by Robin Black
Mind-blowing! The Portuguese? In Australia??
No, wait. Really? That’s all you’ve got? The notion of European colonization remains intact, just the politics play out a little differently? What about the story where humans only exist in Australia? What about the one where we all just get along???
It’s not a physicist’s job, I suppose, to come up with compelling storylines, but it’s still striking to me how little liberty that physicist took with the storyline we already know. Striking, and also familiar, reminiscent of the superficial tinkering many of us do when fictionalizing a story we think of as true. (A note: Every writer should read Tim O’Brien’s “How To Tell A True War Story.” I am not talking about war stories here, and wouldn’t presume to try. I’m talking about the kind of story about which people say, “That would make a good story.”)
Many of us have been there. You start writing a story because something happened in real life that interests you, or that just seems like a good yarn. And you don’t want to change it—even when trusted readers suggest that it might benefit from a change, even when you suspect that those readers are correct. And beyond not wanting to change it, you may be in the grips of the kind of unaware failure of imagination those physicists display, as if shackled by unseen forces to what you know to be “true.”
But truth of that kind is no defense in fiction. A story that isn’t fully realized, or that fails to convince its readers, can’t be saved by a footnote explaining that it’s based on fact. Perhaps ironically, one of the most common critiques of such works is that they are implausible. “I didn’t believe she would shoot that cat,” a reader says. “Nobody would do that.” And the author protests, “Except that’s exactly what my sister did.” But rather than responding “Oh, all right then. I guess it makes sense,” the reader says, “I believe that she did it in real life, but in this story I wasn’t convinced.”
Fiction, particularly realist fiction, is eternally chained to the problem of plausibility. Very little trumpets an author’s failure as clearly as the words, “It didn’t seem believable to me.” And the first challenge of writing from real life is recognizing that the fact that events actually took place may make the story less plausible—if only because the author has failed to worry about whether or not it is. What we accept without question from everyday life must be proved in fiction.
And there are challenges to “real stories” beyond plausibility. “That would make a great story for you to write!” people often tell me when I recount some odd occurrence, an extraordinary coincidence, or maybe eccentric behavior I’ve observed. But my experience is that those amusing tales are almost always a complete failure as fiction.
Let’s say I’m at a dinner party and I tell the story of the night the police came to my childhood home thinking we had a prowler—because my father, training to hike the Appalachian Trail, had taken to sleeping in our back yard. The reactions to that story are likely to be along the lines of “Wow!” and “That’s hilarious.” Maybe, “You had a wild upbringing, didn’t you?” And of course, “You should write a story about that.” And those are perfectly fine responses to an anecdote, but missing is any sense of a deeper meaning, or of universality, a resonance beyond the facts and superficial impact of the episode.
That, for me, is the greatest challenge of crafting fiction from these sorts of real life events—unless I’m willing to change the narrative drastically. As a teacher told me many years ago, anecdotes and stories are not the same thing. I would add, they aren’t even on a continuum. A story is not an anecdote that has been beefed up—it’s a completely different form, with different goals. An anecdote is generally told to provoke a social response—laughter, amazement, surprise. With a story however, while the author may welcome those responses along the way, they are unlikely to be the ultimate goal. An anecdote seeks as its end what a story may use as its means.
We are all looking for ideas, many of us in a state of perpetual if low-level anxiety over whether we are out of them. Stories that seem to present themselves as already developed, the next thing to already written, are a gift—though perhaps of the Trojan Horse kind. Initially, there is joy behind the thought, “Wow! That would make an amazing story!” But then, something like grief over the realization that what first appeared to be a kind of gimme is no easier to execute than any other work, no less subject to revision, no closer to taking the shape and form of a piece of literature than is any story that our imaginations construct. And in fact, the “truth” of the story may be making things more difficult.
Like so many writers, I have felt bereft when a story I thought would be a straightforward project turns into another quagmire, another mess, another adventure in hoping and doubting and trying and failing and maybe ultimately succeeding—but who knows? Maybe never succeeding. And that is all the more difficult when I am haunted by an already existing version of the story, the events as they occurred.
I don’t try to make real life events into fiction anymore, but I’m not arguing against fictionalizing real events—not for other people. I am only suggesting that once a true story has been thrown into the fictional world it has no more power than does any original concept; yet it seems to. It should be just as subject to revision, just as concerned with plausibility; yet it resists that. It must be just as concerned with gravitas, about its reason to exist as any other story; but it argues throughout for its right to remain as it is. A “true” story has a certain kind of intelligence, a wily, unhelpful ability to argue its own case.
An infinite number of alternate realities.
Impossible to comprehend when existential theories are in play, well worth the effort when crafting stories is your goal.
The Success Gap
I know precious few writers who don’t keep a mental inventory of how their own accomplishments and disappointments compare to those of their friends. That isn’t because writers are inherently petty or ungenerous. Noticing successes one hasn’t had is next to inevitable in a career with no logical professional pathway to success, no common measure of success, and no agreement about what constitutes success. The whole subject is so chaotic, so random, keeping score can sometimes seem like the only ordering principle available—even as one rails about the unfairness of the tally that it shows.
