Off Limits?
By Sarah Callender | September 9, 2015 |
My kids are now 10 and 12, but around the time they were three and five, I brought home a bag of books from the library, one of which I was sure my son would love. Fireboat was a picture book about, well, a fireboat called the John J. Harvey. My son loved trucks and firetrucks and construction trucks and garbage trucks. In an effort to expand his horizons, I thought he might be interested in a “water-truck” that extinguished fires. I also loved the artist, Maira Kalman, whose quirky, Kahlo-meets-Picasso paintings illustrated some of my favorite picture books as well as The New Yorker magazines. (I only read The New Yorker for the pictures.)
But half-way through Fireboat, I realized it wasn’t simply a nice book about a nice water-truck that extinguished not-nice fires. This was a book about September 11th and the role the John J. Harvey played in fighting the fires after the terrorist attacks.
I was caught off guard. I might not have read this book to my three- and five-year-old children had I known. I might not have read it to myself had I known. Although I was living in Seattle in September 2001, far from the terrorist attacks, I still felt so raw. Although I obsessively read loads of non-fiction essays and articles about the attacks, I wasn’t quite ready to read a picture book about September 11th, even a non-fiction one so beautifully illustrated. I found myself distracted by feelings and memories about the attacks: Where I was when I heard about the first tower. NPR’s coverage as I drove to work. Images of terrified, dust-covered passersby fleeing the area. First responders racing to the scene. People jumping from tower windows. Photocopied faces of the missing plastered on chain link fences.
My children, born after September 11th and too young to understand the terror of that day, looked at this page of Kalman’s book and thought the pilot had simply made a terrible mistake. Then my son turned to me. “Does daddy work in a tall building?”
I knew where he was going with this. I shook my head. “Daddy’s building is just three floors.”
“Keep reading,” my daughter mumbled, her thumb wedged in her mouth.
My children carried no baggage. They could enjoy and focus on Kalman’s story in a way I could not.
It got me thinking about how fiction writers handle traumatic real-life events. Are well-known, real-life traumas too massive and heavy to be included in fiction? Are they too distracting? When we render a real, tragic event in fiction, do we disrespect the real people who experienced the event?
[pullquote] It’s a massive challenge to create a plot or a set of characters that can stand up to such incomprehensible events. Characters seem flimsy and gauche against the backdrop of a national or global tragedy. A plot can feel crude and unimportant by comparison. [/pullquote]
I confronted these questions a year ago when I realized my work-in-progress involved a main character with an addiction to war. This soldier could not get enough of the buzz of combat, not to mention the brotherhood and sense of purpose he found during deployment. I tried to set this story during World War I or II, perhaps even during the Vietnam War, but the soldier needed the opportunity to feed his war addiction by fighting in serial wars. After then considering the string of post-September 11th wars, I decided these wars were (and are) too political. I didn’t want readers to get bogged down and distracted by their own opinions and sentiments. Plus, these 21st century wars felt too ambiguous, too uncertain; we couldn’t yet see or understand the ramifications of our involvement. In spite of our numbness, our war fatigue, we are still too close to get good perspective. How could I write about real wars when I could hardly understand how real (i.e. terrible, absurd, messy, complex) they really were?
Does this mean, then, that certain events are taboo in fiction until they reach a tidy conclusion? We live in the ripples of September 11th, of Hurricane Katrina, of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the Dai Ichi power plant disaster; are those topics off limits? Of course not. From Matron Lit to Femslash, from Nordic Noir to Dinosaur Erotica, we are free to write about what fascinates us. Or what scares us (for me, dinosaur erotica). What turns us on (for me, not dinosaur erotica). We write to come to terms or make peace with certain traumas. We write to explore our personal relationship with others and with particular events. We write because writing fills internal holes. We write to make sense of the complex and absurd.
