annethology
  • Home
    • About Annethology
    • About me >
      • A little more about me
    • About my books
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Forthcoming events
    • World Mental Health Day
    • Privacy
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • First two novels
    • Sugar and Snails >
      • Acknowledgements
      • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
        • Birthday blog tour
        • S&S on tour 2022
      • Early endorsements
      • Events >
        • Launch photos
        • Launch party videos
      • in pictures
      • Media
      • If you've read the book
      • Polari
      • Reading group questions
      • Reviews
      • In the media
    • Underneath >
      • Endorsements and reviews
      • Launch party and events
      • Pictures
      • Questions for book groups
      • The stories underneath the novel
  • Matilda Windsor series
    • The accidental series
    • Matilda Windsor >
      • What readers say
      • For book groups
      • Interviews, articles and features
      • Matty on the move
      • Who were you in 1990?
      • Asylum lit
      • Matilda Windsor media
    • Stolen Summers >
      • Stolen Summers reviews
    • Lyrics for the Loved Ones
  • Short stories
    • Somebody’s Daughter
    • Becoming Someone (anthology) >
      • Becoming Someone (video readings)
      • Becoming Someone reviews
      • Becoming Someone online book chat
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
  • Free ebook
  • Annecdotal
    • Annecdotal blog
    • Annecdotal Press
    • Articles >
      • Print journalism
      • Where psychology meets fiction
    • Fictional therapists
    • Reading and reviews >
      • Reviews A to H
      • Reviews I to M
      • Reviews N to Z
      • Nonfiction
      • Themed quotes
      • Reading around the world
  • Shop
    • Inspired Quill (my publisher)
    • Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
    • Amazon UK
    • Amazon US
    • books2read
  • Main site

Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Whose story is it anyway?

4/11/2013

10 Comments

 
Picture
I’m not someone who goes out armed with a notebook and pencil, ready to snatch snippets of dialogue from an innocent public.  It’s not so much, that like Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, I’ve had people challenge the real-life stuff as unbelievable, or that I’d draw the line at stealing for the sake of my art.  

It’s not even that, with repetitive strain injury, I’m one of those writers who (physically) doesn’t write if she can help it.  It’s more that, as my head’s already crammed with other people’s stories, I tend not to go searching for more.  But sometimes a story is offered to me on a plate (if you read the story, you’ll see how apt is the cliché), and I feel I’ve no choice but to take it, which is exactly what’s happened with Peace-and-Quiet Pancake,  just published on the website Flash Fiction Online. 

I'm always pleased when my work finds a good home, but this feels extra special because I’m actually being paid for it (very rare for short stories on the web).  Now, this post is about ethics, but I'm not asking you to advise me on whether to declare this small amount of income on my tax return. (I'm not at all ambivalent about paying tax, just what it's spent on.) My discomfort relates to whether the story is genuinely mine to sell.

Don't get me wrong. I wrote the words and assembled them in the right order.  I devised the plot and structure, such as it is. But the content, the central event isn't entirely fictional and, what's more, while I was present as it happened, it didn't happen to me. So in a sense, it's the little girl's story not mine.

Do other writers worry about things like this?
Perhaps it's inevitable that we should draw on the lives of those around us as material for our fiction, but how do we judge how far it's appropriate to go? When I first started writing seriously I did an online short story course where the first assignment was a 500 word story drawn from real life. At the time, I worked as a clinical psychologist in the NHS, where confidentiality was -- and is -- fundamental to the work. I remember asking about ethics in writing and I'm pretty sure the answer was "there are no ethics" which didn't exactly resolve my anxieties. There's got to be a bit more to this business than write about whatever takes your fancy.

Where some writers see complex ethical dilemmas, others perceive creative opportunities.  Mark Lawson abandoned an biographical novel after a chance meeting with one of the children of his proposed character. Nick Hornby based Marcus in About a Boy on a boy he knew from his days as an English teacher.

I might be being grandiose to imagine that "my" little girl would ever come across her story, but how would she feel if she did? I'd hope she'd feel validated but she might experience it as an invasion of privacy. I could assuage my guilt by giving her a share of my earnings – it would probably buy her five minutes of therapy – but that's not what it's about.

As Lionel Shriver has said in relation to writing a novel partly inspired by her family:
I'd worried that they might take a few lines or the odd segment of dialogue personally; instead, they took everything personally, and in the worst way – including the passages meant to be complimentary.

