Guest Blogger Shelley Blanton-Stroud on Fact and Truth, Fiction and Nonfiction

Shelley Blanton-Stroud grew up in California’s Central Valley, the daughter of Dust Bowl immigrants. She teaches college writing in Northern California, consults with writers in the energy industry, co-directs Stories on Stage Sacramento, and serves on the advisory board of 916 Ink, an arts-based creative writing nonprofit for children. Copy Boy is her first novel. She also writes and publishes flash fiction and nonfiction, including pieces at Brevity and Cleaver.

Please welcome Shelley Blanton-Stroud.

It took me quite a while to figure out what my book, Copy Boy, would be, my trouble mostly arising from the gap between fact and truth. Facts are verifiable things. Truth is the meaning an individual makes of the facts we choose to consider.

I first began to write ten years ago by focusing on my own family’s history of moving west to California from Texas and Oklahoma in the Dust Bowl exodus of Okies looking for work in the Great Depression. I was thinking about a memoir because I had access to the facts. My father, especially, had dramatic stories to tell, one of which now sets my book in motion. But it soon became obvious that the “facts” changed in his every retelling—how old he was, exactly where the incident took place. And the facts really changed when my father’s siblings shared their versions of the family story. That’s what happens with memory and with storytelling. Though I knew my father was telling his truth, I was unsure of what the facts really were. I didn’t think I could get a memoir right.

So, I decided to turn to traditional historical references—books and newspapers about the Dust Bowl/Great Depression period in California—for a more-complete context on my family’s life. But there was often so much missing in these sources—the feel of the time.

I turned to more subjective, artistic, personal work from the period—the photographs and biography of WPA photographer Dorothea Lange, the essays of the iconic columnist Herb Caen, the biographies of folk roots musician Woody Guthrie and SF Chronicle editor in chief, Paul C. Smith. There was a lot in these sources to use.

I decided. I was going to write a historical novel. 

But I soon learned the problem with doing so is the way fact and truth conflict, every scene requiring a negotiation between the two. Could I use the names of real-life people in my fiction? Many authors do this, to great effect. And I have done so, on the periphery—most notably, letting J. R. Oppenheimer wax philosophic and bed an important character. But I didn’t feel I could do so with the major characters. I couldn’t take the risk of getting their lives wrong, factually, in order to create what was my truth about these lives. I couldn’t limit the story to what “really happened.”

Yet, even though a person might think authors of straight historical nonfiction would have an absolute obligation to only rely on facts, many such authors turn to fictive techniques—creating composite characters, recreating conversations the writer never heard or read, creating interior thought based on speculation.

At any rate, for me, it doesn’t make sense to expect a big fat line between fact and fiction; because scholars have by now established that all memory is a kind of fiction. We never remember things objectively. Such nonfiction is less like fact than it is like what we call “truth”—a mix of verifiable facts and one person’s impressions and reflections about those facts, arrived at via memory.

Even when the nonfiction historical writer has zero intention to use fictive strategies, if they collect ten facts but use only nine, the elimination of that ninth fact, the choice of the writer to focus here, but not there, in favor of their sense of the truth, introduces the potential for inaccuracy. When you collect verified facts and then choose which of those you will write about, you are subjectively creating a particular truth the reader will perceive, and perhaps believe.

This is a moral weight that historical novelists must bear.

In Copy Boy, I found early inspiration for my protagonist in the life of iconic San Francisco columnist, Herb Caen. I never considered using his name (even when my protagonist was a boy, before I turned him into a cross-dressing girl), not just because it would be too hard to get everything “right” but because I wanted the freedom to make my protagonist behave very badly. I wanted to let her run to the edges of what the real-life writer might have been tempted to do. I wanted the freedom of letting her do awful things, without the guilt of attaching a real person’s name to that behavior.

This was doubly important to me about my father’s stories, which inspired so much in the book. But those scenes in the novel are not the same as his stories. The facts aren’t the same. And my truth in using those stories is different than his truth in telling them in the first place.

