December 30th, 2009 / 11:30 pm
Craft Notes & Random

Don’t write about this please…

Holidays are fun. By fun, I mean unpleasant.

I always find it funny that especially during the holidays, people remind (ask) me not to recount what’s happened in a book. Sure, I get it: my first two books (the only ones in print) have autobiographical elements, so of course, people would be “worried” I may write about them.

But when it comes down to it, isn’t this more than a little egotistical? People are worried that by virtue of me being around them, I’ll naturally find them or their lives so compelling that I’d want to chronicle it in a future book.

I recently had this conversation with Shane Jones about all this. We talked about how everyone (by which we both meant family) thinks they can find themselves in our characters. So I ask you this:

  • How often do you really steal from real life?
  • Do you worry about other writers putting you in their stories? (I’ve heard horror stories about this!)
  • Where is the line drawn between fiction & fiction?

    It’s funny because I had this quasi-embarrassing situation arise between myself & another writer a while back & my first response was: “Please don’t write about this!” Why is this the most natural reaction? I’m totally guilty of my own criticism…

    40 Comments

    1. Lincoln

        What about when fellow writers ask you to read/edit a piece and one of the characters is totally you and the writer is harping on some minor thing you did but suddenly it is some horrible ordeal in this supposedly fictional story?

        Geez, excuuuuuuuse me.

    2. Lincoln

        What about when fellow writers ask you to read/edit a piece and one of the characters is totally you and the writer is harping on some minor thing you did but suddenly it is some horrible ordeal in this supposedly fictional story?

        Geez, excuuuuuuuse me.

    3. Paul

        “once you start writing, it all becomes fiction” – todd solondz

    4. Paul

        “once you start writing, it all becomes fiction” – todd solondz

    5. Donnie Wahlberg

        “Be careful what you say to writers, it might end up as writing.” – Leonard Michaels

    6. Donnie Wahlberg

        “Be careful what you say to writers, it might end up as writing.” – Leonard Michaels

    7. Mike

        Isn’t it equally egotistical to think that people want to read about your “autobiographical” escapades?

    8. Mike

        Isn’t it equally egotistical to think that people want to read about your “autobiographical” escapades?

    9. MoGa

        Conversely, I cringe when people think they know you, the writer, so well, they have insider knowledge on something you wrote, what it really means, what it must mean because they know you better than you know yourself. It’s just weird.

    10. MoGa

        Conversely, I cringe when people think they know you, the writer, so well, they have insider knowledge on something you wrote, what it really means, what it must mean because they know you better than you know yourself. It’s just weird.

    11. Laura van den Berg

        I’m usually not aware that I’m drawing from life until later when I look back at something and see that it really *is* X person or whatever. I do think anything is fair game, though, and while I can’t imagine someone thinking something I said/did/etc would be interesting enough to put in a story, maybe I’d be kind of flattered that they thought some action of mine was noteworthy enough to commit to paper, even if the portrayal was unflattering? Or am I just saying that because, far as I know, I’ve never been some horrendously unflattering portrayal of myself in print?

    12. Laura van den Berg

        I’m usually not aware that I’m drawing from life until later when I look back at something and see that it really *is* X person or whatever. I do think anything is fair game, though, and while I can’t imagine someone thinking something I said/did/etc would be interesting enough to put in a story, maybe I’d be kind of flattered that they thought some action of mine was noteworthy enough to commit to paper, even if the portrayal was unflattering? Or am I just saying that because, far as I know, I’ve never been some horrendously unflattering portrayal of myself in print?

    13. Father Luke

        Jim Knipfel has a great story. He talks about how everything you write about anyone will be read by them.

        He wrote a column about a job interview he had lined up with a pair of greasy, numb-nuted, shit bags. Guess what the interviewers were reading when he showed up for the interview?

        On the other hand, then there is Doonesbury and Hunter S. Thompson, via Uncle Duke.

        Meh. Short of suing, there’s not a whole lot to be done. Tagging something memoir lifts that onus, usually. However, Jennifer Lauck got into trouble with her memoir writing.

        Basically? Joke ’em if they can’t take a fuck. Seriously.

        – –
        Okay,
        Father Luke

    14. Father Luke

        Jim Knipfel has a great story. He talks about how everything you write about anyone will be read by them.

        He wrote a column about a job interview he had lined up with a pair of greasy, numb-nuted, shit bags. Guess what the interviewers were reading when he showed up for the interview?

        On the other hand, then there is Doonesbury and Hunter S. Thompson, via Uncle Duke.

        Meh. Short of suing, there’s not a whole lot to be done. Tagging something memoir lifts that onus, usually. However, Jennifer Lauck got into trouble with her memoir writing.

        Basically? Joke ’em if they can’t take a fuck. Seriously.

