If it happens to you, it is yours to tell. The harder task is making that real story interesting and exciting to others and not just ourselves. Full of the drama, conflict and unpredictability of life. If a story doesn't have these attributes, it's going to fall flat and dead on that page. So, it's been challenging for me to make my novel have that spark of life and authenticity. It might even be easier if it wasn't about a real person. Maybe I'm holding my character at arm's length, because I'm afraid of hurting someone or not representing them correctly. I don't know what it is exactly, so I just keep writing and hoping to find out what I'm missing.
I've written a memoir and found that including family members in my thinking and the evolution at a very few moments has been helpful and also made us closer. On the other hand, a neighbor of mine recognized herself in a single sentence of an essay I wrote and went on a Facebook tirade. People won't like everything I write. I try to be considerate and then carry on. I know of another writer whose biggest criticism came from a family member she'd left out of the book. So there's that—people may not like it when you write about them, but they may like it less when you don't.
I don’t remember where I read it, but the story was told about Colm Toibin - and that may not be true either. In a writing class he was teaching, he asked his class: if you knew that the best story you had ever written, based on a friend’s experience, was published, it would destroy your friend’s marriage, would you publish it? All but two women in the class said yes, they would. He then told the two women they might as well just leave now, because they weren’t sufficiently committed to their writing. I hope the story is apocryphal, as I was appalled. Not so much that most of the students were willing to wreck their friend’s marriage, but the idea that even hesitating about it automatically disqualified you as a writer. To be fair to Toibin, he also said elsewhere - about using real life in fiction - that “Just because something really happened doesn’t mean it belongs in this story.” It’s a quandary! Add in the issue that some people have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction…my mother, for example, believes that every mother in any story I’ve ever written is based on her. This has led to angry words, hurt feelings, and dismissed defensive arguments. Anything short of sainthood is an insult. (Sigh.)
I do not have an answer. Here there be dragons. But thank you for bringing this up! I’ll be interested in others’ comments!
This can be an issue with non-fiction too, and not just memoir. Writing about real people is fraught because even when you are trying to be factual, as in journalism, you are still writing your own slant on events and people--and that slant may not accord with their own understanding of the facts. When thinking of transmuting that into fiction, I agree with George, that it depends on your own internal conscience/comfort with that.
I write memoir so the question of writing from life is always upon me like an attacking octopus. Betrayals and estrangement from family are my lot as well as multiple mental illnesses and suicides. It’s a lot.
I was fortunate that I had some distance from it all as the events were happening. Writing helped create a different kind of distance from those lived events and many lenses through which to view my stories. I agree with Judith above - you own what happens to you in your life. I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I want to write authentically and honestly. If that means calling someone in their bad behavior so be it.
Another approach is to just extricate them from your life and work. I give very little breath to those who acted viciously toward me. Life’s too short to wallow and curse and mutter under one’s breath about the wrongs one has suffered. Rather, I turn it all into a Grecian urn.
George - I love your graduation speech. The book has a special place on my bookshelf.
I found this insightful and thought provoking. When I wrote my memoir (about my father's life), my father was alive when I finished the first draft. I read out loud to him from the first four chapters of my book. He was too ill to understand anything after that period. But I'll always carry in my heart what he said upon hearing me read it. I write about that experience in this essay: http://bit.ly/2wGByeDd I would love to read Paula's work. Families are so complicated. When I worked on the book about my father, I corroborated a lot of the family history by speaking to my father's siblings and contemporaries. A piece of the story involved my sister and my brother-in-law and I sent that section to my sister and her children just so I didn't hurt them or embarrass them in any way. And what do you know, one of my relatives who appreciated my book upon reading it returned to it years later saying he disagreed with something I had written. I concluded that it's the way of the world and that I had been as honest as I could be with the information I had. In any case, thank you so much for this post (and all the others)!