Still, I breathed in relief at his comment after he read my final version of the first chapter based on his story—Good job. That’s not what really happened.

Connect with Shelley via her website, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Find all links to purchase Copy Boy here, including major online retailers as well as independent bookstores. Join her online for the book’s launch. Register at Crowdcast.

All images courtesy Shelly Blanton-Stroud

Why Thank You is the Creative Nonfiction Writer's All-Purpose Response to Critics and Admirers Alike

Last week, a few students in a nonfiction class I teach for Bay Path University, were discussing handling fallout, mainly from relatives and close friends who read personal essays and memoir, and aren't too happy about what they find on the page. And aren't shy about telling the writer so.

This put me in mind of the elegant way one guest writer at my own MFA program once advised responding.

At first I thought it sounded too glib, but I can assure you that after putting it into practice, it holds up. 

Here it is: The only possible response to any feedback / criticism/ judgment / complaints is to reply:  "Thank you."   

That is all.

This will more or less confound and halt the critics, who expect you to engage in a defensive debate or to be contrite, and who likely have a bunch of arguments lined up ready to unleash on you. Mostly, they will instead stay silent (fuming maybe); or they might spew the negativity anyway; and if they do, you can again simply reply, "Thank you." Or perhaps Thanks, I appreciate your reading it. or Thanks for sharing your reaction. or Thanks for the feedback.

As for those who heap praise on the work, the answer too is also simply, "Thank you." 

That is all. 

That's not all. This is also a good response for those who are in the other camp, who want to tell you how much they agree with what you wrote, about how you got it so right, how well you portrayed them on the page. But again, that is their conversation, not yours. A simple, heartfelt "Thank you" is enough; or Thanks, I appreciate your reading it. Or Thanks for sharing your reaction. or Thanks for the feedback.

I don't mean to suggest that we ignore what others have to say, that we dismiss the negative and neglect to appreciate the positive, that we make our friends and loved ones feel as if we don't care about their feelings. Listening is healthy, and often the loving and respectful thing to do; but caring about others' feelings is different than worrying about their opinions about our literary work. 

The only thing that makes "thank you" work is that we writers must mean it when we say it. We must truly be appreciative that someone we care about has bothered to read our work, and wishes to express an opinion. We need to actually be thankful for both the claps on the back and the slaps on the wrist.

Seems counter-intuitive. Until you try it.

Thoughts?

Images: Flickr Creative Commons - top, Steven DePolo; Bottom: Katharina Friederike

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, December 21, 2012 Edition

> My well-read friend Chris led me to BookDrum, where one could spend hours. The beautifully rich site offers a panoramic experience of all that surrounds a book. I'm not explaining it very well. From the site: "..companion to the books we love, bringing them to life with immersive pictures, videos, maps and music."  Plus author background, film notes, reviews, summary, setting info, glossary, more. Visit. Click on a book (classics to contemporary). Don't look at the clock.

> Vaughn Roycroft on "Surviving the Full Force of a Manuscript Critique" at Christi Craig's blog.

> Lee Gutkind at the New York Times Draft blog, on "Three R's of Narrative Nonfiction." 

> Jenny Rough contemplates writers, perseverance, struggle and faith.

> California Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera , with a Poem for Newtown, "Little Ones We Carry You" (and several response poems), at the University of California/Riverside news site.

> Meghan Ward on "20 Great Places to Publish Personal Essays."

> BookPatrol with a great graphic and the good news that America's largest libraries are growing.

> Annie Evett on why it's a good idea to keep calm and just keep submitting.  I like her math.

> I knew I wanted one for myself, but I'm not completely sure for whom I bought four more copies today of Anne Lamott's slim new book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.  Like this interviewer, I'm attracted I guess to the idea of an irreverent approach to the simplicity, and power, of praying as a personal, possibly idiosyncratic act.

> Reminder: Don't let your writing year end without creating at least a few entries -- on paper, in your head -- for your personal 2012 * I Did It List* (which I explain in the post immediately prior to this one).