        – –
        Okay,
        Father Luke

    15. Morgan Atwood

        I steal from real life all the time. It never stays the same, as was quoted, it all becomes fiction. My life may be no more interesting than anyone else’s, but things that happen in it make good story elements at times – As do characters I meet. Thats where I do it the most, I steal people. I ask you how, when my true life cowboy friend tells me, in perfect Western drawl, about winning at the rodeo, picking up a hooker, smoking rock with her, and then getting so weirded out when his leg brushed his bud’s while they were both nailing her, he spent the rest of the night sleeping in his pickup before driving back to his wife and kids, how am I not supposed to steal that? Not whole cloth, but the idea, the spirit, the nature, the everything contained in that. It’s the perfect story about my world. That is my favorite story. It, like everything else, ends up woven into the tapestry of narrative. Somewhere, some how.

        I’ve also used stealing people as a weapon. I had a particularly nasty encounter with a nurse several years ago when a family member was critically ill in the hospital. It ended up in a poem, and I gave said nurse a copy, hand-written there in the hospital. And it did what I intended it to do, being so far outside the expect hateful screaming, nasty cursing letter, it got past her guard, and was devastating, at least in the moment. I’d be a better person if that didn’t make me smile, right now, but I’m not. And that will, somehow, end up in a story as well.

        Do I care if someone writes about me? Nah, knock yourself the f*ck out. Even if its terrible, even if that awful thing they say is true. I’ve done awful things, I’ve done great things, I was present for them all and can’t deny it, if it makes a good fiction, okay.
        Do people bug me asking me not to write about them? No more than they do with most other inanity that will leave me judging them for the narcissistic oxygen thieves they are. No one I’ve ever given a damn about has asked me that, so I guess I’ll deal with that when it comes up. Till then… You’re all in my writing. All of you. If I’ve met you, you’re there. Happy? Cool. Now go away, I’m writing.

    16. Morgan Atwood

        I steal from real life all the time. It never stays the same, as was quoted, it all becomes fiction. My life may be no more interesting than anyone else’s, but things that happen in it make good story elements at times – As do characters I meet. Thats where I do it the most, I steal people. I ask you how, when my true life cowboy friend tells me, in perfect Western drawl, about winning at the rodeo, picking up a hooker, smoking rock with her, and then getting so weirded out when his leg brushed his bud’s while they were both nailing her, he spent the rest of the night sleeping in his pickup before driving back to his wife and kids, how am I not supposed to steal that? Not whole cloth, but the idea, the spirit, the nature, the everything contained in that. It’s the perfect story about my world. That is my favorite story. It, like everything else, ends up woven into the tapestry of narrative. Somewhere, some how.

        I’ve also used stealing people as a weapon. I had a particularly nasty encounter with a nurse several years ago when a family member was critically ill in the hospital. It ended up in a poem, and I gave said nurse a copy, hand-written there in the hospital. And it did what I intended it to do, being so far outside the expect hateful screaming, nasty cursing letter, it got past her guard, and was devastating, at least in the moment. I’d be a better person if that didn’t make me smile, right now, but I’m not. And that will, somehow, end up in a story as well.

        Do I care if someone writes about me? Nah, knock yourself the f*ck out. Even if its terrible, even if that awful thing they say is true. I’ve done awful things, I’ve done great things, I was present for them all and can’t deny it, if it makes a good fiction, okay.
        Do people bug me asking me not to write about them? No more than they do with most other inanity that will leave me judging them for the narcissistic oxygen thieves they are. No one I’ve ever given a damn about has asked me that, so I guess I’ll deal with that when it comes up. Till then… You’re all in my writing. All of you. If I’ve met you, you’re there. Happy? Cool. Now go away, I’m writing.

    17. rachel a.

        — Everything I write is stolen from life, then abstracted and negotiated until it conforms to my moral comfort level.

        –Let people write what they want, while you focus on your mic skills.

        — The line’s drawn wherever the writing starts to smell like revenge.

    18. rachel a.

        — Everything I write is stolen from life, then abstracted and negotiated until it conforms to my moral comfort level.

        –Let people write what they want, while you focus on your mic skills.

        — The line’s drawn wherever the writing starts to smell like revenge.

    19. Clapper

        I steal from real life, and have had my real life stolen from. It resulted, at one point, in a mini-flame war, but… fuck it–I’m not going to create a second human person from scratch to have experiences from which to write.

    20. Clapper

        I steal from real life, and have had my real life stolen from. It resulted, at one point, in a mini-flame war, but… fuck it–I’m not going to create a second human person from scratch to have experiences from which to write.

    21. Paul

        nah

    22. Paul

        nah

    23. El Dangerouso

        I love this interactive stuff!

    24. El Dangerouso

        I love this interactive stuff!

    25. Paul

        you say that a lot

    26. Paul

        you say that a lot

    27. Stu

        Truer words man… truer words.

    28. Stu

        Truer words man… truer words.

    29. Paul

        stuart krimko?

    30. Paul

        stuart krimko?

    31. Stu

        Stuart González.

    32. Stu

        Stuart González.

    33. Paul

        my bad

    34. Paul

        my bad

    35. Lily Hoang

        Nabokov says: Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult both to art & truth.

    36. Lily Hoang

        Nabokov says: Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult both to art & truth.

    37. Sean

        lay off the nurses.

    38. Sean

        lay off the nurses.

    39. reginsa

        I love this painting – who is the artist?

    40. reginsa

        I love this painting – who is the artist?