Writing about "What Really Happened"

New writers often tap autobiographical material, writing short stories, novels, poems or memoirs. Three of those forms claim to be fiction. Memoir holds itself out as non-fiction. Yet, the line between fiction and non-fiction blurs easily – a fact revealed painfully to Jonathan Frantzen, author of A Million Little Pieces. His “memoir” turned out to be a cleverly written novel. This sin cost him a tongue lashing from Oprah on national television. Ouch! The same sin in reverse, passing off memoir as fiction, usually draws only a knowing wink or a mild rebuke.

With a little care, however, you can safely exploit the blurriness of the line between fiction and non-fiction. In middle of that blurred line between fiction and non-fiction, you will find the natural habitat of great stories. If you bravely explore that territory, you will discover bizarre beasts easily captured for your story telling purposes. The trouble with “the truth” is that it doesn’t necessarily make for a shapely story. In real life, events don’t necessarily happen in the right order to create a good story. The timing of events doesn’t work. An argument on the telephone may have been more dramatic as a face-to-face encounter. Fiction gives the writer free range to fix the problems reality imposed on the story.

If you blur the line in favor of fiction, reality provides powerful scenes, situations and insights for storytelling. Unfettered by “what really happened,” you are free to invent characters, scenes and events to give your story shape and drama. Research and interviews can add local color, help you find a hook for your story and suggest characters that would advance the story.
If you blur the line in favor of memoir, “what really happened” provides you with some firm constraints. You can’t move your story Memphis to Milan, nor are you free to invent characters or events. If it was warm and the sun was shining, you can’t write in a blizzard.

You can, however, use the tools of a fiction writer to enhance your memoir while staying inside the constraints imposed by memoir. In both types of stories you can do research that adds context and realistic details to the story. For example, if your memoir concerns spending a week in San Francisco in 1990, a little reflection will remind you that you used a pay phone, not a cell phone, to make those pivotal calls.

Some research will tell you what movies were showing that week and which songs were on the radio. Photographs from that time period will refresh your memory of how the city looked and way people dressed at that time. A trip to the library will let you look at that week’s newspaper to verify the weather conditions and refresh your memory of the news of that week. A phone book from the era will remind you of the location of the restaurant where you had lunch that last day in the city.

You can mine your life experiences for both fiction and non-fiction stories. Just remember the guidelines that apply to each type of writing. And don’t let Oprah catch you trying to pass your fiction off as what really happened.

Narrative Therapy Is the Story

The work of a writer and a therapist is often the same. Both work to make sense of life by analyzing stories. When they finish their work, the client and the reader see life differently.

From one perspective, the job of a therapist is to help clients de-construct their personal stories. A person seeking out a therapist often feels stuck, depressed, anxious or unhappy. Frequently, those feelings come from the client’s reaction to their own personal stories. Together, the client and therapist work through the stories hour by hour, week after week. With luck, they begin to see the story’s structure, sorting out the players, motives and the sequence of events.

A good therapist helps the client take a story apart to see where it may not make sense. The therapist might ask, “Are you sure that’s the way it happened?” Or, “How did that make you feel?” "Why do you think he did that?" Working through the story repeatedly, the client begins to see different ways to tell the story. Slowly, the client interprets the story differently, seeing new motives and other meanings. Finally, the client tells her story in a way that allows her to move beyond the problems that brought her to therapy.

As a writer, you might consider using some of the therapist's techniques for your work. Take your story apart and put it back together again. Try shifting the focus, re-ordering the events or re-examining people's motives. See how things change when you switch the gender of a character. How does the story change if you set it in the mountains instead of at the beach? What happens when the story occurs in three days instead of four months? Improve your story by de-constructing and rebuilding it. Then do it again.

Tell Yourself a Story

Life happens. We were born into a noisy, bright, confusing world. We arrived without an instruction manual. Life left us to our own devices to fathom what was going on. Many of us still struggle to find meaning in life’s jumbled happenings.