But I think we need to use caution when we write to “make sense of” a terrorist attack that altered our concept of safety, terrorism, travel, American identity, religion; or a series of waves that killed 230,000 people; or the aftermath of a hurricane that illuminated issues concerning race, social inequality and governmental incompetence. It’s a massive challenge to create a plot or a set of characters that can stand up to such incomprehensible events. Characters can seem flimsy and gauche against the backdrop of a national or global tragedy. A plot can feel crude and unimportant by comparison, also insensitive, exploitative or moralizing.
[pullquote] We fiction writers need to use caution when handling certain events, but should we limit ourselves? [/pullquote]
After struggling for some time with my own WIP, it finally occurred to me. For goodness sake, we live in a world where people write fiction about dinosaur-human romance! Nothing is off limits. I was not required to set my story against the backdrop of a real war. I could create a fictional war in a time where countries waged wars over water rights, where battles were fought in Madrid, Sao Paulo and Montreal. This eliminated the possibility that readers could be distracted by their personal feelings about post-September 11th wars. The characters and their conflicts would not, at least in theory, be dwarfed by the presence of a real-life, messy, controversial series of conflict-heavy wars.
Should we fiction writers limit the topics and events of our stories? No way. We should not be scared to take risks by writing about certain events, to continue to push the boundaries of our imagination and creativity as we explore fiction’s limitlessness. We just need to use caution when doing so, for the sake of the story.
If you have written about major, well-known traumatic events, what were your challenges and successes? Have you used a different genre or medium to address national or global events in your fiction? Have you found yourself limiting the topics of your work, either out of fear or perceived lack of skill? Please share with the WU community!
Photograph compliments of Flickr’s theilr.
[coffee]
A Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true–and somewhat fraught–passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first novel, LUCY IN BETWEEN, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in 2026.
I avoid using major events as the springboard for fiction, in part because I know that a lot of writers do it. How many writers used 9-11 as a major element in their story? How many of those stories do you remember today? I prefer to use major events as signposts to place my story in a specific time, especially a story that unfolds over a number of years. That’s not to say that if a writer is inspired or moved by an event like 9-11, it should be off-limits. Writers should write about their passions. If 9-11 or Hurricane Katrina ignites a spark within a writer, by all means write about it. It’s a matter of personal preference. Thanks for sharing these thoughts, Sarah.
Thanks, CG. I have only read one novel set around 9/11: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and that sticks with me, probably because of the creative way he set it up: a visual of the man falling from a tower, one-sentence chapters, etc. His novels tend to be just a touch wacky and absurd, too, so that made the topic a bit more palatable.
I LOVE your comment about signposts. That is such a great way to incorporate events into your fiction without being too heavy-handed.
Thanks, as always!
:)
I haven’t actually written about September 11, but I know that people in NYC have been forever altered by it, and face that fact in the very first scene in Pride’s Children; the year is 2005, and the story starts in a building with a view of the NY skyline. It is not part of the story to worry about it, but it must be acknowledged.
I made sure that I had looked up all the major events during the timeline of the story – thank the internet for easy access, and the lovely people who make the compilations of all kinds of things which otherwise I would have to research – to set the story in ‘real’ time.
Sometimes just a tiny mention can give a reader a very strong sense of the times, and that is what you want when writing a certain kind of mainstream fiction.
Other things to take into account include real places: how much do you use for atmosphere – and how much can you alter for plot points? And if you change things to suit yourself, do you keep the real name – or give it something that an astute person will be able to relate to the real place – or do you have to conceal it completely? Decisions, decisions.
It’s an interesting part of the job; your wars will feel real because you paid attention to what you need from reality – and felt free to dump the rest.
Yes! Great points here, Alicia. The event did forever alter the city, and a nod to that fact is important. NYC was changed forever, and that’s not a fact we need to ignore or pussyfoot around.
And yes, an event can simply set a tone or atmosphere . . . Jhumpa Lahiri wrote a beautiful short story that had reference to a character traveling to the area hit hardest by the 2004 Tsunami. Because we know what happened, that created such a marvelous sense of foreboding.