I agree that talking it through with the relative might be a good idea in this case—depending on how close you are to your relative and how personal the experiences are (and, I suppose, on whether you have the sort of relationship with your relative which might allow for that sort of conversation). I wonder if it might also help to discuss with your relative why you’re so keen to write about them and their experiences. What is it, on a more abstract level, that you find so interesting/moving about them? What sorts of broader issues do they throw up for you and how do you see yourself exploring those issues in your work? I wonder if talking about these things might help your relative to put some distance in their mind between their particular experiences and whatever form your creative work ends up taking. If that makes any sense.
Very excited to see you in London on the 22nd, George!
I think Anne Lamott said it best:
“You own everything that happened to you.
Tell your stories.
If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
That said, I do think some effort to understand the reasons behind the bad behavior makes a deeper, more balanced story. Developing the capacity to look at ourselves from other points of view is a good thing. It’s the way we grow and it doesn’t happen without discomfort.
Wow, this is so timely. I just started sending out a short story that includes a LOT of details from my brother's life--the most "reality-based" thing I've ever written. Weirdly, it's also the first story I've written that got an overwhelmingly positive reception in a workshop. (Maybe I'm one of those writers who has "determined, through trial-and-error, that her best writing will come from this approach"...) I was strongly encouraged to send it out for publication, and I sought advice from many people on how I should approach the fact that, for instance, one character bears a striking (and not particularly flattering...) resemblance to my sister-in-law. They told me to go for it anyway, but I did end up sending the story to my brother to read before I sent it out. I knew I couldn't live with myself if it was published and he was hurt by it. (I'm less concerned about my sister-in-law, mostly because she will almost certainly never stumble upon it.) My brother's response? "Well, that is definitely the best thing of yours I've ever read. Definitely send it out. Also, it's spelled 'Spider-Man,' not 'Spiderman.' You'll want to fix that."
Such good advice. In my first book, For Better And Worse, I wrote about the many relationships I had with men (and women) while I was living in Portland, Oregon in my late-20s. Every part of every character was true, and I was brutally honest about events that transpired. Many of the men I wrote about bought the book. To my astonishment, one of the least likeable characters wrote to me after he read it. He said, "You nailed the 2011-2013 version of me to a T. I cannot argue with anything you said, and I'm sorry for all I did if I hurt you. I'm so glad you remember all the good times, and I can't believe how many quotes of mine you remembered. I thank you for this." I was shocked and still take this as a high compliment. Of course, I don't expect that to happen with everyone, but it was a pleasant surprise!
When writing about my relationship with my father, sometimes I feel guilty. Really bad and guilty. But I've realized that writing this stuff down has given me a deeper understanding of things, the past, and also re-writing stories I thought I understood makes clear that I actually held competing thoughts in my head. Writing called me out on my own bullshit thoughts and beliefs. I wouldn't have understood anything, or untangled any of the mysteries (my father conned people, changed his name dozens of times, he started families and then abandoned them...but didn't bag out on me for some reason. I've met four siblings and will meet a new nephew from a fifth brother next week) and the best part is that other people who knew my father have connected with me so I have more wild stories about his life. Writing about this difficult subject (I loved my dad and love him more knowing more details through research) has made me work harder on being "clear" in my thoughts and communications in other ways. Writing sort of untangled the past, and also my brain.
This reminded me of D.H. LAWRENCE who used people in his life and never bothered to even try to hide it. Like you, I'm blue collar. I work in a sawmill and have been there since I was 19. It's been 45 years in the same place. People always tell me I should write about the mill. It's a colourful place, with colourful characters. Bit I always say I'll never write about the mill. One of my workmates said if I did, I had to change his name. He said he was partial to Marlon. But the workplace was anything but "normal." It was the 80s, and there was lots of drugs, drinking on the job, and all the other things that go along with that. We had hookers come in, and the guys lining up waiting for blowjobs. They dropped acid, and speed, shot heroin in the bathroom, snorted coke, smoked dope. How can you write about that sort of stuff? No one would believe it for one thing, and those who did all of that would scream bloody murder. (And yes, I will confess, I did just as much as they did.)
