Putting way too much thought into fictional people doing fictional things

[azureavian]

Reading Life Sentences by Laura Lippman. It's a good story and I'm enjoying it, it's just a few details that bug me. The backstory is that the main character is a woman who, after having her life fall apart twice, decides to write the story of her life after each time. She goes to look up an old childhood friend, with whom she has fallen out of touch to look into a third book. The friend was upset after reading the character's first book because she has gotten some of the details wrong.

My thought is that, writing from your own perspective, it's inevitable that you will get some details wrong. You will mistake the intents, thoughts, and motivations of others. Unless the information is of a friend with whom you share every living thought (and even then), you will get some things wrong. It's a fact well known to lawyers and police, in fact. Even if a person saw something, doesn't mean that person will get the truth straight. People see thru the filter of their own experiences and expectations. So there's no reason to get huffy when a childhood friend can't remember at whose haus a party happened 20 years before.

Ok, semi-rant about fictional people done now, feel free to go about your normal lives.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.