> Finally, for some levity,  a compilation of poorly worded, proofread-by-dummies, hilarious or embarrassing real headlines over at Freakonomics.

Have a great weekend, and good wishes for those celebrating holidays.

We need a new name: Fictoir? Memtion?

I told myself last time this happened that I would not post again about debunked "memoirs," but then this newest one really put me over the edge. Like the first major not-a-memoir, this one was touted by Oprah (even before its release), which is now in question.

I just want to make one point. Or a few. There's coincidence, the "can't make this stuff up" kind of wonderful, ridiculous but true coincidence which drives many good (and real) memoirs, and then there's preposterously contrived "coincidences" which smell and act like fiction – because they are.
Yes, sometimes the most circumspect nonfiction writers must elaborate beyond what they precisely can prove, such as inventing likely dialogue which can vivify actual events at which one was not present or was too young or impaired to precisely recall. But that's different than completely making up events which the author absolutely knows never to have occurred, and then injecting them into an "otherwise" true account, simply because it will make for more compelling reading (and book sales, and film rights).

I'm thinking the publishing industry needs a new category, just to keep things clear. Fictionish Memoir? Memoirish fiction? Memtion? Fictoir? Hey, I’m only half-kidding.

Here's what actually bothers me most: As a nonfiction writer, I have deep admiration for my fiction writing colleagues, and regard writing fiction as a far more difficult creative literary endeavor. So if one day I ever were to try to publish my (currently very fledgling) fiction, I'm thinking I'd be honored to call it just that -- fiction.

And hey, if you think you want to be a memoirist, but it turns out you can't keep yourself from throwing in made-up stuff, then maybe you are actually a novelist instead, so why not call it a novel? Go ahead, write it in first person if you like, and please do toss in anything that's verifiably true (don't all first novels do this anyway?), but please don't call it NONfiction. Or memoir. Or, please God, especially not creative nonfiction.

Update: In the New York Times, Motoko Rich and Brian Stelter, include this quote:

“It’s a little disturbing that this is happening so often, and as an industry we need to get our act together,” said Morgan Entrekin, president of the publisher Grove/Atlantic.

and this:

Certainly, industry observers wondered how editors at Berkley and producers for Ms. Winfrey did not at least question the veracity of Mr. Rosenblat’s story, given some improbable details. In the book, he wrote not only that he reunited with his wife in New York years after she threw apples to him over the fence, but also that he had actually gone on a blind date with her in Israel a few years earlier but did not recognize her when he met her again.

“You’d think somebody would say, ‘Hmm, that’s amazing, let’s just spend an hour or a day seeing how plausible that is,’ ” said Kurt Andersen, the novelist and host of the public radio program “Studio 360.”

Comments? I'm always interested in what others think about this topic.

The Anti-Frey-and-Seltzer Memoir Diet

I haven't read New York Times culture writer and business columnist David Carr's new memoir, The Night of the Gun yet (early reviews are good), and I haven't even gotten to the based-on-the-book piece he did in the Times magazine either. But what's caught my attention, and has been creating interest among those who watch developments in the creative nonfiction and memoir world is this: The longtime journalist treated his subject (himself) and the events described (his descent into and bootstrap rise out of drug addiction) as if he were writing for the eyes of his Times editors. You know the kind, who insist on fact checking and corroboration, who care if the words on the page are accurate, true and verifiable.

Carr is so unambiguous on where he stands on the unfortunate truth-bending trend in what he himself calls "junkie memoirs," he dug deep into his own past, notebook and video camera in hand, interviewing former associates, and checking records, and even hired a former journalism colleague to help search public records and interview those who knew Carr during the drug-addled years. He's not the first among journalists, or even among memoirists, who've researched themselves with rigor. But it's rare enough.