It's been a struggle my whole life coming from a very artless family. Nobody listens to music aside from what's just on the radio at the time. Nobody really watches film or television aside from those dime-a-dozen police/medical dramas. And nobody reads as well. They own no physical art, and just don't have any amount of interest or understanding of most art. Though, I have found this all to be a blessing, at least just for this kind of issue.
They've always been supportive of my choice to become a writer, but I'll be honest and say they also have really no interest or knowledge in my writing itself. I could write a New York Times Best Selling book and I guarantee they would never read it. I've learned not to be too broken up about it because it really just gives me free reign to write about them without them ever getting upset. A silver lining I suppose.
I had the same kind of experience our teacher had with his roofing story. I was called out on it, and I replied with perfectly good…rationalizations. The subject was deceased and the story was true. But I felt really bad because I knew the complainant (a friend of the subject) was right. And the offending bit wasn't necessary. I must have been intoxicated with my own glibness. How shameful. It was an unforced, hurtful error I regret. I'm still seized by a sick feeling when I think about it.
I shall consider this post the equivalent of: 3 Hail Marys, 1 Our Father, 1 Act of Contrition, and a vow to go forth and sin no more.
George, as always, has covered it beautifully with his answer to your question. But he ends with asking us what advice we'd give you--and you know I can't stop myself from weighing in. So I'll add this: If you are using someone else's experiences, that may be problematic (or not), especially if they are also a writer! So I think you do have to be careful. Is there, perhaps, a way to write about the feeling of the experiences without using the exact experiences themselves? Or is that not possible? I mean, if the two of you got drunk and crashed a car, you could change it to the two of you smoked some pot and then broke something big and expensive. You see what I mean? The emotional core would be true, but the experience would be tweaked. Just a thought. (I also like George's idea of asking the other person how they feel about it, but if they say no then you are out of luck.)
Another thought: It's possible the person won't recognize themselves. I know this because I wrote a book with lines straight out of my mother's mouth--that character was pretty much my mom--and when she read the book she said, thank God I'm not that mother. So, there's that. (Conversely, I had a friend claim that a character was based on her and it was not! So you never know what people are going to think.)
Lastly, I wrote an entire book based on an old boyfriend. I changed a lot of things, but anyone who knew me during the decade when I was dumb enough to be in love with him recognized him immediately. As did he. Well, he was flattered, even though he comes off as an asshole in the book. So, you never know. Your relative may like the fact that you wanted to write about them.
I’d say you gotta write what you gotta write. The time to worry is later, when and if someone wants to publish it. But don’t let that stop you now. Just write the story. You've got all the time in the world to make changes later.
While I’ve not written books (yet), most of my writing is about my real life. Some of my recent posts include bits about my 21-year-old son being in rehab the last three months. I also did a series on being a stem cell donor where I talk about my brother, who is battling leukemia. In both instances, I got permission first. The last couple of times I’ve visited my son, I’ve let him read the posts (he doesn’t have internet privileges yet). He loves them. Truly. Now that he is sober and understands how the power of story can help another, he is glad for what I write.
I would love to read Paula's book. Family stories are what drew me to writing in the first place. Trying to crack the mystery of the people I lived with and the dynamics of our relationships and our family system. We have many choices to make as writers. What stories to tell and how to tell them. If our aim is true and we wish to write something for the greater good, even as we write of real people, there are ways to accomplish this without totally exposing or hurting someone. I have family stories I would write about, one in particular, that I am not ready to write. But if the time comes, I may use that story, because I agree with Anne Lamott. If it happens to you, it is yours to tell. The harder task is making that real story interesting and exciting to others and not just ourselves. Full of the drama, conflict and unpredictability of life. If a story doesn't have these attributes, it's going to fall flat and dead on that page. So, it's been challenging for me to make my novel have that spark of life and authenticity. It might even be easier if it wasn't about a real person. Maybe I'm holding my character at arm's length, because I'm afraid of hurting someone or not representing them correctly. I don't know what it is exactly, so I just keep writing and hoping to find out what I'm missing.
