When I took a fiction writing class in undergrad, I was corrected for having a character use the word "gonna" and not making the rest of my character's dialect match. I pretty much made the character talk like I do, and I say "gonna" all the time. The people in class thought I should make my character have a southern accent if I was going to have her use that word. It seems like some things which happen all the time in reality do not translate well in writing. Like if we don't adhere to some stereotypes our character becomes less believable, or we have to explain our deviation from that stereotype. I'm curious if you can think of any other examples of this sort of thing, and do you agree with my class's opinion?
And if any of that didn't make sense, I blame the cold I've been fighting for a week.
Somebody said that fiction is harder than non-fiction because fiction has to make sense.
Any time I write something true and call it fiction, I get the comment, "I don't think this sounds right," or "I didn't believe this dialogue/scene."
And I've put those comments in people's stories and got the response, "But that part really happened."
Doesn't matter, because fiction is different than real life. Fiction has to be truer.
The example of 'gonna' doesn't bother me if it's dialogue. It doesn't sound southern to me.
It doesn't sound that way to me, either. I grew up in Utah and people said it all the time.
I guess fiction is like that part in the Last Unicorn where the witch has to put a fake horn on the unicorn so people will believe it's a unicorn.
Is 'gonna' a southern thing? Then I guess all the aliens in V (and pretty much everyone else) is from the south. That sounds like personal bias. If it were me, I'd disagree on principle and go with what I thought was consistent with the character.
I'd go with what feels most real to you and not the critic.
Howie nailed it--it really doesn't matter how "true" a story is, if you, as the writer cannot craft if to be believable. The "but that really happened!" thing we talked about in a class I took...sometimes the stuff that really happened is the least "true" part of a story because it really happened to you and your friends, not the characters you created in the world you created.
I could go on and on because the underlying truth in fiction is one of my favorite topics. I would say in dialogue, if you want to use "gonna" for one character, use "gonna". As for the rest of it--I disagree about the stereotypes, if you create a rich, multifaceted character, people will believe it, if you rely on stereotypes, I think you'll fall flat. I think the problem is, when you do neither people are sort of at a loss for how to translate this writing into a living, breathing being they can root for, hate, or cry for.
I've always wanted to be Schmendrick the magician! I'm just looking for a big breasted tree to grab me and say, "I Love you. Love love love love love."
I'm gonna have to disagree with your classmates. Go ahead and use it. Using that word isn't gonna make or break your story.
The problem with writing classes and other writing critique forums is that those involved feel they need to come up with something, anything to say, whether their words have merit or not. That's why they're participating after all, to offer an opinion, so they'll say anything.
That being so, class comments should largely be ignored; they often do more harm than good by offering bad advice. These are no experts afterall, just the peanut gallery.
If the word feels good to you. Use it. What does your gut tell you?
Sparrow has it down. If you haven't read it, read "How to Tell a True War Story" by Tim O'Brien. That's a lesson in writing truth right there. PDF of it is here.
It has the line: If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth. Which is one of my favorite lines ever.
Also, then go read the rest of "The Things They Carried" . It's one of the greatest books of short stories ever written (Reasons to Live, by Amy Hempel, is tied with it for first place).
Howie - Your Last Unicorn picture made me happy.
And if you decide you want the O'Brien book Howie mentioned, let me know and I'll send it to you. I just finished it. He's right. It's amazing.
Wow. I dunno.
Thanks for the Pdf. I found it interesting. But damn, that article was so poorly written I could only get but a few pages into it and even then I was struggling to grasp what the hell the character was going on about. It was full of too much attitude and cool, clever phrasing. No one talks like that. It read as if it were a writer's interpretation of what they thought a soldier might sound like.
I suppose I get the point Tim O'Brien was trying to make, but his actual writing goes against what I was taught about writing. That is, that too much slang and character personalization can kill a character, because the reader can't relate.
I suppose some people like writing like that. It's a personal taste. (I don't like Hemple's writing either).
I'm starting to think maybe I'm in the wrong forums. 'Cos if this is 'truth' writing, I don't wanna tell the truth. I wanna tell a story people enjoy reading.
that article was so poorly written I could only get but a few pages into it
err... umm.... Are we talking about the short story "How to Write a True War Story"?
