I had the worst moment a few days ago, inadvertently triggered by a couple of readers.
Someone wondered if Josh and Sheila in the TJB books might be a little like Tom and me. And Shannon said she’d decided to reread A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS to try to figure out what things might have come from my own life.
There’s NOTHING wrong with that. I do that, too, when I read, so I know it’s fun to speculate. My standard answer is, “I write fiction.” Whatever the characters absorb of me or my life experiences, it’s filtered through who THEY are. They really are their own people, and not just fictional representations of me or people I’ve known. A radio interviewer once asked if Sheila was based on me (yeah, right, with my supermodel looks!), and I flippantly answered that I was Aunt Jen, only without the money. In all honesty, I’m not masquerading as someone else in any of our novels. (And as Tim often says, none of us has ever been a female impersonator.)
On occasion, I will let a secondary character react to something the way I wish I’D reacted to something similar (sort of like those 2 a.m. moments when we think, Dammit, I SHOULD have said…), but that’s about as far as it goes.
One thing I do use is names of people I know. For example, Major Byrnes in A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS is named in homage to Famous Author Rob Byrnes but also to another fictional character, Major Frank Burns on M*A*S*H. The evil Riley in SOMEONE LIKE YOU is named for my lifelong friend Riley, but they are completely dissimilar. My writing partners have indulged me in using lots of names of children in my family, and even friends’ children–Daniel, Josh, Aaron, Alex, David, Jess, Jon, and Ryan are the ones who come to mind.
While I was thinking of all that, it suddenly struck me that I named a really dislikable character in A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS Mark. And I got the uneasy feeling that… OH CRAP. I did. I named Mark’s ex-fiancee Susan.
When I was part of the Evil Corporate Empire, I was friends at work with a guy named Mark, and his wife’s name is Susan. At the same company, I worked with two Susans who are both married to Marks. All of these Marks and Susans are terrific people, and nothing like the Susan and Mark in my novel. I never even thought of them when I was writing. So just in case Mark and Susan (or Mark and Susan, or the other Mark and Susan) ever come marching toward my LiveJournal with pitchforks and torches, using your names for a bad couple was a complete accident.
I WRITE FICTION.
I think, subconsciously, you really hate all those Marks and Susans. There can be no other explanation. Wait until Andy Towle and Dan Savage hear about this.
Heh… I go through the same thing when naming characters. It can make you crazy. I mean, how many Marks, Susans, Davids, Pauls, Jennifers, etc. do we know? It can make you crazy.
The one thing I try to stay away from is naming a character Rob, or any of its variations. Inevitably, readers will think ‘that’s him!’ Which I never want them to think.
–Major Frank Byrnes
I would never think that. Because I know that your true alter ego is Kitty Randolph. I’m just living for the day that “Kitty” meets “Barry” in Boston.
Becky,
My curious nature was to reread, which I am, and I want a hamster badly (but I will call him Romeo instead of Hamlet), is to see, in practice, this idea of writing and healing from the course in my PhD that I am taking. I had all 5 other students read it, too. We each got to chose a book for each of us to read, and now we have to decipher it, so to speak, to see what might be real or not real, from the author. Was there any healing involved in your writing process? I don’t know, unless I ask you. So, I am compiling a list of things I think might be from real life. What’s really a hoot, is that I had no idea about the character’s names at all. I simply thought that all the names were made up, but not any where from your real life. That’s something!
I love your writing voice in this book, but is it Keelie or is it you? See, that’s the fun stuff.
I remember my first literature prof saying that it’s terrible to know the author of literature because then, when you read, you are somewhat biased. I agree to some point because there are things that I think I know, applying to the books of authors I have met. But, I also think it ADDS to the reading experience, which I am all about.
The tough ones, though, are the collaboration novels because I have NO idea who wrote what character or scene in that book. That’s the fun part, too. Trying to figure out where Tim is, or Timmy, or you, or Jim, in the story is amazingly fun and hard to tell. Plus, I mean, ARE you all in there? I mean as in the character’s development, the settings, etc…or is it really really all made up?
I love it. This is what reading is about, too.
As fellow lit teacher, I often find myself doing similar things when I read. One of my absolute favorite authors, Armistead maupin, once said each of his major characters in the Tales of the City series are a part of him. I guess subconsciuosly…and incorrectly, I have applied that to all writers.
