Memories of the Future
Letters of an examined life - letter #13
Writing is about connection. It is about finding those commonalities through shared experience. So when Dr Lily Dunn and I discovered each other’s work we both thought: ‘now this is a woman I could sit down and chat with for hours over a bottle of wine’. Yet geography – the miles between us – made that impossible. So instead we committed to writing letters to one another, to discuss life, memoir, writing craft and more. And in this series, Memories of the Future: letters of an examined life, we have shared those unedited – and often very personal – letters with you, our readers.
For new subscribers, a catch-up, we started this letter-writing series in January and ran for four weeks, eight letters passing between us on a range of topics from motherhood to memoir and the ethics of writing about our personal lives, and how that is both felt by us and received by others. Here we return for another short series.
You can find Lily’s letter #12 to me here, and go further back to catch up on the series from the beginning.
And don’t forget that one of the pleasures of Lily and I sharing these letters, is hearing from you. Your comments inspire and further our conversations in letter, so please let us know if anything you have read resonates – or indeed you completely disagree.
And so, to letter #13
Dear Lily,
Thank you for finding the time to write to me last week, I understand it was a busy week for you and that you were wrapped up in memoir. I could read that in your letter, that your mind was so steeped in the writing of non-fiction, that it was hard to bring yourself back to some of my questions that were on the topic of fiction. Or at least, I guess because I’m thinking of my second novel of mine that needs surgery, I was hoping to discuss that with you further.
Your letter got me thinking, on various points actually, but one in particular I’d like to discuss with you further. You describe your novel, which sounds so interesting, and you say that it is based on your own experience. And yet, in my previous letter, I had said that it is the very fact that an element of my novel which is based on my experience is responsible for it not currently working. It’s the me bit that I need to remove.
And on that subject, I wanted to talk to you a little of this writing instruction that we should ‘write what we know.’ As a memoirist, that is of course what you have done, up to now, and what you teach, for who could know their own life better than the people writing their memoirs (although I would actually suggest that when writing memoir we are actually writing into the bits that we don’t know).
But then here I am this time writing only about memoir when it is a conversation on fiction I wish to draw you into.
The novel that I have written, or at least the bits of it that work currently, are things that are in no way my experience. In fact, I made the very conscious decision to write about a topic that I don’t know, because I wanted to know it better.
I think I said to you in my previous letter that I have set my novel in Bodrum, Turkey, where I lived in my twenties. I knew I wanted to escape back to that town that I had loved so much, where I had been happiest, and I researched it more (the bits that I didn’t know) to know it better. I knew, for example, that one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was situated there – King Mavsolos’ Mausoleum. But I didn’t know that it was also said to be where the nymph Salmakis had her pond and it was from this water that the Greek myth of Hermaphrodite sprung. What was so interesting about this, and felt like kismet to some extent, was that I wanted to write about people who consider themselves to be another sex to that which they are born, because I struggle with that idea so much.
I wondered if my understanding of that could deepen if I explored it in fiction, and so I was delighted to find that the stars were aligned in this literary quest of mine with my discovery of Salmakis’ pond (I had often wondered why so many hotels, boats and restaurants bore this name!).
You see as a ghostwriter – as an empath – I don’t like not being able to understand an issue like this, and so ignoring the advice of writing what you know, I set out to find out what it was exactly that I didn’t know.
My protagonist in the historical storyline also comes from a line of sponge divers – I didn’t know about that. I didn’t know about the bends, I didn’t know how you find sponges deep in the ocean, and what you do with them once you bring them to the surface of the water. My protagonist in the contemporary storyline is an underwater archaeologist, I did not know about the ships that were sunk thousands and thousands of years ago, how it is often the shape of the copper ingots that they carried that allows historians to date the ship, that ostrich egg beads and fine jewellery could be brought up to the air and survive all those centuries underwater being rocked by the tides. I didn’t know any of that, but I found out, I let my imagination run wild, I created a story, and I got to know my characters. Yes, I did understand better, even if it didn’t change my mind on many things I had previously thought, but at least now I knew.
