Stealing Lives?
By Catherine McKenzie | September 30, 2015 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Bill Devlin
I think I’ve mentioned here before how surprised I was when my first novel (Spin, about a journalist who follows a celebrity into rehab) came out and people automatically assumed that I’d based my main character on myself. That, at a minimum, I’d either been to rehab or had seriously considered it, or, at the limit, that I was a journalist who’d actually gone into rehab undercover. I still maintain that Stephen King never gets asked these questions, but I know why people do: write what you know. If people have only ever heard one thing about about writing, they’ve heard that. And while I think people confuse that saying for “write about yourself,” that’s another conversation.
For many reasons, I’ve always steered clear of writing either about me or people I know. One reason is that I don’t think I’m very good at capturing the essence of real people on paper. That sounds odd, doesn’t it? But bear with me. In each of my first two novels, there is a minor, walk-on character that is based on someone I met briefly. Their personalities were so larger-than-life that I just had to stick them in there, somewhere. I think they are hilarious and I purposively crafted scenes around them. But in both instances, I’ve had people mention them as the only characters they didn’t find believable in the book. This puzzled me for many years, until I finally figured it out: I hadn’t done the work. Because they existed, I hadn’t fleshed them out. They were 2-D versions of real people, and so they seemed as flat as the page.
[pullquote]I’ve always steered clear of writing either about me or people I know.[/pullquote]
All that being said, of course sometimes things slip in subconsciously—things people have told me, things I’ve seen, stories I’ve heard. And then, sometimes, real life provides a spark that I run with. That happened with my soon to be released novel, Smoke. Which is what got me thinking about this all over again.
I’ve been going to a fantastic writer’s conference in Jackson Hole every summer since 2010. I feel in love with the place, and made many good friends. Three years ago, they had a terrible fire season. There were already bad fires when I was there in June; when I climbed to the top of the local hill, I saw a stack of smoke that looked like a bomb had gone off. In September, a man who was burning some trash in a barrel—despite there being a zillion fire warnings in place—started a massive fire that raged for weeks and threatened the town. People I knew had to move out of their houses. Others were watching flames from their front porch. It was a tense time that I watched closely, signing up for fire updates and obsessively reading the daily briefings from the fire officials.
I guess part of me was already thinking of writing about it because I had this line that was stuck in my head: the things that get lost in the fire. But I put it away because that seemed to be too close to home. I didn’t want to benefit from the stress and anxiety of my friends. Although many of them are writers themselves, and would surely understand if they felt that they saw themselves in the pages of my book, I still held back.
Though the danger passed, the idea stayed with me. It took hold. It grew. You might say that it started a fire in me. I felt like I had to write the book. But how to do that without basing myself on my friends’ experiences?
In that kind of circumstance, how do you avoid stealing a life?
Perhaps I’m wrong to worry about this. Ultimately, every character I write is some amalgam of my experiences and my imagination, which is fueled by my experience. If someone reads a book and sees themselves in it, isn’t that what art is?
At least, that’s what I’ll be telling my friends when they ask.
[coffee]
A graduate of McGill University in History and Law, Catherine McKenzie practices law in Montreal, where she was born and raised. An avid skier and runner, Catherine is the author of 11 bestselling novels, including HIDDEN, THE GOOD LIAR, I’LL NEVER TELL and YOU CAN’T CATCH ME. Her most recent novel, SIX WEEKS TO LIVE, releases in Canada April 20 and the US May 4, 2021.
Yes, we do build our characters based on the people we’ve met. This is a natural extension of our our personalities, which are built by the millions of interractions we’ve made during our lifetimes. It is one reason why it’s so much harder to write a novel when you’re young. You simply don’t have enough pieces of other people floating around inside your brain.
I agree, by the way, that using one human as a model for a character is difficult at best. If you think about the way we come to know a character in a novel we’re reading, it is always from the inside out. Some authors don’t describe physical characteristics for that reason. We tend to envision a character based on personality, no doubt subconsciously attaching the face of someone we’ve known during our own lives.