My two critique partners write memoir and non-fiction, and they are always wondering how on earth I can possibly choose all the different directions a story can take. But I love the options and possibilities. It’s rather magical, really.
Thank you for adding to the conversation!
Thought provoking blog, as usual Sarah. I’m tackling the Jim Crow south in Charlotte, NC in 1950 with fear and trepidation. I know that even for all the books I read and experts I interview, I won’t get it exactly “right.” But I’m trying!
Wonderful, Carol! I wonder if it’s easier to add that era to a work of fiction because a bit more time has passed? Or perhaps it’s easier because it was not a single, massive event that happened on a single, world-changing day. Rather it’s an era. Do you think that makes it easier to be creative about the details?
I love that you add the important idea of research! That’s an excellent reminder to us all. Research (perhaps especially interviews) will add such specificity that will make your story feel so real!
Happy writing to you, Carol.
:)
Thanks for the post Sarah! Not only being unnerved when you realized the book was about Sept 11, I’m sure you were when your son asked if daddy worked in a tall building. That sent chills when I read it.
Although not writing about a national or global “event”, I am writing a novel centered around prostitution and sex slavery in the early twentieth century. My characters first entered “the life” at ages 12 & 13, so my story involves a very sensitive subject, but one I feel needs to be told. I’ve had the story in my head for so long that I’m no longer shocked by the age of my characters. But I think that some people will be shocked, and maybe disgusted. Of course, that is my intention – to bring attention to human trafficking and sex slavery,which still goes on today. But I want readers to be appalled by the “real life” issues, and not just appalled by the ages of my characters.
I think this is such an important issue, KL. And so scary. People don’t understand how vulnerable young girls really are. I am grateful this topic is getting mainstream, widespread attention, and you can really help educate people who don’t know what an immense issue this is, and that it’s not just in other countries!
Having the girls be that age is realistic, not gratuitous. That’s why your book will work!
Good for you for taking on this topic! Happy writing to you.
:)
Hi, Sarah:
Excellent, thought-provoking piece. I agree that caution is wise, and that tackling a major event such as 9-11 requires a mindful approach. I particularly agree with this statement:
“It’s a massive challenge to create a plot or a set of characters that can stand up to such incomprehensible events. Characters seem flimsy and gauche against the backdrop of a national or global tragedy. A plot can feel crude and unimportant by comparison.”
However, I think the challenge is not only acceptable, it is necessary.
I know of at least two novels that accepted the challenge wisely and succeeded as literary art — Absent Friends by SJ Rozan, and The Zero by Jess Walter. Both were superb, precisely because the authors took such care.
The Zero was particularly ambitious, because it was a dark, bitterly funny Catch-22-like satire, written only five years after the event. The satire was focused exactly on the frenetic, often absurd need to say something, do something, flex our might or simply make sense of the event, when the honest response was to feel the emptiness — the crater — left behind. In lesser hands the book could easily have been a disaster. Instead, it was brilliant, and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
I wrote a novella this year (“The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell”) about a cop killer who is an Iraq vet suffering from moral injury — which is distinct from PTSD in that the latter is generated by fear, whereas moral injury results from a violation of conscience so profound it shatters one’s very sense of self, of meaning.
I used Antigone as a template — the vet’s sister is trying to save him not just from the death penalty but from being cruelly, perniciously sacrificed to a sanctimonious sense of moral superiority. I made a point of offering no easy answers and portraying combat and soldiers as honestly as I could, given what I know (secondhand) through extensive reading and my friendships with men and women who served. (My agent actually asked if I’d deployed, given how authentic I’d managed to make the story — I confessed I just had excellent sources.)
In short, though I agree we must be careful, I think we must also avoid an excess of caution. If writers do not address these events, we surrender the stage to the pundits and politicians — for whom caution is breezily dismissed.
As for children — by the age of six, I had nuns reading Bible stories to me and my classmates. The Old Testament and the Passion of Christ ain’t for the light-hearted. Cruelty, betrayal, genocide abound, and we were assured it all was true. Maybe that was a pious form of child abuse. Maybe it was wise. I honestly am not sure. But I survived. I have a sense, given who their mother is, your children will manage quite well.