Text trumps truth – and especially in families there are many conflicting versions of "the truth". Writing is an imposition on reality, sometimes a brutal  one. Family members who have been ruthlessly hijacked as characters have no  means of redress, no outlet for their own story, no forum in which to proclaim  to the same public, "But I'm not really like that!" or "That's a lie, she made  all that up!"
Personally, I'm sceptical that the strength of the reaction she describes can be entirely attributed to the power of the pen or word processor. While I know nothing about Lionel Shriver's family dynamics, I do know that some families operate like  mini dictatorships, and no deviation from the orthodoxy can be allowed to go unpunished, especially for a female member of the clan. Furthermore, for those writers who wish to explore our internal worlds alongside the external, the families that made us can't be off-limits. I see no need to apologise for writing an elderly man into the story who some people might take for my dad.  I do find it interesting that some writers and bloggers seem to feel a greater responsibility to protect the privacy of their parents than of their own children.
It's important to keep in mind that the fiction writer's primary responsibility isn't to the historical facts:
If you’re basing a story or characters on real life, don’t get hung up on what really happened. You are not giving evidence for the police. When you write fiction, no matter what you are making it out of, you cross a line. Telling the real truth isn’t your job. Telling the dramatic truth is. 
Roz Morris
Or how about this quip from Fanny Trollope who died 150 years ago:
I draw from life – but I always pulp my acquaintance before serving them up. You would never recognise a pig in a sausage.
But what do you think? Are there ideas and characters out there that we  
should just say no to?  And given my tendency to confuse my memories with my imagination, should I even try to keep them separate?
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
10 Comments
Carlie Lee link
4/11/2013 01:36:55 pm

Love the quote from Fanny Trollope! How very perfect.

Not sure though, that I could ever feel guilty for pinching lives, if what I created was any good. I'm making some vague allusion to art here, I think, but my brain's a bit scrambled.
What I mean is - without the real-ness, the characters won't work - the art won't work. You've GOT TO steal.

Agh...more wine...

Reply
safia link
4/11/2013 09:18:40 pm

Fictionalised versions of what really happened are part and parcel of a writer's world. I don't think you can beat yourself up about borrowing something which works and is interesting for readers. My first decent short story had a MC based very closely on my mum and I wanted her to read it - just to test the water, as it were. Of course I'd renamed her. She loved it but didn't recognise herself at all. I guess that gave me the nerve to stick at the business of drawing from one's own experiences and life. Love your comment about confusing imagination and memory - so true, LOL.

Reply
Linda Daunter link
5/11/2013 05:39:34 am

I've just read your story and loved it. It immediately reminded me of a very similar incident I witnessed in a dentist's waiting room.
All my fiction is sparked by real life but I change names and locations, leave out some facts and add new details. (The problem with relating real life is that it's rarely arranged in neat short stories or chapters ending with a good cliffhanger.) I once thought I'd written a completely 'made up' story only to discover its twin in a newspaper report.
I don't think you should worry about 'your' little girl reading your story one day. If she ever writes an account of that episode I'm sure it will be very different.

Reply
Annecdotist
7/11/2013 08:46:01 am

Thanks Carlie, Safia, Linda, for your interest in and supportive comments. Glad you liked the Fanny Trollope – she sounds an interesting woman and makes me ashamed I’ve never read any of her stuff. You’re right about how, when we fictionalise, even if we think very little is altered, others will inevitably read it their own way, for better or worse. Interesting also about memory and imagination as the research suggests that an awful lot of our memories are distorted and false ones can be planted fairly easily in the right circumstances. And aren’t waiting rooms fantastic places for observation – just a pity that often we’re too anxious about what we’re waiting for to take it all in.

Reply
Sophie Jonas- Hill
9/11/2013 02:35:54 pm

As I was delightfully nodded to in Anne's tweet I must stick my oar in and say that I obviously have no problem with using real people in my books, but I do so very much in the back ground of my stories and as my personal homage to those I know and love. In this way I will import people from real life into my fictional one wholesale, but the main characters and events in all of them are as far from reality as the genre permits. So none of the intimate struggles I have on display are those I've witnesses, or suffered, but a carefully worked amalgam of life experience, and the back ground characters are so specific as to be only recognisable by a handful of people who know me, and so I hope go un-noticed by the uninitiated. I believe that Ian Rankin now auctions a spot in his next book each year for charity, and people bid to have their name and/or physical description in the book. Apparently being murdered is the most popular role, though one woman who won asked for her cat's name to be used, I think it was quite formal though. I will use real people but never the real stories they tell me - my best friend has appeared in two novel thus far, in the last she was killed in the blitz while flirting with firemen, which she approved of and is quite proud of as an exit. Good blog though, enjoyed it!

