My brother-in-law gave
me a mug that reads, “Please do not annoy the writer. She may put you in a book
and kill you.”
I found that hilarious –
and a perfect gift for a tea-drinking writer when I received it.
People who don’t write
assume – from my experience – that writers use people they know as their characters,
as if they couldn’t create characters on their own.
I’ve had people tell me
– usually during an argument – “I don’t want to be a character in one of your
novels!” To which I reply, “You wish!”
This is not some
conceited retort. I think, at least to some degree, the people who say things
like that do fancy themselves as the
perfect “character” for someone’s novel. And there are writers who fancy themselves
characters for their own stories.
Those of us of a certain
age are familiar with Alfred Hitchcock making a cameo in every one of his
films. And if he weren’t a screenwriter, Woody Allen wouldn’t have an acting
career. Don’t believe me? Name one movie he was in that he didn’t write.
But seriously, I don’t
use real people to play the part of my characters, and never have – even when I
was 10 and made my first aborted stab at The Great American Novel.
My inspiration consists
more of taking a line from a conversation. For example, a recent blog was
inspired by something a friend wrote me in an email.
Another example comes
from one of my novels, where one of the main characters’ father dies. The whole
aftermath at the hospital is a recreation of what happened when my own father
died – and that was only a year earlier, so it was still fresh.
Everything the wife did
and said was what I remember my mother doing and saying. Yet the wife, a very
minor character in the series, is otherwise nothing like my own mother. I only
used that particular scene.
I also find it amusing
that people who have read my novels will say, “Oh, so-and-so is you.” And
they’re usually wrong. Yes, I am a character in nearly every one of my novels.
But before you start thinking I’m a complete
narcissist, let me clarify. My books are not autobiographical. I never set out
to write a book about me, and so far I’ve succeeded.
One character in each book is who I
wish I were instead of me.
And it’s never the
character people think. (Okay, maybe in the first Unicorn story it is.) It’s
always the first left-handed character you meet.
I am essentially a
watcher. I observe the human condition, and apply it to my stories.
This is not unique. This
is what writers do. Yet you never hear a writer receiving an award say, “I’d
like to thank my muse, so-and-so, for giving me the line that inspired this
film.” No, they thank the academy, their parents for sending them to a good
university, their wives, partners and kids for giving them the space to create.
Yet it doesn’t all come
from them. Someone sparked the idea. Anyone could be that muse. Writers just
don’t usually talk about it.
Now a word of warning to
all of you non-writers out there: Lest you think of making some grandiose speech
you think I’ll include in my next novel, forget about it. The thing I find
particularly inspiring is usually something insignificant that you say when
you’re not particularly paying attention.
Besides, the wrong thing
could annoy me, and I might put you in the next story and kill you.