Such a great reply, David. Thank you for sharing with all of us.
I love that you brought up the satirical 9/11 novel. I can see how that would be a perfect fit for such an unreal event and era. I also LOVE your ideas (in your own book) about the difference between PTSD and moral injury. That is such a fascinating facet of war.
And of course, your point about not shying away from the touchy issues is so important. Brave New World, Lord of the Flies and even The Hunger Games series all create some discomfort for a reader, but the social commentary, I think, was handled quite beautifully.
Literature really is an essential component of a strong society. I always enjoy reading your comments. Thank you!
My upcoming novel deals with abuse. It’s a woman’s struggle to break an obsessive bond with her sociopath yoga guru. When the main character is an anti-hero who is a manipulative, controlling narcissist there are many challenges to keep the reader’s interest. In life, movies, and popular television series (House of Cards for example), as well as books like Gone Girl we have been seeing a lot of narcissism. Generally, the public blames the victim—“That could never happen to me” “Why is she so stupid?” and especially “Why does she stay?” My novel hopefully will educate women (and men) about this uncomfortable subject.
Oh, Luna. As a House of Cards fan, I am fascinated by this topic. There’s a certain presidential candidate who, I feel, might also receive a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis too. Yet, no one seems to notice or care.
I love how fiction really can educate just by telling readers a story. Teaching by story (or learning by story) really did ensure human survival.
Thanks so much for sharing your timely topic, Luna!
My character’s story takes place during a flood that affected a good part of the eastern US in 1937. I set the story there partly because I find the flood so interesting (my parents met because of the flood) and partly because it provides the challenges my character needs to come to terms with her problem. I would not have taken on Katrina though, not being close in any way to the situation. I worry enough that I’m being fair to the people who suffered through the ’37 flood. Thankfully, there are a lot of good resources such as copies of newspapers and photographs (photographs really say it!) at local universities and personal experiences which have been published. Still, even though my main concern is the character’s story, it’s a big responsibility to get the historical event right. I just keep looking and do the best I can. Who wants to be corrected in the reviews? ;o)
Ha! So true. Reviewers will find enough to complain about; no need to give them another reason to poke at our stories. I love your comment, too, about the research power of a photograph. They really do bring historical events to life.
I also love that you are taking on that particular flood. Most people know very little about it! Can’t wait to read it, Carmel. ;)
Boy, do I ever owe you a coffee today, Sarah. You just put a handle on a topic for a post I’ve been wrestling with. I think I’ve got a nice hold now. Wonderful and so thought-prodding! Thank you! (Hey, would this be our first collaboration? Feels like it, but we’d better wait and see how you feel about the essay that comes of it.)
It’s funny Vaughn. as I was writing this, I was thinking about your genre and wondering if it frees you up at all. Maybe not! :)
Collaborate? Oui, oui. We can chat.
:)
You ascertained the very angle I grasped! As to the freeing, it’s a definite yes! (And coincidentally, I have a character with a similar sounding problem.)
Btw, you rock, Lady! You always knock it outta the park, month after month. I stand in awe, my friend.
That is the highest compliment. Every month I struggle to say something that isn’t just a pile of poop. xo!
I read my kids that book this summer and was also caught off-guard by it. I wound up getting teary-eyed at the end, and had a hard time explaining why to my kids.
It was a really good book, though, and I don’t think we always need to have closure on traumatic events in our writing. Sometimes it’s ok for a story to leave the reader feeling a bit raw at the end.
Thank you, Amelia, for your empathy!
I totally agree. It would be weird to NOT feel a bit raw about anything connected to September 11, don’t you think? As I explained it to my kids, I was relieved that they will never have the baggage I do. I don’t have the baggage of JFK’s death or Pearl Harbor. It makes those two topics lighter, but there is something very nice about allowing that rawness to be felt, you know? Being human allows plenty of opportunity to feel raw, and I think that’s a good thing.
