The meaning of real

[kryssa_girl]

I heard about this woman in a Chicago newspaper a few days ago. However, what I read wasn't the objective news, but rather a commentary on her actions titled, Fake memoir proves novel is devalued. I found that much of what the writer was saying resonated in me, and I thought to share it (and my musings

Comments

[sambucivox]

Haruki Murakami says that a tale may be false in its form, but true in its essence... and viceversa. Some time ago, Alice Sebold wrote "The Lovely Bones" and it became an instant best-seller. However, when it was made public that -just as "Lucky", her first novel- it was based on real-life experiences, some nit-prick tight-assholes "serious" writers told the press that that made the book to be of lesser quality.
The main theme of both was brutal rape; one started with the survival of the victim and the second one with her death. The fact that it was based on the author's life and that it wasn't a ball of hatred and gratuituous emotion made the books even more valuable. What kind of hell must a person go through to retell that kind of experience in an aesthetically pleasant way? Did that make her a "weaker" writer?

It is very difficult to please the public and the critics at the same time. Hence, the ones who manage to do it are usually the ones that wrote for themselves and are not afraid to be notorious sadists with the -imaginary, unexistent, absent- inner- reader.

That said, please refrain from chopping the head off any Sanano kindred. :-)

[kryssa_girl]

Did you say, 'don't refrain from chopping the head off any Sanano kindred?' Done! ^_^ I admit that I'm not particularly known for cowering beneath the demands of either the crowd or critics. In my story Between Seishi and Gods from my FY years, I've been told that the final chapter managed to rip out the hearts of my readers and grind them into the dust. Yet I feel I can do that because I'm not afraid of "not selling", or not being popular (in ff.net's case).

"Serious" writers are liars if they think that we (writers) never draw from our own experiences. I read The Lovely Bones, and learning that the author had suffered similar pains didn't change the book for me either way. Perhaps that's because I took it as a work of fiction. Though the author may fully base the character off herself, she gives the audience the freedom to gauge their willingness to believe. In the end, if handled tastefully and with appropriate weight, I'll believe anything a novelist writes - rape, violence, and even the moment of death.

[sambucivox]

I bought [u]The Lovely Bones from[/u] my favorite bookstore café, and I wasn't able to finish it. It was making me dizzy. Not the actual raping and killing, but the way in which the characters dealt with the loss of the protagonist.

I didn't know that it was based on actual experiences until later, when I wikied it to learn how it ended.

Anyway, I think that the most serious of writers nowadays -and those would be the French ;-)- have become so obsessed with style that they disregard plot and emotion. There's a current that thinks that the form is everything, but at the same time good ol' stories are impossible to ignore -they draw you inside, regardless of the second person in pluscuamperfect tense that monsieur l'Academique used to win that goddamm literary prize. So when they find that something is a lie -or that it isn't- they attack it, claiming lack of quality due to a contradiction with what they thought reality was.

And how did that ended up sounding like an Alice in Wonderland brainteaser?

Hey, didn't you find it easier to read/write about violence, guts and death when you were little than now? I did. I wonder what happened along the way.

[kryssa_girl]

You have some great points about people putting style above plot and emotion. Quite frankly, many of the bestsellers here in the USA suck balls because they're crap - they're grammatically accurate (but boring as hell when they use the same sentence structure a million times in a row), have characters that are nothing more than 2-D figures that exist only to make a point, and absolutely no viable plotline.

I'm hoping that all the fanfic writers I know will become published authors, 'cause they're infinitely better than the idiots on the Borders shelves.

I find that writing about sensitive issues is harder now because I want to make it real; the cost of reality is pain. Violence - blood and guts and all that joyful jazz - is a lot harder to portray when we, as adults, understand what it means. Most children and teens have little concept of certain realities; look at the Ouran ff.net page, and tell me that it's not mostly teens writing over-dramatic stories about suicide or twincest or what-have-you. I don't say that they never suffered at all, but they make the story so strictly about their own pain that it's hard for outsiders to empathize with the characters.

But now that we're older, we try to make our own pain and pleasures visible to the rest of the world. We put a different kind of self into the work; we don't try to make it about ourselves. Even romance is harder for me to write because I have the sharp awareness of having been in an adult relationship, and trying to express a realistic one in a story requires digging up both happy and unhappy memories. That's a risk I'm willing to take, and one that I see many good writers around me taking, too.

[sambucivox]

What do you mean, that the authors at ffnet aren't twincesty, emo twins themselves? I actually prefer the stories where Haruhi: 1) goes to an enchanted house and has sex with everyone and everything. 2) takes crack. 3)Ranka dies, and Haruhi decides -very rationally- to run away to get more crack for her and the baby. 4)In the end, Kyouya decides to carry her pregnancy because he's the mommy, only to discover at delivery that Haru was inseminated by Usa-chan. 5) Hikaru and Kaoru get teary!emo!lovey-dovey! and give the spawn the dresses that they had to wear as kids.

I have a serious phobia to hurting my characters, myself. Just as hurting my sims. I know that without pain, there's no plot, but I still don't feel like slashing their wrists. Or making them fall in love. Or condemning them to pregnancy.

Don't be so harsh in the lack of style of American writers. What you call repetitive structures, I call hammer of past tense -perfect for learning the basics!

Off to walk Doggie, talk to you tonight.