I have friends who write books, I have friends who want to write books, and I have friends who have discarded their books because they are afraid of being accused of appropriating a culture they do not know in their fiction. But isn’t that our job as writers, to distill a subject that we do not know into a story that makes it accessible for all, to use our special skills to help other people to get to know the world better? I think so.
I am a big believer in writing what you don’t know, with the proviso that you find out first, or that the process of writing itself reveals it to you. I’d be keen to hear what you think of that because when I did that, the Mary Karr line you quoted in your last letter was correct, my book ‘exploded into being.’ Do you think, in fiction, you should write what you know? And do you agree, in memoir, that you are writing what you don’t know? I’d love to hear.
Because my fear is that if we are only allowed to write what we know, we are closing our minds, when the job of an author is to keep the mind expansive, to play creatively, to catch ourselves staring out of windows daydreaming, or losing our threads in conversations with friends because we’re living in this alternative universe we have magicked up.
I believe it would be a shame to lose that, to restrict our imagination – even writing that feels like an oxymoron.
I realise that this is perhaps an unusual handbrake turn that I have taken in this letter, that the ideas behind it might feel political, and I don’t know how comfortable you will feel writing back to me on this topic, but if you would, I’d be so keen to hear your thoughts.
With love and gratitude for your time,
Your penpal,
Anna
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I have thought about my response to these a lot over the last couple days, it was interesting to think about. I am not a writer of fiction, so I come with a different lens. I am specifically addressing the idea of writing about another group of people in order to work through your own feelings about them and how cultural appropriation applies.
I have always been taught, "Nothing about us, without us." Meaning, do not speak for, teach about, write about a group of people with a very different lived experience than yourself, without including a representative of that group or getting feedback on your material from someone with lived experience. So in writing, that could look like getting feedback and critique from someone who is actually a member of the group you are writing about. Again, I don't create fiction, but I would imagine that principle could still apply. But then, this assumes that the author feels (a) a responsibility to authentically represent the culture and psychology of their characters and (b) a responsibility to not do harm to the real-world community that they are writing about. The goal of "write about the world to understand it better" seems a bit more self-focused, and does not necessarily include a social responsibility to the audience I suppose. But I would argue that if you are writing for an audience, it SHOULD include a social responsibility.
I also think that writing about a culture or identity different than ones own is very different than say, writing about being a scuba diver when you have never scuba dived. You could perhaps do a lot of research to learn about scuba diving and accurately reflect that on the page. And yet, I bet many authors would still interview scuba divers in that case! But in that scenario, I think the social responsibility is low. When writing about trans people especially, you are representing a vulnerable group. In the US at least, trans people are disproportionally at risk for murder and suicide. The government actively works to enact harmful and discriminatory policies. So in that case, misrepresenting trans people on the page risks further adding to misunderstanding, fear, and hate for this group of people. The risk of harm is high.
As a reader, I also crave authenticity. I think about times I (as a cis-gendered, heterosexual woman) have read sex scenes in which a male author is writing the perspective of a female character and does it...poorly. It really takes me out of the story when I am rolling my eyes at the dialogue.
In regard to appropriation, when I hear that term I think more about reaping the rewards of borrowing the beloved aspects of a culture, without properly crediting that culture AND without having lived experience that includes discrimination that accompanies that identity. I think that is relevant here in that, I am willing to bet that trans authors face discrimination in getting their work published (although this is not an area I'm very familiar with, so correct me if I'm wrong).
I just happened to notice that their is a recent episode on the podcast Write-Minded called "Social Responsibility in Fiction, featuring Naomi Kanakia." I have not listened to the episode but it sounds relevant so I thought I would share for anyone wanting to explore the topic further (as I will as well).
I totally agree that we should be allowed to write about places and cultures and experiences that aren't ours. Otherwise our writing is severely restricted and there is no room for imagination. I wonder if the problem is when the voices of imagined experiences overpower or overshadow the voices of lived experience? Where the doors into publishing or self publishing are more open to the privileged. It would be great to see more collaborations - authors who are imagining and exploring and authors who are telling their lived experience.