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?
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:
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:
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?
should just say no to? And given my tendency to confuse my memories with my imagination, should I even try to keep them separate?
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