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| Powell's in Portland, August 2015 |
Reena's Xplorations Challenge this week gives us some questions to ponder regarding fiction. First, she asks what constitutes fiction in the post-truth era, and I'm probably going to disagree with most of the other responders when I say I don't think our era is less truthful than any other era. Regular people have always lied, or at least insisted upon their version of the truth, as have politicians and their entourages, and whatever media existed at the time. What we see now however is more of a mass production and dissemination of lies because of the way "news" can reach so many of us almost instantly. There is also so much media available in so many forms. Back in the day, we had to wait for some wanderer to wend his way to our village to give his version of a thing that happened months ago at court. Now, within five minutes the whole world knows what a President said at a conference. Or, we think we know, depending on our source and whatever meme we saw on social media.
How thin or distinct are the lines between fact and fiction?
In writing, as opposed to political "news," the lines are somewhat clearer between fact and fiction. Somewhat. Recently, I read a non-fiction book about bats, and I think it's safe to assume that all the bat information I learned was factual. The author was specific about what was known and what wasn't. (I will have a Thursday Thirteen post on bats coming soon.) Historical books can definitely be biased towards a particular viewpoint. Biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs are in the non-fiction section, but those are all someone's version of what happened. Self-help books are considered non-fiction as are books about food, travel, economics, and religion. Hah! Poetry is its own category.
My favorite types of books fall into the fiction category, but even here things can get muddled. Some fiction is based on true stories. Some characters are closely based on people the author actually knows. Some writers use real-world locations and events in their fiction, while others create imaginary cities and scenarios. Science fiction and fantasy writers sometimes create whole new worlds and types of creatures in their stories.
Do the disclaimers that all characters are fictional really mean anything?
No. All characters, even the nonhuman ones, come from bits of the author's experience, whether direct or from something s/he read. No one writes in a vacuum. Since most real people aren't that interesting on the page, the best fictional characters are a mix of traits that the author has observed or read about. Even monsters, dragons, aliens, gods, etc., are a mishmash of human qualities. We create them all in our own image because what else is there? Funnily enough, the most fictional of fictional characters are probably the dreaded stock characters that a lazy writer grabs from the cardboard stash: the corrupt cop, the schoolyard bully, the cozy grandmother, etc. Real people are usually more nuanced.
Do you follow a formula when writing fiction, or just let it all flow freely?
For a while, I was writing spicy romantic fiction (novels and short stories), and that was all formulaic. I quit writing it and unpublished what I had when I became the stock cozy grandmother. No one wants to stumble across their nana’s erotica. Yuck. My later fiction is more free flowing. Hell, I didn't even know how Ghosted was going to end when I started it. Generally, I begin with a title or an idea that I think is funny and go from there. Sometimes I get bogged down in banter and have to delete a bunch of it to make room for action. Good short stories and flash fiction are actually harder to write than novels because there's no room to indulge yourself with prolonged banter, physical descriptions, and pointless meandering. The pointless meandering is my favorite.
Speaking of that, I had this enormous post written with my thoughts on various genres blah blah, but I have now scooped all that into a new post because I had actually missed addressing Reena's questions.
This is an enlightening read. Thanks for sharing your writing methodologies, Paula!
ReplyDeleteWhat I gather from your take on truth and lies, is that we have a choice between different versions. What we choose to believe also reflects our thought process.
One of the most interesting categories, to me, is historical fiction (novels about people who really existed in the distant past.) These are definitely fiction, but have to stick to what is known about their characters. I'm thinking of Mary Renault's novels in particular as examples. Alexander the Great was a real person and a fair amount is known about him, but there is much that is not known, especially in the smaller details, and in some cases the reliability of contemporary sources is questionable (writers in 300 BCE often had an ax to grind just like moderns). The author has to be consistent with known information, but also invent plausible material to fill in the gaps. It must be quite difficult to do this well.
ReplyDeleteI read or heard someplace that the disclaimers they use to say all the characters were fictional is so that the author doesn't get sued. Early in movies, there was a film that came out that portrayed some people (and I want to say it was the Russian royal family, but I may be misremembering) and someone sued the filmmakers. But they had put the "all fictional" disclaimer on the film, so the plaintiffs lost.
ReplyDeleteExcellent perspective! You hit the nail on the head regarding "post-truth"-people haven't changed, our technology just speeds up the delivery. I especially loved your point about stock characters ironically being the "most fictional" because real people are never that one-dimensional. Great read, and I'm looking forward to that bat post!
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