Stop fictionalising your life!
This was advice a friend’s psychologist told him to tell me. Both me and my husband are talked about often during his sessions, and his analyst has read my books to gain a better understanding of his relationship with us.
In a recent writer’s hashtag, someone wrote:
Trying to get my head around utilising my lived experience to tell stories that need to be told without it being factual or sounding “woe is me” because it’s not about me but about the bigger picture/themes.
My method uses a larger dose of fiction than reality.
When the initial draft of my first novel, Drama Queens with Love Scenes, was assessed, I was told to completely rewrite it to focus on the friends who become lovers. These two friends were based on me and my husband, and as this story was set in the theatre district of the Afterlife, it was easy to blanket magical elements around real life drama.
This novel fictionalises a time when I was bullied at work, the workings of my relationship with my partner (I had to create a love triangle which wasn’t based on fact), and my early years of acting lessons and stage performing.
This novel features an insecure gay angel (originally based on an actual person), a blonde bombshell who was a failed actress when she was alive in the 1950s, and a bad playwright from the 1920s.
While all characters but three have roots in reality, my lived experience colours this tale.
My worst relationship is highlighted in another book.
In fact, I was not in a safe place during that time, but the novella which uses elements of that lived reality has an Alice In Wonderland feel in its narrative. In Winter Masquerade, Ferris finds himself on an enchanted ocean liner with no way back to his boyfriend. As the story unfolds, the mystical characters begin to see the truth about his relationship and, through a masquerade ball, Ferris also comes to terms with how he’s been treated.
Another book, titled The Midnight Man, features an unhappy middle aged guy who meets the man of his dreams, literally in his dreams. He is also in a failed relationship and has an overbearing mother. The novel explores themes of ageing, midlife crisis, and the dynamics of a partnership on the rocks. None of this is my reality, although I’m old enough to know a thing or two about ageing.
The inspiration for this story came partly from the beautiful Kate Bush song, Man With the Child In His Eyes, and partly because a long time ago, I met a man in a dream who I was attracted to, but I didn’t want to cheat on my real world partner. When I woke up, I was annoyed at myself because sex in a dream is not cheating.
So, even though I feel this novel is fiction, my friend disagrees.
And yes, I am still talking about the friend who has an analyst. There is a line of dialogue in the book that he once said to me. Other than that, I didn’t see connections until my current work in progress took some turns I didn’t expect.
Tin Men and Scarecrows originally began as a modern take on The Wizard of Oz but has since become a darker piece. One of the themes being explored is the effect of heteronormality on gay people. This has brought more twists which weren’t originally in the outline as recent real life events shape this project. And this is still the initial draft.
Somehow, I now see the connections between this work and The Midnight Man. There is a subconscious reality which only those close to me see, even if I don’t.
Which is why I read certain scenes of my current project to both my friend and my husband. I’m making sure I stay in the realm of fiction, while making sure the characters’ actions are based in truth.
kevin klehr 