It is certainly a measure of the writer’s mentality when he or she starts to wish that they’d had a childhood trauma,simply so they could write about it.
I don’t mean that literally,of course. The case of the boy who was kidnapped and disappeared for four years in St. Louis isn’t something I would want to have endured,for instance. But the wack part of my brain keeps thinking this:it would make awesome material for a book.
In the otherwise loathsome movie “Happiness,” there is a funny scene in which a poet,who has gained notoriety through her series of poems about being raped (“Rape at 11,” “Rape at 12,” “Rape at 13…”) admits that she is really a fraud.
“Who am I kidding?” she thinks,paging through her book. “I’ve never been raped.” This leads to her trying to arrange being raped,for material,as it were.
I’m not envious of writers like Augusten Burroughs,who made literary (and financial) hay out of a twisted childhood. Nor is it a wise thing to even suggest that writers need to have such experiences to write about them — fiction or otherwise — for I imagine that you would have a bevy of them read this and say,“I have to become a heroin junkie for research,damnit!”
Research,as opposed to experience,is a different matter. Of not what we have lived,I’ve always found that “doing research” for a novel has always been one of the odder facets of writing. You’re learning about somebody else’s life so you can write about them as a fictional character. Or put another way:why the hell do I need to learn about something I’m going to make up,anyway?
The master
Wife is a fiend when it comes to research;I am Mr. TK. I’ll write something and to hell if it’s accurate or not. I’ll write that the Czar of Pittsburgh freed the Serfs of Finland in 1478,because I can always change it later. If it’s wrong,who cares,because I made up the whole damn thing anyway.
The Internet has made a joke out of research,to some degree. We can type in “mass murderer” and “early bird special” and learn about all the serial killers over the age of 75. But that doesn’t really get us in the mind of the codger per se,and I imagine that one would have to interview such a person,read psychology text,or hang out in nursing homes or Shoneys. If you were writing a book about such a person,that is.
Perhaps because I am lazy except in matters of rationalization,I’ve always felt that the mania for research can go too far. The man who is often credited with being the über-reporter in these matters is Emile Zola,who hung out with striking coal miners and wrote “Germinal,” and while he is acknowledged to bringing a new level of realism to fiction,I don’t envision many people rushing out to their favorite Left Bank bookstore and asking for “Germinal”these days except when there’s a strike in France,which actually means Zola’s heirs are doing quite nicely.
On the other hand,“Madame Bovary” seems to have flowered directly from Flaubert’s brain,and we know that The Story of Emma B. gets just a tad more attention than Zola’s tale of the grimy,unfortunate dudes in the coal shafts.
Or take “Lolita.” Despite the pedophilia,despite the lushness of his prose,despite the Europe-Meets-America tension in Humbert Humbert’s life in the U.S.A.,“Lolita” is essentially a road trip novel,a travelogue of which Nabokov drew from his own experience.
“Wow! Looks swank,” Lolita says upon laying eyes upon The Enchanted Hunters,his “vulgar darling” all naïve to Humbert’s faux suavity (methinks Humbert Humbert is the original Eurotrash). Nabokov makes several references to Flaubert in “Lolita” (so says “The Annotated ‘Lolita,’”because really,folks,do you think I’m smart enough to make the connection on my own?),and if the circumstances of Emma Bovary and Delores Haze are wildly divergent,they both end in tragedy,a sense of which no amount of research can prepare one to express with words.
Back to the drawing board
I guess I am writing all this for the mere reason that I am coming face-to-face with the reality that if I am to continue trying to write fiction,I will need to get rid of this nasty habit of making stuff up and hoping that it’s right. (And I thought about writing a book about that kid who was kidnapped for four years,despite his opportunities to split,which makes me wonder just what happened…)
And if I want to write non-fiction — even first-person essays about Wife and Son and such — I’ll need to do some research,even interviews.
Uh,any volunteers? Feel free to e-mail me.
I try not to research. When I do,I usually somehow end up on YouTube for 6 hours searching for things like “licking a dog’s face”or “dumped in a trash can”to see just how many bizarre people there actually are in the world,and how many are filming their daily lives and putting it in on ‘net for all the world to marvel at. (Note:there’s about a trillion.)
Be sure to document all your interviews for your personal essay non-fiction pieces. If you make up a bunch of stuff,apparently you get to be praised and petted on Oprah but then the Smoking Gun goes after you and your literary career ends up in the toilet. Oh,and also:Oprah beats you up on live TV. That would kind of suck.
I try not to research. When I do,I usually somehow end up on YouTube for 6 hours searching for things like “licking a dog’s face”or “dumped in a trash can”to see just how many bizarre people there actually are in the world,and how many are filming their daily lives and putting it in on ‘net for all the world to marvel at. (Note:there’s about a trillion.)
Be sure to document all your interviews for your personal essay non-fiction pieces. If you make up a bunch of stuff,apparently you get to be praised and petted on Oprah but then the Smoking Gun goes after you and your literary career ends up in the toilet. Oh,and also:Oprah beats you up on live TV. That would kind of suck.
I try not to research. When I do,I usually somehow end up on YouTube for 6 hours searching for things like “licking a dog’s face”or “dumped in a trash can”to see just how many bizarre people there actually are in the world,and how many are filming their daily lives and putting it in on ‘net for all the world to marvel at. (Note:there’s about a trillion.)