Characters, like people, are not defined by their appearance or a five minute snapshot of their lives. We all become who we are over decades of tears and laughter, and the span of emotions that fills the gap. We must build characters in the same fashion. In a sense, it’s a bit of a minor miracle that we are able to do so at all, given that we can only gather a tiny percentage of our character’s life into a five page Scrivener file.
Thanks for the post. I love it when you guys make me think.
Thanks, Ron! What a thoughtful response.
I make an effort in my writing not to base characters or scenes on people or events in my life. However, when I go back and read my work, I realize my characters often reflect my hopes, dreams, aspirations, and fears. It must be the subconscious at work. I agree with what Ron stated so well above, that we are the sum total of our experiences, so naturally ‘who we are’ will come out on the page through the characters we create. Real events are a legitimate source of inspiration for all writers. The challenge is what we do with them and how we craft a story around real emotions and experiences. Catherine, thanks for this thought-provoking piece.
Catherine,
I sometimes worry about my current wip — wondering if people will think it’s about me (which, it isn’t) — because it draws from a lifetime of my experiences and encounters with others. My protagonist is not me, nor is the family mine. But as you said, to flesh out a character, you have to do the work. So when I pull a character from a real-life person, I give them all the superficial characteristics I see (or know) and then create a history to give them depth. Notice I said, “create a history.” I have no idea if it is even close to what the actual person went through, but with thorough research and probable cause and effect, I make whatever their backstory a plausible reason for their current state of being.
Neil Gaiman, in the acknowledgements of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, states this as such:
“The family in this book is not my family, who have been gracious in letting me plunder the landscape of my own childhood and watched as I liberally reshaped those places into a story. I’m grateful to them all, especially to my youngest sister, Lizzy, who encouraged me and sent me long-forgotten memory-jogging photographs. (I wish I’d remembered the old greenhouse in time to put it into the book.)”
We plunder the landscapes of our childhoods and reshape those places (and people) into a story. I like that and therefore, I steal away.
Thanks for a great article.
Thanks! Interesting quote from Neil Gaiman.
Wow, major flashbulbs are going off in my head. I love this:
“Because they existed, I hadn’t fleshed them out. They were 2-D versions of real people, and so they seemed as flat as the page.”
I love it because whether you’re stealing from life or not it’s the bottom line of what we need to do as writers—excavate, let our imaginations loose in the wilderness in order to figure out what makes the characters that flicker, pop. If they don’t pop they’ll never stir enough conflict with the other characters populating the story.
This was one of my biggest problems early on. I thought all I needed to do was transfer the film in my head onto the page. Well, you do and you don’t. We need to translate what we see in our head to the page, but we need to write from a place that we DON’T See—write from inside the character’s locked closet or attic.
Thanks, Catherine. There’s nothing like a great flashbulb moment to start your writing day!
Thanks, Jocosa! Great advice.
This struck close to home, because my town had two massive forest fires a year apart. Hundreds and hundreds of people lost their homes. Last night, I was invited to a book club and one of the women looked familiar. She said, “Oh, it was just that I was on the news a lot. We lost everything in the Waldo fire.” I told my husband that this morning and he said, “Isn’t there always someone who lost everything in one of the fires when you go to book clubs?” Which gives you a sense of the scope of how enormous the losses were.
The fires really obsessed me and traumatized me, and yet, I haven’t been able to write about them at all except in the smallest ways–a column, journals. I documented the Waldo fire before, during, and after, and donated my blogs and photos to the library, but that’s it. I thought I might eventually write a novel with fire at the center–it’s a universal experience in the west in these days of extreme drought and climate shift–but I really don’t know if it ever will happen.
Because it’s too close, as you say here. It’s just too much, too many feelings, too many thoughts and, maybe–a kind of PTSD.