:)
Sarah, the questions you pose here are huge, life altering, and beyond my scope I’m afraid. I could never write about such events, the emotional drain would swallow me whole. But know this, your post made me cry just recalling Sept 11th and its aftermath. That alone shows how powerful words can be when linked to an event so traumatic it’s ingrained in the psyche of people worldwide. You are right, one should wield that power carefully.
Thank you, Sarah, as always you make me proud to be part of WU.
Denise (Dee) Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
You are the best, Dee. Thank you. Your comment about the emotional drain reminded me of something Erik Larson said. He lives in Seattle and works with one of my book club members. We read In the Garden of Beasts and invited him to dinner. He shared that the research required for that book (much of it on Hitler and the earlier parts of his reign) really made him sink into a dark place. For those of us who are covered with extra “feelers” it is simply too draining to write about the most horrible of topics (Hitler, 9/11, genocide, etc.).
I always adore your comments. Thank YOU.
:)
Your post took me back to 9/11. I had a baby and a toddler and my husband was in downtown Seattle in a very tall building. Yes, a grown woman like me had the same reaction as your young son. Fast forward a couple of years … for my husband’s birthday I got him The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordecai Gerstein. He had tears at the end. My kids did not understand the tragedy but they knew it was big. This is a NF book. But fiction is equally powerful. I think to let younger kids know about the huge impact of these events, using 9/11 as a backdrop is perfectly permissible and even necessary. Our lives changed.
I struggle with my historical precisely for this reason you mention: “It’s a massive challenge to create a plot or a set of characters that can stand up to such incomprehensible events. Characters seem flimsy and gauche against the backdrop of a national or global tragedy. A plot can feel crude and unimportant by comparison.”
But it is a story that will not let go, and so I must study the masters and do the best I can. Thanks for reminding me.
Yes, Vijaya. Our lives changed. The world changed. I, too, think it’s OK for kids to understand that some events, even terrible ones, are important parts of our history. Sometimes I feel like I err too much on the side of tossing stuff in my kids direction (AIDS, human trafficking, sex, etc.). I like to think that as long I share it in age-appropriate chunks, they will handle it in an age-appropriate way. Of course, it does depend on the child!
Yes, keep studying the masters and trust your gut. Stories that get under our skin, as difficult as they may be to write, are meant to be out in the world!
:)
I adapted the alleged bigfoot siege of the little village of Honoria in southeastern Oklahoma in around the early part of the 21st
Century, to put in my novel. (Accepted, not yet released.) That siege is controversial. Many believe such a thing never happened. Many take at face value the events described by the family. Bigfoots, they say, attempted to enter the home. I fictionalized the battle and made the bigfoots both villians and sympathetic characters, though my story is not a run-screeching-from-the-creatures type of story.
And I did this because I find that many bigfoot field researchers and/or makers of reality-based TV shows have presented the creatures as hail-bigfoot-well-met beings. One has gone so far as to say that there has never been a documented case of a bigfoot causing the death of a human, that they are truly cutsie-pie animals that love doughtnuts, bacon, and assorted goodies. That was the point that I couldn’t accept the assertions from the TV types.
In fact, there IS reason to believe that, perhaps some of the creatures ARE dangerous, perhaps deadly. Some fall back on the stories that bigfoots have returned a child to its family. Others give accounts of being threatened bodily by the big guys. There are those who state unequivocably that the creatures have killed. Perhaps some, certainly not every one–might be man-eating.
With the latter in mind, I simply could not let the TV folks’ version go unchallenged, because there is something else that consider.
There are allegations that a number–over a thousand–of people have disappeared in the wildlands of America. Some of these in national forests. While no one, including me, is willing to go out on a limb to say that these disappearences are tied in anyway to bigfoot creatures, I do want the American public to know that their intended daytrips to wild areas to picnic, camp, and/or paint, write, or whittle, MAY put them in danger that they are not expecting.