Be sure to document all your interviews for your personal essay non-fiction pieces. If you make up a bunch of stuff,apparently you get to be praised and petted on Oprah but then the Smoking Gun goes after you and your literary career ends up in the toilet. Oh,and also:Oprah beats you up on live TV. That would kind of suck.
It all goes back to truth being stranger than fiction,BF. I think my life would make for an incredible novel…or,a cheesy lifetime movie at best.
CP.
It all goes back to truth being stranger than fiction,BF. I think my life would make for an incredible novel…or,a cheesy lifetime movie at best.
CP.
It all goes back to truth being stranger than fiction,BF. I think my life would make for an incredible novel…or,a cheesy lifetime movie at best.
CP.
Method Writing,like Method Acting. Emerse yourself in that world to write it well.
I think that equal parts experience,research and unregulated imagination all need to be present for a great novel to work.
For example,in American Pastoral Philp Roth presents every last detail on ho wto make a great glove and how to run a glove making factory.
That much he researched. But his portrayal of the people and times of bygone Newark are what he lived.
The characters,he just plain made up.
All three elements combined to make one fo the great novels of the second half of the 20th century.
As much as I’m glad I’m not the only one to have these thoughts,I’m not sure that I should be relieved so much as very concerned for you. **laugh**
Method Writing,like Method Acting. Emerse yourself in that world to write it well.
I think that equal parts experience,research and unregulated imagination all need to be present for a great novel to work.
For example,in American Pastoral Philp Roth presents every last detail on ho wto make a great glove and how to run a glove making factory.
That much he researched. But his portrayal of the people and times of bygone Newark are what he lived.
The characters,he just plain made up.
All three elements combined to make one fo the great novels of the second half of the 20th century.
Method Writing,like Method Acting. Emerse yourself in that world to write it well.
I think that equal parts experience,research and unregulated imagination all need to be present for a great novel to work.
For example,in American Pastoral Philp Roth presents every last detail on ho wto make a great glove and how to run a glove making factory.
That much he researched. But his portrayal of the people and times of bygone Newark are what he lived.
The characters,he just plain made up.
All three elements combined to make one fo the great novels of the second half of the 20th century.
As much as I’m glad I’m not the only one to have these thoughts,I’m not sure that I should be relieved so much as very concerned for you. **laugh**
As much as I’m glad I’m not the only one to have these thoughts,I’m not sure that I should be relieved so much as very concerned for you. **laugh**
amy:youtube has been a great way for me to waste time in the guise of research. why one would want to film their daily existence and “broadcast yourself”is beyond me. everybody’s gotta be famous.
i don’t think i have to worry much about oprah or the smoking gun.
cp:you can’t tell us your life would make a cheezy lifetime network movie without giving more details. not fair.
phoenix:“american pastoral”had so much about how to make gloves that i started to wonder if he decided to throw everything in,since he’d done the research. (he probably could have cut the glove-business stuff by half). the most powerful parts of the book,in my humble opinion,had nothing to do with such detail.
jordan:concern is always the correct response in these matters. be afraid,be very afraid,be really,superduper very afraid.
amy:youtube has been a great way for me to waste time in the guise of research. why one would want to film their daily existence and “broadcast yourself”is beyond me. everybody’s gotta be famous.
i don’t think i have to worry much about oprah or the smoking gun.
cp:you can’t tell us your life would make a cheezy lifetime network movie without giving more details. not fair.
amy:youtube has been a great way for me to waste time in the guise of research. why one would want to film their daily existence and “broadcast yourself”is beyond me. everybody’s gotta be famous.
i don’t think i have to worry much about oprah or the smoking gun.
cp:you can’t tell us your life would make a cheezy lifetime network movie without giving more details. not fair.
phoenix:“american pastoral”had so much about how to make gloves that i started to wonder if he decided to throw everything in,since he’d done the research. (he probably could have cut the glove-business stuff by half). the most powerful parts of the book,in my humble opinion,had nothing to do with such detail.
jordan:concern is always the correct response in these matters. be afraid,be very afraid,be really,superduper very afraid.
phoenix:“american pastoral”had so much about how to make gloves that i started to wonder if he decided to throw everything in,since he’d done the research. (he probably could have cut the glove-business stuff by half). the most powerful parts of the book,in my humble opinion,had nothing to do with such detail.
jordan:concern is always the correct response in these matters. be afraid,be very afraid,be really,superduper very afraid.
Mmmmm…Shoney’s. They used to have the best breakfast buffet ever.
Mmmmm…Shoney’s. They used to have the best breakfast buffet ever.
Mmmmm…Shoney’s. They used to have the best breakfast buffet ever.
I hate research. Unless it’s something I want to know more about? Fuck it. That’s a very large reason as to why I blow at college.
On the other hand? I try to write,and keep thinking of all I don’t know,and that’s paralyzing as well.
So what do I do? Go play black jack on my cell phone.
I hate research. Unless it’s something I want to know more about? Fuck it. That’s a very large reason as to why I blow at college.
On the other hand? I try to write,and keep thinking of all I don’t know,and that’s paralyzing as well.
So what do I do? Go play black jack on my cell phone.
I hate research. Unless it’s something I want to know more about? Fuck it. That’s a very large reason as to why I blow at college.
On the other hand? I try to write,and keep thinking of all I don’t know,and that’s paralyzing as well.
So what do I do? Go play black jack on my cell phone.