Author's Note

It’s funny where a random conversation can take you.  I’d intended today to write a blog about Virginia’s Woolf’s famous piece about a room of one’s own and how things have changed (or not) in modern times, but instead I found myself woolgathering about the subject of genre after a random hallway conversation with a work acquaintance. 

It all started with the subject of pen names and how many authors have them.  She remarked that she had been amazed to find out that some authors have two or three pen names, and write different types of books under each name – like Snuggie Lovelace for romances, Jimmy Lasersight for science fiction, and L. P. Mystereo for mysteries.  My coworker thought that the writers should be proud of their versatility and have a single name that stretched across the genres.  But it’s not really a lack of pride that keeps writers from using the same name no matter what they write; there are other forces at play here. 

I rolled out the usual explanations to her.  Readers like to know what to expect when they pick up a new novel by a certain writer.  Booksellers like to know where to shelve things.  The marketing departments of publishing houses like to know where to spend their advertising dollars.  It would be awfully silly to buy advertising space for the latest fantasy blockbuster in a magazine aimed at mystery enthusiasts.  Having clear genre boundaries and everyone settled down into neat little boxes seems to make everything run a little smoother in the publishing industry.  But smoother doesn’t necessarily make for great books…. 

In fact, the really great books seem to be the ones that break past these boundaries and defy the neat, orderly boxes of categorization.  One of my favorite books, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger, does this.  It’s a romance.  It’s science fiction.  It’s a carefully crafted literary character study.  It is a wonderful book that makes me laugh and cry every time I read it.  I think publishers should publish more books like this in spite of the shelving and categorization confusion it might cause. 

Thank goodness the Powers That Be in New York seem to be catching on.  Cross-genre seems to be latest buzz word on literati circles – Romantic Mysteries, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction Thrillers, the list goes on and on.  So perhaps one day my coworker’s vision will come true and writers will only need one name, no matter how many different kinds of books they write.

“Before us is the empty page, the deep o’er which, like God, though modestly, we brood.” 

~ William Gass

Next to asking where story ideas come from, I think the most popular question I get asked by non-writers is whether or not what’s happening in my real world shows up in my writing, but most especially, do real people I know show up as characters.  And the answer is – yes and no.  I know, I know, another slippery, weasel non-answer.  But here’s how it works….

Situations show up a lot.  If I get lost and get panicky while trying to find my way out of an unfamiliar part of the city, you better believe that’s showing up in my work.  That kind of true, visceral emotion is too good to waste.  But it gets changed a little.  If I’m panicky about being lost, then my protagonist might be panicky about being chased or shot at, or if he/she is lost, he/she does it in another dimension of time or space.   But because of my own real life situation, all I have to do is reach into my own memories and describe my own feelings for my characters. 

Broad ideas also show up pretty regularly.  One idea I’ve been working on for a while is that of sleep, or lack thereof.  I don’t have all the kinks worked out yet, but it should be a lovely scifi story when I’m done.  And why does my mind keep wandering back to the thought of lost sleep and the hunger, the ache, for a good night’s sleep, which is dangling  just out of reach?  Because like most working Americans, I’m regularly sleep deprived because of the demands of a day job, a family, a home, and trying to make my creative dreams come true.  As a writer, if I passed up the chance to write a story that would ring so true with the hearts of so many people – well, I might as well turn in my pens and notebooks, I wouldn’t be a real writer at all. 

But characters, what about the characters….  Can anyone who meets a writer assume that he/she might find themselves in the pages of a future novel or short story?  Yes and no.  I’d be silly to cut myself off from such a rich source of inspiration for characters.  But dropping a real person, whole and unchanged from real life, into my work just doesn’t work.  I’d have to be true to that person.  I’d have to warp storylines to get every nuance of that person just so.  I’d have to risk a libel and slander lawsuit if that person didn’t like the character.  So, I borrow pieces.  Some deep family loyalty from over here, an obsession with groan-worthy puns from over there, and a soul questing for love from over here.  Not only does that free me from being true to one person, and potential story-warping and lawsuits, it allows me to create characters that everyone can find a little piece of themselves in.  And if my readers can find themselves in a character, then they can identify with that character. 

But do you want to know the real secret about who goes into making my characters?  It’s me.  Every character I create carries a little piece of my heart inside.  Even the darkest, most damaged villain has a little piece of me.  How could I write a believable character if I couldn’t identify with him/her? 

So there you have it, the real truth about whether or not the people, places, and situations a writer experiences in real life show up in the work.