I'm starting to think maybe I'm in the wrong forums. 'Cos if this is 'truth' writing, I don't wanna tell the truth. I wanna tell a story people enjoy reading.
Well, this is a discussion thread about truth vs. fiction, so that's why we're talking about this specific idea and the permutations around it in writing. That's not the whole forum, that's just this thread.
The rest of the forum is about flirting and dirty jokes.
"But damn, that article was so poorly written I could only get but a few pages into it"
If you mean The Things They carried, it is a short story. But it presents some very wonderful ideas about truth and how it lies in perception. It's remarkable writing.
"It read as if it were a writer's interpretation of what they thought a soldier might sound like."
I feel like I want to get irrational about that statement. But that's probably silly. But I highly disagree.
"The rest of the forum is about flirting and dirty jokes."
I love this forum.
"Gonna" is used anywhere people don't wanna say "going to." Even "ain't" i'n't exclusively Southern.
How to write a true war story is a short story?
I thought it was an article about how to write a true war story.
My mistake. But, either way, I couldn't get into it . Not my kind of writing, I guess.
I did look up "The Things They Carried" on Amazon "Look Inside" and read a bit. That, I liked much better. i'd give reading that style a shot.
"How To Write a True War Story" is a short story from the book "The Things They Carried". The book is a series of sorta-linked short stories that revolve around Vietnam and being a soldier. The short story "The Things They Carried" is amazing. The text of that story is here.
I hate stereotypes.
There is truth to them, but not everyone is going to fit them.
Tim O'Brien was a draftee in the Vietnam war, so he probably has a good idea of what a soldier would sound like. I mean, I'll admit this here, I was a US Marine, and fact is, we are our stereotypes (or at least the good ones, hahaha), Husband is still in and we have a joke that if you get more than two marines together in one space they will immeadiately begin acting like Lance Corporals (youngsters). If I wrote a story about what I 'think' marines are like, you'd all probably think it was a play on stereotypes and wanting to feel bad ass--but I'd just be writing as a marine, who is, in fact, pretty bad ass.
That last part was a joke (no, it wasn't).
That is, that too much slang and character personalization can kill a character, because the reader can't relate.
I would need a whole thread to get into all the reasons I disagree with this statement, but suffice it to say that I do.
The thing about the characters in The Things They Carried, and maybe this is just me personally, I feel like I walk around inside their shoes. O'Brien makes me feel things, and not just uniquely War things, but uniquely human things. That book did for me what any really great book should do, it crawled down inside me and lived there and never left.
I just can't write "creative nonfiction" - sorry but I can't. I know some people do it successfully, but I don't know why you'd bother to write "truths" without processing them into fiction. There was a class I took where this guy was writing a book about a pretty horrible childhood (involving gangs etc), and the professor said, why don't you make it creative nonfiction, and it will sell better. The guy said, yes, but for example in the scene with the dead horse, it wasn't really a horse in reality, it was a pig, and I just thought the horse would have more impact.
That, to me, just shows how silly it is to want to cling to the exact truth in writing - exactly, why? Who is served by that? Someone's ambition to get everything down exactly as it happened, as if someone really cares exactly what you ate for breakfast?
I just had Raisin Bran. And you guys better care about that.
Is there a term for when you take a real experience and craft it into a story, changing small things like insignficant facts or ideas and merging characters for consistancy and thematic content? Because that's what a lot of writers do. It's not fiction, exactly - but it sure ain't nonfiction.
Does it make sense that when The Things They Carried is called a short story collection (instead of one of the best novels ever written) it frustrates me, but when A Visit from the Goon Squad is called a great novel (instead of an impressive but uneven collection of stories) I feel exactly the same way?
The Things They Carried is brilliant no matter what you call it. I think of it as linked short stories (like Knockemstiff) because I read 2 of the stories seperately for classes before I got the whole book.
That's one of the reasons it's so good. It can be read in multiple ways and it loses nothing. You can read the stories in any order and it still adds up to a great novel, or you can just read a few of the stories and they are still fantastic stories, or you can read it as a novel and find yourself in locked into the best usage of the way memory works since Vonnegut and be reading some of the tightest, most heartfelt work ever.