I personally know a dozen or more authors who seem to me to deserve a kind of success and fame that has eluded them. Sometimes their disappointments are attributable to the fashions of literature at the time. Sometimes, it seems as though they haven’t been well-marketed. But often, I have no idea why a certain book or author doesn’t catch fire when their work seems to me to be so superior to so much of what does.
And then there are the inexplicable hits.
Whatever the rhyme, reason, or lack of either to career rewards, these discrepancies can lead to social landmines. I have made some stunning mistakes by bragging to friends about having reached goals that are not yet within sight for them. In my defense, it didn’t feel like bragging at the time. It felt more like expressing my own disbelief at my own good fortune, like using friends to confirm for me that these wonderful things had truly happened. It felt like exuberance. But looking back now, I can see that on these occasions I was at best insensitive and at worst a bit of a jerk. That phrase “using friends”—that’s pretty much the crux of the problem right there. Friends don’t use friends—especially to make themselves feel even better about grasping a brass ring that the friend has barely glimpsed.
And, on the other side, I have spent days, sometimes weeks, in the doldrums over achievements I have yet to achieve—or may well never achieve. I have taken breaks from Facebook because it has seemed to exist for the purpose of making me feel bad about my career. I have smiled through genuine sorrow while congratulating a friend.
This is a complicated subject—and a touchy one. In the past when I’ve written about my efforts to handle jealousy and comparison and self-doubt, I’ve heard from people taking me to task for my pitiable i
f not contemptible inability to rise above such pettiness. These communications often include the claim: “I’m not jealous of my friends. I’m happy for them.”
It’s a claim to which I have two reactions: The first is, “How lovely, and how lucky for you.” The second is, “I am often envious of friends and I am also happy for them.” It is a mistake to believe that envy precludes a generous response. In my experience, envy rarely has much at all to do with what one wishes for one’s friend or colleague, and everything to do with one’s own doubts and anxieties about oneself. Maybe envy isn’t even the best word for the stomach-churning one can feel at a friend’s good news. Maybe the better word is fear.
Most of us can handle a little jealousy now and then. What threatens us far more powerfully is the notion that the gods of who deserves to write have spoken, and they haven’t had much good to say about us.
A common exhortation is, “That’s why you have to make it about the work” and I’ve been guilty of saying this myself, in irritatingly pious tones. It’s taken me a while to understand why this prescription is very close to a non sequitur. When a lawyer is disappointed at not making partner, we don’t say, “You can’t get hung up on that stuff. You have to make it about the work.” Ditto, when a professor is denied tenure, or when a pre-med doesn’t get into med school, and so on. Having goals and being anxious about meeting them, or disappointed when they go unmet, feeling hurt by a lack of recognition, none of this means that one’s commitment to the quality and importance of one’s work is somehow shaky. Ambition for success and a passion for excellence are not in conflict. It seems unjust to take a perfectly natural response like envy—or fear—and imply that it indicates a lack of seriousness about one’s work.
We don’t say to bummed out football players who have just lost the Super Bowl, “That’s why it has to be all about the work.” We say, “That really sucks.”
Maybe the advice to “make it about the work” is so common because it hints at a path around envy. But I’m not convinced there is such a path. There are only coping mechanisms—and also kindnesses.
Some time ago, a colleague who had just won a big award asked me why so few people he knew were bringing it up and congratulating him. Maybe because it wasn’t my ego seeking the strokes, it was easy for me to understand then that it’s not the job of the people who are struggling to go out of their way to celebrate the successes of those who have surged ahead. It is, if anything, the responsibility of the surging one to take time to show genuine interest in what’s happening with those who are struggling still, and to give them encouragement.
I say this as someone who, like many writers, exists in both roles. I have had some wonderful unanticipated “triumphs” and I have had my share of frustrations, too. For people who can’t get books accepted or have never been nominated for an award, my career may well look enviable. For people who have won tons of awards and sold hundreds of thousands of books, my career doubtless looks modest. But, most importantly—and I freely admit I don’t always achieve this—I need to be aware of my audience when I whine about what I haven’t accomplished, and when I brag about what I have.
There is of course something serious and unfixable underlying all of this: the chaotic fuckedupedness of the profession itself. The elements that go into success of any kind are strange, unpredictable, not always related to quality—a concept over which there is never anything resembling consensus, nor should there be. Working hard is certainly a good plan, but it guarantees nothing. Having talent sounds promising—if only anyone knew what that meant. Social connections to powerful people, even just the power-monger-of-the-month, can play a too evident role in recognition. One’s ethnic identity, one’s gender, one’s sexual orientation, one’s economic status, one’s social habits, one’s appearance, one’s city of residence, one’s age, one’s luck, one’s luck, one’s luck…those and a million more factors all interact and influence outcomes. There is simply no way to control this thing.