That's where stories come in. As quick as we hit the ground, we love stories. First, we relish the nursery rhyme and lullaby. Soon we insist on hearing that one familiar story over and over. Parents tell stories as do others -- brothers, sisters and especially grandparents. Soon, television and the movies take over as the storyteller. Fortunate children discover stories in magazines and books. Increasingly, however, video games tell stories. Whatever the source, human beings can’t get enough of stories. We love our stories because they reveal meaningful shapes beneath everyday happenings.

The most important stories are those we tell to ourselves. As young children, we find story scripts running in our heads. And we immediately write ourselves into the scripts.

Our stories might involve adventure, triumph, tragedy, survival or hope. Whatever the story, it seeks to make sense of experience. Writing helps put anger, fear, pain, suffering and joy into a meaningful structure. The old cliché suggests that a terrible childhood is the good grounding for a fledging writer. Check the life stories of profound novelists and see if you don’t agree.

Developing greater skill, the young writer crafts better stories that need not spring from on genuine events. Collecting, combining and distilling life's confusions, the writer creates new stories -- the best of which tell more truth than any reporting of facts alone could.

So, go tell yourself a story.

DB Dewer

Who Creates a Book?

The author wrote the book. It is her book. See her name on the spine and the title page? As writers, we understand and glory in the contributions of the writer. Without the writer there is no book. Open and shut case.

But if you only have a writer, you still do not have a book. In a logic class, we might say that the writer is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the creation of a book. But that is much too formal for the point I want to make here.

Writers can't create books by themselves. They need the help from many people. Generally, someone else edits the manuscript, designs the book, picks the typeface and devises the dust jacket. In addition, others print the books, warehouse them, distribute them to book stores, sell them to customers and handle the returns. Still others tally the sales, bank the revenues, pay the bills and send royalty checks to the writer.

Even the writing is not solely the product of the writer's fertile mind. Most books – fiction and nonfiction alike – require research. To find the facts, ideas and insight required to fill our books, we search the Internet, prowl libraries and pester people to part with their expertise and reveal their secrets. The acknowledgements of any hefty nonfiction book overflows with grateful thanks to scores of people. The author's genuine appreciation comes from her awareness that she would have written a lesser book without their help.

The next time you complain about the size of your royalty check, take a moment to remember everyone else whose skilled work deserved payment for helping you turn your idea into a book.

DB Dewer

What is Your Favorite Writing Form?

You probably have a favorite type of writing. Perhaps you like to write short stories or perhaps poetry is more intriguing for you. While many writers work in a variety of forms, most seem particularly comfortable in a particular form.

My passion for clay is second only to my passion for words. Those who love clay gravitate toward one or two favorite forms. Some ceramic artists work with tiles while other throw pots or build clay sculptures. The choice is personal, and some artists talk about the form having chosen them. I throw tall bottles and broad bowls. The bowls are easy for me, but my passion is for the tall closed forms. I find bottles more difficult to execute but more satisfying to complete.

So, is your passion the novel, the memoir, history or the essay? As in may arenas of life, “Do what you love” is excellent advice. If you are working on something you love, you will work harder and do a better job.

I know this is a cliché, but clichés exist because they contain more than a little truth.

DB Dewer

Interested in Posting a Guest Blog Entry?

If you are reading or following this blog, you probably share my interests in writing and publishing.

I would like to get some more opinions expressed on the blog. You probably have advice that would benefits our readers. You may have a pet peeve that you would like to share. Perhaps you have found some ways to improve the quality of your writing or the quantity of your output. All of these are good topics for Writer's Delight.

If you would be interested in posting a guest blog, please let me know. You can contact me at dbdewer@gmail.com. We can discuss topics and the mechanics of being a Guest Blogger.

Hope to hear from you.

DB Dewer

SMART Writer's Resolutions

Goal setting works. If you set a goal, you are more likely to achieve something than if you merely have good intentions. How about some writing goals for 2010? How about some SMART writing goals?

See how you like the SMART acronym.

S -- Specific goals are better than general goals.
M -- Measurable goals are better than vague goals.
A -- Aspirational or inspiring goals are more motivational.
R -- Realistic goals are better than magical thinking or wishing.
T -- Timetables and deadlines are more likely to produce results.

Take a little time and see if you can come up with some SMART writing goals for 2010. Plaese take a moment to share your 2010 writing goals as a comment.

Happy New Year.

DB Dewer