Does Art Have to Imitate Life?
By Catherine McKenzie | July 19, 2016 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Cameron Strandberg
Readers of my posts here have perhaps heard me complain about this before—the assumption that every book that I write is somehow based on some personal experience. I’ve never understood why this is so often the assumption of writers of a certain kind of fiction (I say a certain kind because, surely, Stephen King does not get asked whether he actually had a possessed car, or travelled through a wormhole to try to stop the Kennedy assassination). Is it because people don’t think writers of commercial/contemporary or literary fiction have an imagination? Is it because many people’s first novels are, at least in part, semi-autobiographical? Is it because of that old trope: write what you know?
I have built some defense mechanisms to this question over the years. If my books were all really about me, I tell people who ask now, then I would have had a pretty interesting life: a stint in rehab to get the inside scoop on a celebrity, followed by an arranged marriage, then getting lost in Africa for six months and having everyone assume I was dead, then an affair with a married man and finally a stint as a wildland firefight/arson investigator in a small town in the Rockies. I get tired just making that list!
But really, perhaps the better question is: why does it bother me that people make that assumption? Of course there is something of me in each of my books. My experiences, my opinions, my voice as a writer are all in there. My name is on the cover, for goodness sake. So why, why does it bug me?
I am a private person. I am married to an even more private person. And being an artist these days—any kind of artist—means cracking open at least part of your life and putting it out there via social media. Look what I ate today for lunch! Look where I went paddle-boarding! Looking at this silly sign I found. Here’s what I think about this year’s election. I participate in all of this—partly because I feel that I have to—but it does leave one feeling exposed. And writing is an exposure of a different sort. It is cracking ones emotions open and infusing them on the page. Characters feel real in fiction because they are infused with the time the writer puts into them. They live with us, beside us, in our heads, and sometimes seem more real than the people we are standing next to. And then we hit Send and let them go out into the world.
If I admitted, if I confirmed, that this event, or that, this turn of phrase or thought, was precisely what I thought and felt at a specific moment in time, then what would I be admitting about myself? What would people know about me? And would that increase or decrease the enjoyment of the reader?
I myself prefer the mystery. When I know too much about a writer—Jonathan Franzen, say—it infects the work. A book should stand on its own, outside the author. If it is any good, it should be enjoyed regardless of the name on the cover. Shouldn’t it?
I am not sure if I am trying to convince you, or myself. But there is this:
My upcoming novel, Fractured, has a main character named Julie Apple who is a writer who had a book blow up (imagine Gillian Flynn after Gone Girl). The book, The Murder Game, is about four law school friends who plan a perfect murder, and then maybe commit it ten years later. People assume that the book is based on events in Julie’s life (a mysterious death of a friend in law school). This brings her all kinds of unwanted attention and she moves her family across country to get away from it all. That is the set up for the book, and yes, I admit, a way, perhaps to give some backstory to a character and work out my own frustration.
What I am going with this? Well, the other day, someone posted this review of Fractured on their book blog:
Catherine McKenzie has crafted a fascinating psychological thriller. The characters in this book are so believable that readers will be forced to wonder if any (or all of them) are based on real people.
And that my friends, is called being hoisted by your own petard.
So, what about you? Do you assume that fiction is based on real life? What about in your own writing? Are you writing thinly veiled memoir or do you deliberately leave your life out of your fiction? Let me know!
[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.
One of the reasons I have always been hesitant to share my writing with the people closest to me (wife, children) is that I know I’ll get that look, and they’ll be worrying about whether they should be worrying about me.
And I have to say, I completely agree with you: quite often, the less we know about our favorite authors/singers/actors, etc., the better.
Best of luck with your newest book–it sounds quite interesting!
Thanks so much!
Catherine–I enjoy reading your posts, and this one is no exception. Your vehicle today for promoting your new book is real vs imagined life, or thinly veiled autobiography–personal experience– vs “pure” fiction.
This issue vexes you, but as a fellow writer, I’ve never understood the problem. EVERYTHING a writer puts down is “personal experience.” Whether what gets written is based on something that took place in time and space hardly matters: before it gets typed, it’s in the form (if that’s the word) of mental perception, which then becomes specific language. Had someone else been the writer working with the same material, his or her language would be different.
It’s like interviewing multiple witnesses to an accident, and getting different stories. Which one is real, which is Memorex (that’s for older readers)?
It’s a good thing art doesn’t imitate life in the strictest sense–just one paragraph based on my life and the reader would throw the book away, bored stiff! 8-)
As a reader, I do believe some part of the author’s world view can’t help but show through their fiction, no matter what they are writing about. But I don’t jump to the conclusion they’re writing about themselves.
That said, I can see how a reader *might* be prone to make that assumption in certain types of fiction–especially contemporary fiction.
I don’t like to share my more serious work for just this reason. A lot of my family know I struggle with depression, so I fear they’ll connect that to my suicidal character and worry about my mental health, especially when combined with a strained father-daughter relationship much like my own (even though both of those things were needed for the plot). When I finally shared that novella with family, it came with a disclaimer and an explanation of why some things are in the book. But I know I can’t control what people think of me, and it doesn’t matter what strangers think in the end. I just hope they enjoy my work.