I know what you mean about co-opting lives in stories–we all worry about that. (I once wrote a story about a woman who survived one of those hideous teenage car accidents, because I couldn’t get over an accident in my neighborhood, thinking about the lone girl survivor. Some people were horrified when they discovered the inspiration, but I stand by it.) But I also suspect it takes a little bit of distance to write well about a subject–either time, or as in your case, a physical distance with emotional engagement.
Interesting topic. Didn’t mean to run on so, but it struck a cord.
Thanks for sharing your story, Barbara!
I work hard not to write any of my characters based on people I’ve met, worked with, like or love. Even if a character would be based on someone who, in real life, had done good for someone or for society, I try not to do so. Obviously, if I write a character with bad traits who I’ve based on someone I know, I could get the stuffing sued out of me – and lose. I’ve also read that doing so based on someone with positive traits, the same could happen because some people just don’t want to find out they’ve been put into print.
I teach two writing classes and, for every class, I’ve cautioned my students to be mindful that they write their characters completely from their imaginations.
If I were to write a character based on a real-life person, I would also have a hard time doing so, because “show, don’t tell” is a huge issue for me. Thus, my decision to develop characters solely from my imagination comes from those two issues.
Interesting points, Barbara. I’m not sure that’s right about the lawsuits, though … you can’t copyright your personality! :)
Excellent post!
Fleshing out characters can be tricky. In the past, I plowed through first drafts and didn’t look back until editing for the first time. I’m halfway through writing a new book and have begun to go back to fill in some of my characters. I worried that some of their voices were starting to sound alike. So far, I like this process better.
Given your character’s background, I can see where the questions could become awkward. In my speculative suspense series, I loosely based the ghostly encounters on the ones in my own life. (I know!) I’m ready to take those questions. I even think it could be a selling point.
Recently, the idea for a book came to me in a flash just like yours. I saw someone while biking on Nantucket Island two weeks ago and POW! It’s all about the inspiration. I wrote a post about it yesterday.
Catherine, your post resonated as my fourth novel released this month and I used wildfire as a metaphor for adultery. As a native Californian, I’ve watched a record-breaking wildfire season unfold and claim the homes and lives of dear people. I’ve wondered how to promote my novel with sensitivity to those devastated by the fires. Whether I’m creating characters based on those I’ve encountered or using circumstances and settings I’m familiar with, I always ponder the question: Am I using this for personal gain? If the answer comes with the niggling sense that I’m seeking to gain something for myself, then it’s time to change my plan. It’s a delicate balance. Thank you for your post. I look forward to reading Smoke. Off to pre-order a copy…
Thanks, Ginny! Yes, it is so delicate to know how to market a book in those circumstances! I do not want to benefit from other’s tragedies. Hope you enjoy the book.
HI, Catherine:
I’m actually a proponent of using people in your life as source material for characters. That’s because they’ve made a clear enough impression on you to be memorable (and that’s where many characters come from: memory), and yet they also at least in some way mystify you, because you know, whether you want to admit it or not, that you don’t know everything about them.
The way out of feeling like you’re a thief (or a vampire, another metaphor I’ve heard used), is to keep in mind you’re dealing with your own memory — or imagination, as you’ve rightly noted. Whatever inner impressions you’re dealing with are shaped by your own inclinations, insights, biases, etc. Own that. Be responsible for it.
The second is to remain humble and remember that you don’t know everything about the real people you’re basing your characters on, and you owe it both to those people and your characters to keep an open mind.
My latest novel was based on events in my home town, and thus the lives of real people. But in each instance I asked additional questions — what if THIS had happened instead of what ACTUALLY happened — and that helped transform both the characters and the story.
I have an idea you novel will be great. See you in rehab.
Thanks! Great advice.
Thank you, Catherine. You have put very well the dilemma writers so often face, what Mike Swift tellingly calls the “plundering” of people, places, things.
In my work, I avoid writing about people I know, but not because I have a high scruples quotient. It’s because every time I’ve tried it, like you I turned out to be “not very good at capturing the essence of real people on paper.” I get mired in detail, in trying to produce an accurate record rather than an effective character in a story. Picking and choosing as I go, from the hoarder’s treasure trove of scattered remembered detail seems to work better for me.