Call my story agenda-driven if you must. But at least now I have laid out my concern that bigfoots may not even KNOW the Hendersons, and that there could creatures that roam the hinterlands that may not be the best friends to have.
Wow. This is so intriguing! I love the ambiguity you set up here: that bigfoot creatures are not solely good or solely bad. That’s the make-up of a great antagonist (or protagonist). I also love the tension you set up . . . little day hikes or picnics my family takes may not turn out to be as lovely as I had hoped!
Thank you so much, Jim, for sharing the details of how you handle/tackle the myth/reality of these creatures. Quite brilliant!
But now I am scared.
:)
Thanks for making us think, as always, Sarah.
In one of my adult novels, I wanted a scene where a school was barraged by a couple of students with guns. You know, the whole Columbine-type thing. Well, I began researching, and when I started reading about the real Columbine massacre, I was plagued with nightmares for a week. I had pretty much kept my head in the sand when the story was plastered all over the news, not only because I am an educator, but because I love children. It turned out that as hard as I tried to write the scene, I couldn’t get through it.
I believe in right to free speech, of course, and I believe in writing bravely, but it made me nauseous every time I tried to write it. So I put on my thinking cap, and instead decided to nix the scene and start fresh, this time with an act of Mother Nature. And it worked. My agent was thrilled with the scene, as was I.
I just think that we need to write what we feel the need to write, and we sometimes need to hold back (or change the scene, as it were) perhaps to pacify a deeper part of our psyche, or maybe for reasons we don’t fully understand. Will my readers ever know I chose a different path? Not unless I tell them.
And as for 9-11, to this day, I have not seen those planes fly into the Towers. I turn away any time they are shown. Those are not images I choose to live with.
But that’s just me.
I think this is great, Leslie. And I agree wholeheartedly with your desire to protect your emotional state. I probably should follow your lead as I can’t help but read/watch/listen to the coverage . . . and then I sink into some weird obsessive funk. My husband wishes I were more like you. :)
And I love how you share your experience writing about a natural event rather than a man-made tragedy. I do agree it’s easier to stomach a natural disaster than a man-made one. Nature’s not evil; she’s just powerful. She creates tragedies, but there’s no malice. Knowing that our fellow humans can commit such atrocities and carry such mallace? That’s is nearly unbearable.
Best of luck with your books and your writing!
:)
I, too, have chosen never to see those towers hit. The billowing smoke, the frantic crowds, that’s enough. I “get it,” and I can’t/won’t go there. The evil and loss is too much.
Great post Sarah. I confess that after 9-11 I stopped writing for a while. I felt like there was no reason to. And then I read an article about liminal space, the place of unknowing which truly was where many of us were living after 9-11. And I became so involved in the concept that I incorporated it into my novel–it actually changed the trajectory of my work. As writers we must feel and learn as we go–not hear negative voices–simply write.
The place of unknowing. That is the most beautiful phrase I have heard to describe the time after September 11th. Thank you. It captures all of those feelings and fears so perfectly. Yet it is also beautiful. And it gives permission for us to be floating and uncertain. There is freedom in those words.
I love that you were able to pay attention to this event, as well as how it changed you, and use that in your writing.
So inspiring.
:)
“We write to come to terms or make peace with certain traumas. We write to explore our personal relationship with others and with particular events. We write because writing fills internal holes. We write to make sense of the complex and absurd.”
Sarah, I write in an imaginary world where I have as much freedom to invent as possible, yet somehow I can’t escape the mark of the real world. After all, my readers are people who live in this world, and I don’t write fantasy for escape. Quite the opposite. I write so that readers can explore ways to confront real world problems by appreciating them from another angle. Perhaps a form of “think outside the box”, which is why I just love the epic fantasy genre.
There is nothing off limits for me, because I don’t write to prove anything. I write to ask questions, to explore questions, to unearth truths. Really, when I write, the story is teaching me as much as it will eventually teach those who read it. I’m digging through the dirt, pulling up buried artifacts, worms, and more dirt. It’s really quite a collection I come up with, and ask me, that’s the best kind of storytelling.