“Life imitates art.” – Oscar Wilde
Catherine,
I’m with Barry this morning on this, and as usual he says it better than my best self could. I tell readers, “Yep, I wrote every word of it. That sex? I made love to her. (To him, too.) That murder, I saw it. I held the gun, felt it go off. Wiped the blood off my face. It tasted a bit like iron. All you have to do, Dear Reader, if it intrigues you so, is to find the evidence. Did I do all this? Or did people like you hand it to me so well that all I had to do was write it and just change the names.”
Interesting essay, Catherine. I must say, this is one of the great benefits of writing epic historical fantasy. I seriously doubt that any readers might believe that I was forced to kill my father with his sword to make his inevitable death honorable. And that short but obvious flight into the fantastic just may keep them from wondering about whether or not I, like my protagonist, struggled with feelings of unworthiness in the eyes of my father.
In other words, historical work offers its own distance and armor. And hopefully the immersion allows readers to find their own layers of applicability. Well, hopefully. I’ll let you know how it works out in reality. Thanks for the insight and the provocation.
My first published short story was about being buried alive for 24 hours, but I haven’t done that… yet…
That is probably a good decision!
Hi, Catherine:
Perhaps my favorite writing advice is this from Eudora Welty (paraphrasing): Write what you don’t know about what you know.
Yes, we all start from a baseline of personal experience — emotional truth if not situational truth, setting details, etc. We expand from that via discovery and imagination.
I think this need to assume that fiction must be based exclusively on personal experience is a neurosis for which we currently lack a name.
Thanks for the intriguing post. Now go make something up. You have our permission. :-)
There’s a tremendous amount of me in my manuscripts, but I also make up a lot of stuff, too. So when people ask me whether or not this part is me, I can lie if I want to :)
Your book sounds fascinating, can’t wait to read!
Great post and the comments, Catherine, are nicely rounding out your statements: love Eudora Welty, Write what you don’t know about what you know. That and the impetus for your latest work: That is the set up for the book, and yes, I admit, a way, perhaps to give some backstory to a character and work out my own frustration. Bottom line: maybe only those who write fiction get the tightrope we walk–an exciting life of adventure, romance, crime-fighting and survival all while sitting in a chair at a desk. Wishing you well with your new “life” ah, book.
Yup, my short stories have some of my family members asking me whether *this* really happened. Um, no. But of course I borrow from real life. When life gives me such interesting people and situations to ponder, how can I not? It’s funny, as a child I was told not to make up stories and now I can do it to my heart’s content and be paid to do it too :)
Catherine, I find such comments a little frustrating too. The worst was from my critique group where one person kept referring to my protagonist as “you”, conflating me with the protagonist. To be fair, my previous work, which they had generously worked through with me over the course of several years, was a memoir. Habits die hard . . .
Reading fiction I always assume that, like my own work, it may be a reflection of the author’s state of mind, thoughts, concerns, etc. but not a description of her actual experiences. Of course, we’re giving up a little of our privacy just admitting that these are experiences we have imagined.
This is something I think about a lot. It’s interesting for me because I’ve written things of varying levels of “true” to me: a poetry memoir, the same memoir remixed with myth, stories that were essentially creative nonfiction, stories that were essentially me in fictional scenarios, vice-versa, and stories that had little to do with me at all. I say “little” because, like you said, I think at least a little of ourselves goes into everything we write. I mean, even which stories we decide to write tells something of us, doesn’t it?
I, too, have used the examples of vastly different scenarios and settings as rebuttal when someone asks or implies that a character is me. I write a lot of horror, so I’ve come up with some amusing comebacks. “Yes, this was inspired by the time a creepy scorpion person followed me home.” Silly stuff like that to deflect. But ultimately I’ve come to realize that they are deflections. Situational differences doesn’t negate the character resonance; I really am, in some way, in most if not all of my characters. I think maybe we all are. Courtesy, though, is to pretend that’s not true. ;) Things get stickier when we intentionally take parts of ourselves and blend them with traits that aren’t ours. I get worried people will assume a character is ALL me if they recognize parts of me.
Interesting that you think realistic fiction is the worst about this. I’ve witnessed romance to be. Maybe it’s because people tend to keep their sex lives so private, but readers absolutely assume that a sex scene on the page is a representation of the author. If a romance author writes a certain style/subgenre, readers assume it’s because she personally fits into that style. Hell, a few years ago I wrote a *review* of 50 Shades of Grey and people assumed I must be in the scene myself to have thought some of it was sexy. Likewise, I can have a story about mutant vampires, but throw in a husband and my readers are going to believe that part is about *my* husband, you know? Interesting stuff, and great topic!
It depends on how you interpret what the reviewer is saying. When I write similar comments in reviews the point I am trying to make is how realistic the characters are. It’s a compliment to the author, as opposed to assuming the reviewer thinks you really did plan and commit a murder in RL.
We all read things through our own frame of references.