We are murky beings, we humans, and this for sure is a murky career. I have given up on expecting perfect sensitivity from anyone, or perfect generosity of spirit. I have stopped thinking ill of people who occasionally lapse in handling either success or frustration well.
And as for those who consistently don’t, I avoid them when I can. Not everything about being a writer is unclear, it turns out.
The Literary Birds & Bees:
How One Novel Was Conceived
Novels differ from human beings in that we can’t know much about how they, as a species, are conceived. There is no single narrative for spawning a narrative. No literary sperm and ovum prerequisites necessary—that we know of, anyway. And while stories of how novels are conceived likely lack the titillation potential of stories about how babies are made, I am always interested in hearing them.
My own tale begins with an abandonment. Mid-2009. A twice drafted novel, already sold while in progress, as part of a two-book deal. My dawning realization that it wasn’t very good. My fighting that realization. But I got going at this writing game too late to waste years on a practice book, I told myself. The Heavens laughed. And so I found myself beginning again—and again, and again.
For years. I woke up ill with anxiety, doubting I could complete the task. I became certain that I’d already said what I had to say in my ten stories, that I was finished writing fiction. The well was dry. The need to communicate, sated. And the novel was a dumb form anyway. (This, mumbled while pouting and kicking at the couch. Stupid novels.)
By January 2012, when I arrived at an annual retreat with seven other women, I was a wreck. It had been nearly three years since I’d withdrawn my mediocre novel, and in that time, I had started and stopped at least four new projects. I hated them. They hated me. I hated myself. Not every aspect of myself (I’m a shockingly good cook), but enough to tip the balance that way. Oh, and did I mention I had given up? Well, not officially. I hadn’t yet informed my agent or my editors, but deep in my heart I just knew…
And so on the first night of that retreat, I told my dear friends, all writers too, that the project was doomed, so I thought I would just use the week to goof off, reading and writing whatever—prose poems, limericks, ad copy—rather than keep trying to make a book appear from thin, unimaginably ungenerous air.
I spent the first five days there reading Ovid on my iPad. Specifically, I read about Medusa and I read about Pygmalion and Galatea. I read about the woman who could turn people into stone and the woman who had once been stone herself. I imagined Medusa seeking out Galatea so she could ask for a report on what it was like to be a statue—Galatea being the only person who could inform her about that state. So, about these people I keep petrifying, what are they going through? I felt sorry for Medusa, for her hideous visage, for her shitty future, for how everyone hated her. And I felt sorry for Galatea, too, awakening from eternity to find herself being fondled by some man whose appreciation of her perceived perfection left no room for her choice.
And Rodin! I looked up Rodin’s sculptures of Galatea and wondered whether while he sculpted her—a sculpture of a human who had been a sculpture—it ever occurred to him that she might awaken one day…I even wrote a six word story about that:
“Rodin Sculpting Galatea”
It is impossible not to hope.
And then on day six of the retreat I wrote 5,000 words of the novel that would be published the following spring. 5,000 words that remained essentially the same through every revision. And the next day, I wrote the next 4,000 words, words also still present in the book.
I tell the story that way, with no real lead up to that happy turn because that is what it felt like at the time. One day I couldn’t write a novel and would never be able to, and the next day I could write a novel—a novel that over the following year poured out of me in a way no story ever has, in a way I doubt any future novel ever will. Poured out of me as though all I’d had to do was remove the lid and tip the container just a bit.
; But what had actually happened?
It is, of course, impossible to know. Creativity cannot be understood. It can be analyzed and maybe even quantified in some ways, but never understood. I can point to many elements as having likely helped. Wise comments from the women there with me, and also from other friends who were not. A sudden realization that having cut my teeth writing about families, I was tired of writing about families. My therapist’s observation that the goal of writing to fulfill a contract might be a realistic one, but was probably not a very creatively inspiring one, so perhaps I might want to have a different goal—like writing a really good book. But among those many elements and more, it is the five days of reading Ovid to which I now return.
This is my understanding: I needed to relocate my obsessions, to find them somewhere other than in my own head. The novel, Life Drawing, is about many things, including the relationships between art and mortality, art and grief, art and redemption. What does it mean, as an artist, to give life to human figures? What are the emotions behind that impulse? What does it mean when an artist cannot give life? And how does all of that relate to the human capacity, again and again, to renew our faith in others, in ourselves? As I write those questions now, they sound reductive to me. I want to say, “Of course, the novel is about much more than that…” And it is—I hope, and I believe. But those are three of the strands I have braided at its heart: Mortality, forgiveness, and art.
So, when did I figure out that all this reading about stone figures, mortal petrification, statues coming to life, and irreversible punishment had any bearing on the book that I wrote? It was the day on which the manuscript was taken from my hands and sent off to the copyediting department to be cleaned up. Only then could I see those five days of reading Ovid as something other than just a necessary breather, and more like an uncanny, unconscious intuition for how to relocate my deepest, troubled, hopeful self. Not the self that is concerned with book contracts. But the self that makes me to want to write.