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2013 02:55:34 am

Thanks for coming, Sophie. I think it's a really interesting perspective to use your real characters to play a different role in your fiction, rather like good actors who can lend themselves to any part. Great fun all round to kill off your friends – do they ever fight amongst themselves for the most dramatic parts?

Reply
Ida Smith link
16/11/2013 04:34:45 pm

Anne, your blog hit on thoughts and concerns I've had too. Some stories are so good you just want to share them. Similarly, some people are so interesting it's hard not to put some part of their character into a story. I remember Anne Lamott saying that she writes about her mother a lot, but always disguises her and her mother's never seen herself in Anne's stories. I guess that's where we get creative. I think it's impossible not to steal from real life as we are submerged in it. Kind of like fish not swallowing water.

Reply
Annecdotist
19/11/2013 09:53:20 am

Sorry for the delay in thanking you for your comment, Ida, as well as for your kind feedback on Pancake on the website. Love your notion of the fish – quite right, we can't avoid what comes naturally

Reply
AnnMarie link
12/12/2013 01:19:54 pm

I think perhaps all writers confuse memory with imagination! Or maybe I've just found in you a kindred spirit. Anyway, I do this all the time. And the story I wrote inspired by your Peace and Quiet Pancake is based on real interactions with my own three year old daughter. I dedicate it to her, but would she feel hurt by some of the things that I -- er, the NARRATOR -- say about her? She might. I deliberately wrote it to be an exposition and a confession that I am not always the loving mom she deserves, especially when I haven't had much sleep... But here's the thing about that--I like stories where the character learns something, and when a story like yours gave me an insight I want to share that with people and crystallize that insight for them. We teach each other how to love, how to be better people, by writing and reading stories. To me, that is what the best short fiction is all about. To the little girl in your story, I would say this: I learned something from her experience and I never even met her. That's a powerful thing. At this very moment, my daughter is pestering me about playing grocery shopping with her :) and I am taking the time every few seconds to stop typing and pretend to "buy" something. That's what I learned, that children don't deserve to have to worry about if they're bothering you--they deserve attention and appreciation... Well, I would then share with her my story, and tell her that literature grows that way, and it's never "yours" or "mine" but everyone's. here's my blog with just an excerpt of my story: http://52storiesin52weeks.tumblr.com/little-monsters

Reply
Annecdotist
13/12/2013 09:50:50 am

I'm so pleased my story touched you and inspired you to write your own, especially that you've taken it into a whole new area with the opportunity for learning and reparation and more optimistic ending.
Yeah, it might be strange for your daughter when she gets to read yours, but maybe it will inspire her to write her own version and so take it a step further. As long as we have the potential for dialogue between the different points of view, or at least some acknowledgement that there are different points of view and that these matter, we can learn to tolerate each other's frailties.
Thanks for thinking of 'my' little girl and sharing a little of yours, I like thinking of your daughter getting you to come and play.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
    Picture
    Available now
    Picture
    The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
    Picture
    Find a review
    Picture
    Fictional therapists
    Picture
    Picture
    About Anne Goodwin
    Picture
    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
    Picture
    My third novel, published May 2021
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
    Picture
    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
    view books
    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

    Your comments are welcome any time any where.

    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed


    Picture

    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    New short story, “My Dirty Weekend”
    Picture
    Let’s keep in touch – subscribe to my newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Bookbirthday
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Climate Crisis
    Coming Of Age
    Counsellors Cafe
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Cumbria
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Ethis
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    Hero’s Journey
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Kidney Disease
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Lyrics For The Loved Ones
    Marketing
    Matilda Windsor
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    MW Prequel
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Pandemic
    Peak District
    Perfect Match
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Race
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Somebody's Daughter
    Stolen Summers
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    The Guestlist
    Therapy
    TikTok
    TNTB
    Toiletday
    Tourism
    Toxic Positivity
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    March 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Picture
    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos from havens.michael34, romana klee, mrsdkrebs, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, dluders, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom, joshtasman, tedeytan, striatic, goforchris, torbakhopper, maggibautista, andreboeni, snigl3t, rainy city, frankieleon