So, is this a positive sign for memoirs? Or does it portend a time when the personal memories of ethical nonfiction writers will be discounted unless they can be indisputably fact-checked and verified? Would that help or hinder the reader? Will it make much difference to the book buying public? Is this the antidote to the Frey-and-Seltzer blight? Or would any memoir written by a current NYTimes columnist automatically pass the truth-in-nonfiction test anyway?

Books, Poems, Plaigarism and TV

Another local independent bookstore is closing, which always makes me sad. But I was glad to here of this counter-trend.

I used to subscribe to a poem-a-day email, but when the emails weren't showing up, I discovered this site instead.

In case anyone needs a reminder, check out Jack Shafer at Slate on why plagiarism is a really bad idea.

Need a little bookish entertainment? Try this just launched site, for a video interview with four authors.

Little Pieces of Lies

It happened again.

Nonfiction writers sometimes confess that they – and by that I mean I -- get discouraged because our story is not compelling enough, not about a dysfunctional enough past.

So forgive me for being just a bit relieved to see that another hot new "memoir," is not, in fact a memoir at all. It is a novel, or it would have been had it been published under the proper genre. Now it's history. It was published last week, and was getting some good reviews. And now, the author says yup, she made it up.

The latest flap is over Love and Consequences, an alleged memoir about growing up white in gang-ruled, poverty-stricken black foster homes in South Central Los Angeles, by "Margaret B. Jones." The book was recalled by Riverhead Books (Penguin Group USA) this morning, because the author (outed by her sister) has admitted the book is a fabrication based on brief associations she had with gang members years ago.

None of this negates that Ms. Jones – sorry, Margaret Seltzer -- may in fact have written something that offers beautiful prose and a readable, moving story. But why not call it a novel? The answer may has much to do with the marketing machines of the major booksellers which paint a dollars-and-(no)sense picture that claims a great memoir will outsell a well-written novel.

And, there is a lot wrong with the way publishers don't spend even an hour or two vetting the veracity of a prospective nonfiction author's story.

But the answer also has to do with the reading public, and that includes all of us, writers or not. Attach the words or phrases "a true story," "her life story," "the real life account of…" and most of the reading public today – including me, I am a little embarrassed to admit – is more likely to plunk down the fifteen or twenty bucks.

I’m not sure why. I do know that the longer I write and the more deeply I study writing, the more I find myself gravitating away from reading mostly memoirs and towards the great novels – even though I write only nonfiction at the moment. You want stories? Novelists know how to tell them. So why do we want our modern stories, need them, all to be true? Why do we spend more money, more time, and pay more attention when it's labeled "true"?

And publishers – and maybe agents too – have they learned nothing since the James Frey debacle? How much would it take to have a researcher – or for that matter, anyone with an Internet connection, a phone and a brain – do even the most cursory digging to determine if the story they are about to publish, under the heading of memoir, is in fact, even mostly true?

It usually seems that people who lie about an entire past and put it on paper, usually do so pretty uniformly, so checking something simple that is quickly verifiable might turn up the first indication that all is not as it seems. From there, it's not too difficult to imagine confronting the would-be author, before galleys are in hand: By the way, our researcher was doing a routine check and while you say you are a Stanford alum, they've never heard of you…..

I don't know what machinations, if any (maybe none), may have gone on inside the agent and publisher offices; whether they took the writer at her word? Or were there discussions about how to best market the work? And about the writer: Didn't she think, when the New York Times photographer showed up, that someone might say, hey, I went to high school with her, where she lived in an intact affluent family, in a white suburb?

And what about me? I had clipped the review and was about to put the book on my "to be read" list, ready to put in an inter-library loan request for it. And now? I've completely lost interest. But I'm glad of one thing: the more of these NOT-memoirs that are exposed, maybe the reading public will get the message that real life does not always have to be so over-the-top, so unbelievable to make a good memoir.

The very best memoirs, I think, are those in which either nothing earth-shakingly dramatic happens, but the prose makes up for it; or something explosive does happen, and yet the quietly powerful writing does not overpower the story. Either way, the writer has done something with the telling of the event; he or she has not created the events.