Correction: as Mike Swift quotes Neil Gaiman as tellingly calling…etc.
Catherine-
Your problem with stealing is…?
Good grief, without families and friends to draw from would we have any literature at all? Everyone steals. The only real danger is sticking too closely to a fixed idea of a character. They do need to breathe on their own.
Then again, now that we’re talking, there is the slight risk of actually and knowingly defaming a real and living person, writing them in such a way that everyone in the world recognizes them and concludes that the real life person is heinous since, you know, you turned them into fiction. Can happen. Then you’d have a problem, so don’t do that.
But really, there’s little danger here except the moderate discomfort of some insecure friends and family feeling they’ve been exposed. Pfft. Too bad. And remember, the life you steal from is overwhelmingly your own.
The characters in my first novel are loosely based on a couple I met in my work as a nurse, a composite of many others I met living through the same experience – Alzheimer’s. I’m often referred to as an Alzheimer’s caregiver – I am not – and asked if I have personal experience with a loved one with this disease – only from afar. I’m told I ” got it right.” As a nurse I am the holder of many stories, stories about the human experience. I feel obligated to tell these stories, obviously without breaking any privacy or confidentiality laws. So while the characters may not be replicas of actual people, the stories are real.
Thanks for this post. Writing is always about exposure and risk comes with that. We are either revealing something we experienced or someone close to us or the fact that we are building on the lives of others. Nothing new under the sun. It’s all in the creative process.
That’s an interesting point of view. In spite of the usual disclaimer, several of the recurring characters in my mystery series are clearly recognizable to my friends and family as inspired by people in my life. In a way, I feel that I am keeping them alive in my stories, as several of them have passed on. And I think it helps me to maintain consistency in the character through the series, as sometimes I ask myself, ‘What would X have done or said in this situation?’ Not only that, for me it makes writing more fun!
Other characters are amalgams of people I’ve met. I might not even remember their names, but again, pinning them to real people helps me keep the fictional character in character, so to speak.
As for myself, remember Alfred Hitchcock and his cameos? I only allow myself short ‘walk on’ parts!
I don’t “steal” lives. I just sort of borrow them. I change the names, of course, to protect myself. But people who know me might recognize themselves in some of my stories. Many of these tales involve supernatural or gothic elements. While I’ve never lived in a haunted house or (knowingly) come face-to-face with a serial killer, the characters are often based on people I’ve known or met in the past. That makes them more realistic and believable to the readers. There are plenty of stories with outlandish, larger-than-life figures. But the ones with more plausible characters surreptitiously work their way into readers’ minds and often stay a while.
As far as Stephen King goes, I think readers/viewers find characters in his stories that they believe are based on Stephen King, himself. These are usually male leads who are teachers or writers of some kind. I once read an article by a reporter who wrote that she could find a Stephen King-ish person in all of his stories.
If the Stephen King-ish character is talking about how sorry he is for having cheated on his wife, the reader thinks this is probably based on Stephen King’s own guilt over having cheated on his wife. etc. If Stephen King writes about a character being hounded by a ghost, it is really based on Stephen King being addicted to drugs.. Even Stephen King is not exempt from reader assumptions about writers and how much reality is contained in their stories.
(I think all of us write pieces of ourselves in everything we write, whether we intend to or not.)
It is the assumption that characters are based on people I know and events are based on real events that makes me hesitant to show my writing to my wife or others who are close to me (ridiculous, of course, given that I’m hoping these will turn into books that will be readable by anybody!). A few times, she’s given me the eye and wondered what it is I’m trying to say!
I used to worry about this issue when I first started writing. I feared that the people around me would think I might use them as source material and become self-conscious and guarded. However, once I realized how much transformation had to occur between inspiration and page, all coming from my imagination, I ceased to worry.
Of course, then I had to go and write a memoir, so that now my faithful readers often assume that my fictional protagonists are actually me, despite all indications to the contrary.