Terrorism is a relevant issue to me, because it’s a relevant issue in the world in which I live. So is oppression. So is hypocrisy. It is no surprise then that these have all factored into the fabric of my story world. We live in a world of people who think one thing, say another, and do something completely different. We live in a world where art and the beauty of art and expression is perhaps the greatest liberating force and yet it is far from discovering its true potential. Artists–writers being their vanguard, I’d say–can change the world more than any politician ever can. They are the fire-breathing dragons of the collective human unconscious, leveling the cities and empires put together by human habit. They are dreamers who know no bounds, who refuse to let the world groan in the same, repetitive machinations of industry, day-to-day humdrum, and the supposed cage of the human condition. They see beyond, and dare us to push into the dark, where the richest light awaits.
Ask me, there’s nothing I’m afraid to write about. Whatever comes out of that dirt, it comes out, and when it’s not pretty, my truest hope is that looking at it will create deeper understanding, if nothing else.
Ah, so very beautiful, John. I love your dirt-worm-artifact analogy. It’s beautiful and so fitting as it’s very difficult for anything to grow without wormy dirt. Orchids, I suppose, don’t need dirt, but how fragile they are!
I can’t wait too read your book. I have no doubt it will illuminate or at least explore both pain and beauty.
Thank you, thank you, for these ideas.
;)
Hi SC,
thank you for the insight of feelings of real events and the possible consequences of those! I often wonder what I could say or do that would make me feel less responsible or at least regrettable in real time of 9/11/2001.
I walked through the lobby of the WTC that morning at 745AM. I had taken the PATH train from Newark as I did daily — one hour before the world felt like Armageddon had appeared. My office is 2 blocks from ground zero.
A wondrous cognitive human had built a replica of our office across the Hudson in Jersey City a year earlier in the event of a brownout or disaster in the Financial District. When the first “accident” crashed into the tower, we were immediately evacuated(5 minutes) … hustled down to the ferry… where we watched hell pass above .. the second plane hit while the ferry was in the middle of the river. The things I saw and heard on the way to safety will never leave me. The thought of writing details about that day paralyze me.. not many are able to utter more than a few soft, mournful words…
As much as I love to write of unusual places and offbeat themes.. it is clearly off base for me..
I’ll fulfill the promise I made that day. I give myself the the Creator and give thanks so many survived.
Peace to all!
Thank you, Ralph. Your experience gave me chills and tears. What a horrific thing to experience (as so many New Yorkers did).
I read an interesting article about post 9/11 art. Some say that fiction is such a difficult way to capture the details of that event. This person (whoever he was) claimed that visual art and music provided a more appropriate medium to explore the emotion and experience of that day. I don’t know that I agree, but there is something to that, I think. Is it possible that writing fiction about the events that day confine us? I don’t know . . . I often think that fiction frees us, that its “nothing is off limits” quality allows us to have total freedom of expression. And of course it does. But IS there something limiting about fiction when it deals with a topic this large and incomprehensible? Is music or visual art less confining? I wonder.
Thank you for this story. It’s equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful.
Sarah, this is wonderful. Over the years, I’ve struggled with using real life traumas (such as 9/11) in my fiction, even as a “signpost” like the commenter above suggested. Am I exploiting it, I wonder, am I dishonoring those who died by using the events of that day as a part of a major turning point for my protagonist?
My current work in progress involves a mixed race couple trying to navigate the racial tension in their high school after an unarmed black teen is shot by a white police officer. At first, I used the actual shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, as the background for the story. But as I wrote the rough draft, I felt that I was exploiting this young man’s death and being disrespectful to others involved, both white and black. It’s too raw, too confusing, too painful. While I wanted the shooting to influence the story, I didn’t want it as the focus of it. So I changed many, many aspects of it, names, setting, circumstances, and gave the black teen a personal link with the dead man. I hope that this is a change for the better. It is difficult for me, a white person, to write about interracial romance and racism.