I've written a memoir and found that including family members in my thinking and the evolution at a very few moments has been helpful and also made us closer. On the other hand, a neighbor of mine recognized herself in a single sentence of an essay I wrote and went on a Facebook tirade. People won't like everything I write. I try to be considerate and then carry on. I know of another writer whose biggest criticism came from a family member she'd left out of the book. So there's that—people may not like it when you write about them, but they may like it less when you don't.
I don’t remember where I read it, but the story was told about Colm Toibin - and that may not be true either. In a writing class he was teaching, he asked his class: if you knew that the best story you had ever written, based on a friend’s experience, was published, it would destroy your friend’s marriage, would you publish it? All but two women in the class said yes, they would. He then told the two women they might as well just leave now, because they weren’t sufficiently committed to their writing. I hope the story is apocryphal, as I was appalled. Not so much that most of the students were willing to wreck their friend’s marriage, but the idea that even hesitating about it automatically disqualified you as a writer. To be fair to Toibin, he also said elsewhere - about using real life in fiction - that “Just because something really happened doesn’t mean it belongs in this story.” It’s a quandary! Add in the issue that some people have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction…my mother, for example, believes that every mother in any story I’ve ever written is based on her. This has led to angry words, hurt feelings, and dismissed defensive arguments. Anything short of sainthood is an insult. (Sigh.)
I do not have an answer. Here there be dragons. But thank you for bringing this up! I’ll be interested in others’ comments!
This can be an issue with non-fiction too, and not just memoir. Writing about real people is fraught because even when you are trying to be factual, as in journalism, you are still writing your own slant on events and people--and that slant may not accord with their own understanding of the facts. When thinking of transmuting that into fiction, I agree with George, that it depends on your own internal conscience/comfort with that.
I write memoir so the question of writing from life is always upon me like an attacking octopus. Betrayals and estrangement from family are my lot as well as multiple mental illnesses and suicides. It’s a lot.
I was fortunate that I had some distance from it all as the events were happening. Writing helped create a different kind of distance from those lived events and many lenses through which to view my stories. I agree with Judith above - you own what happens to you in your life. I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I want to write authentically and honestly. If that means calling someone in their bad behavior so be it.
Another approach is to just extricate them from your life and work. I give very little breath to those who acted viciously toward me. Life’s too short to wallow and curse and mutter under one’s breath about the wrongs one has suffered. Rather, I turn it all into a Grecian urn.
George - I love your graduation speech. The book has a special place on my bookshelf.
I found this insightful and thought provoking. When I wrote my memoir (about my father's life), my father was alive when I finished the first draft. I read out loud to him from the first four chapters of my book. He was too ill to understand anything after that period. But I'll always carry in my heart what he said upon hearing me read it. I write about that experience in this essay: http://bit.ly/2wGByeDd I would love to read Paula's work. Families are so complicated. When I worked on the book about my father, I corroborated a lot of the family history by speaking to my father's siblings and contemporaries. A piece of the story involved my sister and my brother-in-law and I sent that section to my sister and her children just so I didn't hurt them or embarrass them in any way. And what do you know, one of my relatives who appreciated my book upon reading it returned to it years later saying he disagreed with something I had written. I concluded that it's the way of the world and that I had been as honest as I could be with the information I had. In any case, thank you so much for this post (and all the others)!
I agree that talking it through with the relative might be a good idea in this case—depending on how close you are to your relative and how personal the experiences are (and, I suppose, on whether you have the sort of relationship with your relative which might allow for that sort of conversation). I wonder if it might also help to discuss with your relative why you’re so keen to write about them and their experiences. What is it, on a more abstract level, that you find so interesting/moving about them? What sorts of broader issues do they throw up for you and how do you see yourself exploring those issues in your work? I wonder if talking about these things might help your relative to put some distance in their mind between their particular experiences and whatever form your creative work ends up taking. If that makes any sense.
Very excited to see you in London on the 22nd, George!