PERCEPTION, WHOSE? *

 

One of my favorite Jewish jokes goes like this:

Two people have an argument and go to the rabbi to rule who’s right. After hearing the first person, the rabbi says, “You’re right.” The second person protests that he hasn’t had a chance to state his case, and after he does, the rabbi says to the second person,” You’re right.”

A third person hears the whole spiel and protests. “Rabbi, they can’t both be right.”

To that, the rabbi says to the third person, “You’re right, too!”

 

That says it.

 

It depends on perception. For storytelling purposes, it’s called point of view (POV) and it makes all the difference.

 

I’ve had feedback that said something a character was saying was factually incorrect, urging me to correct it. “You don’t want young readers to think this is so,” the feedback goes.

But it was correct. It was right from that character’s perception.

 

This is why I have an aversion to politically motivated fiction, confusing a version of secular piety with the truth that a particular character’s perception is what it is. Writing a POV well must be the character’s truth, not “what you want young readers (or any readers) to think.”

 

*Never mind the grammatically challenged title of this post. Scrambling language rules wakes one up, at least according to my POV. 🙂

WHEN CHARACTERS TEACH

 

Another writer, lamenting the steep odds to traditional publishing, told me she doesn’t need to write and will cease writing fiction if her journey doesn’t make an upward turn in the near future.

 

I was surprised. This writer is gifted, exceptionally so. She spends many hours at her craft. I assumed she, like me, writes for herself first. I told her that the writing process is a way of clarifying thoughts, and I couldn’t imagine not doing it regardless of what markets open (or don’t) for my stories.

 

She responded that Journaling, (=keeping a diary) serves that purpose for her. Fiction is a craft that is firstly labor, not a gift to self.

 

It’s different for me. Because, and this is a confession that could put me in the loony-bin in some folks’ eyes, my characters always surprise me with their insights. They say things I never knew, or never knew I knew. I grow and learn a lot from them.

 

Another way of putting it is the unconscious mind needed the conscious self to open a narrow portal and allow insights to slither out into the space that words inhabit.

 

 

Journaling has never served this for me, and I stopped keeping a diary many years ago. For me, the entries consisted of emotions of the moment that overwhelmed any chance for deep reflection.

 

In this blog I write of what I already know or hope to learn. In fiction, I learn what I didn’t know I knew.

 

So, to each their own. I am grateful for all that my fictional characters taught me, and while I’d love to share them with you, I will not abandon them regardless of who else chooses not to make their acquaintance.

Literary Characters from One’s Real Life

 

Question: How many of your story characters are from your real life?

Answer: All of them

Answer: None of them

Answer: All of the above

 

My late father, a man who lived an astonishingly rich life and also possessed great writing talents, was often urged to write his autobiography. He refused, saying autobiographies are always exercises in self-justification, and in many instances also in self-beautification. He preferred fiction because he thought it more honest.

 

After penning quite a few fictional stories, I find that I agree with his assessment of fiction. The writer’s truth is in them, though it is not “just as it was in life.”

 

I trust these truths, and would even go so far as to call them self-evident,* at least in a roundabout way. *(With apologies to the brilliant wording of the United States Declaration of Independence)

Yes, even cute animal picture book stories are really people you know. Think of Aesop’s fables.

Now you got it.