BTW, I’ve enjoyed your posts here and on Greg H’s journal and I finally joined LJ myself; may I friend you?
Oh absolutely!!! I am Shannon.
🙂
Amy Tan stated that she didn’t mean to create all the usage of numbers through out her text, The Joy Luck Club. She said, “It just happened.” I wonder how much of that “accident” actually occurs in Literature. Also, The English Patient‘s biblical references really stand out, was that intentional or accidental? When Ondaatje was asked that question, he replied, “Nothing in this life is intentional.”
But if you don’t write from yourself, where do you write from?
But if you don’t write from yourself, where do you write from?
It’s not that I don’t write from myself. Everything I see, everything I hear, everything I imagine, everything I want, everything I dream, everything I experience–it’s all material.
Another word for material is fabric. Imagine that a person’s life is a garment. I reduce my garment to threads. Then I take threads from other people’s garments. Then I add some imaginary threads. Finally, I weave all of those into an entirely new fabric and turn that into a garment.
The new garment doesn’t look like anything it came from. It’s made from everything and nothing that is real.
That is a wonderful analogy of writing.
But the green Mustang in Three Fortunes was definitely my car. I can never get rid of it now, you know.
I cannot deny that. And Crazy Coffee Woman in A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS was born right here. There you have it. I’m not writing from MY life, I’m writing from Rhonda’s!
So your next book will be a boring Dental Drama?
hahahahah
William Goldman beat me to it. But apparently it was so not boring that people continue to shudder from the movie-from-the-book’s dental scene decades later.
Oh, the whole time I was waiting for Dr. L to say, “Is it safe?”
and don’t dentist’s have the highest suicide rate? Maybe it’s because of that very thing, the shuddering of dentist movie’s.
In the TJB world, Sheila and Josh first met at a dentist’s office, so we’ll call that foreshadowing.
Haaa! That hadn’t occurred to me during this discussion.
Actually, I CAN deny that! Now that I’ve had my first two swallows of coffee, I remembered that the green mustang is in THE DEAL.
Yes. I fault the fact that I see the cover for “Three Fortunes…” next to the comments input box. I am ashamed.
Don’t be ashamed. I think everyone we know should find a way to say “three fortunes” every day. Until the Book of Tiny Font rises up to take over the world.
Last semester when a story of mine was being worskshopped, a classmate smiled at me after reading it and said “This sounds just like you.” I guess I should have been flattered, she was smiling after all. But my first reaction was “Jane, you ignorant slut! Do I really look like an 80 year old black woman?”
Until I meet you in New Orleans, I’m going to think that maybe you ARE an 80 year old black woman. And don’t try to get FARB and Greg to vouch for you. Everyone knows authors are big liars.
When we meet I hope you’ll agree with everyone else that I don’t look a day over 79!
You’re a benevolent god. I wanted something awful to happen to that guy in A Coventry Christmas.
Mark? Or Rodney?
Mark. Rodney, I liked. Am I the only EvilRodney fan?
I might give my Mark liver cancer. Is that okay? Or would you rather be a demon-fightin’, relationship-shy, wizard?
*hovers fingers over the find/replace tool*
Make him a demon fighter! Because Mark Harris once fought a demon for me. He’s so gallant, that Mark.
I schooled that demon. I just figured out the perfect punishment for that guy in A Coventry Christmas: give him glasses. Marks hate them.
…and, no, you’re not. I adored hating Rodney. I worked for Rodney. I try to be the anti-Rodney.
I WRITE FICTION
My problem is sometimes I feel like I am living fiction.
RtM
Re: I WRITE FICTION
Is “RtM” code for I know you from elsewhere online? =) Hey, you!
Re: I WRITE FICTION
LOL Actually it’s short for “We acassionally run into each other on Our Bookshelf.” I would have signed it Rob your beloved moderator but the internet currently seems to be overpopulated with Robs and I’m doing my little bit for Rob control.
I’m rather fond of the gallivanting motorcycle grampa, and his tolerant wife. 😉
I’m glad. After I read your book and discovered things like the wind, I realized what a tough old guy he must be!
Seems I cope much better with the wind now…that kind of was the baptism by fire. 😉