The Truth Below the True
I’m not going to tell you my true story.
Not just because it’s decidedly uneventful for the first four decades or so (apart from the usual stuff – saying clever things as a toddler, enduring the “let’s get Steve and his older brother matching sailor suits, won’t that be cute?” miscues of otherwise wonderful parents, leaving home, getting married, having kids, taking the occasional vacation, discovering unique ways to incorporate bacon into daily life), but because some of the story, particularly the season that begins just after those first four decades, features choices and consequences and events that, if published, could end up hurting Real Life People.
No matter how redemptive the story might ultimately be, a memoir that begins, “I fell in love with someone who was not my spouse,” is fraught with potential to damage friends and family members and others who don’t care to remember what happened “way back when.” Could such a book be helpful to people struggling with a similar situation? Probably. Cautionary tales have merit, to be sure. But I’m not telling you mine.
You’re distracted, aren’t you.
You’re wondering if that opening line is indeed from my unwritten memoir. Let’s take a closer look at this distraction for a moment. Look beyond the base curiosity that feeds our strange hunger for rumor. In just one sentence we see the edges of something that makes us squirm: even the best fall down sometimes. [Hat tip to Howie Day’s “Collide.”]
Don’t turn away just yet. Look deeper. Beneath the true story of a man who falls in love with someone who isn’t his wife is something called longing. I’m not going to use this space to tell you the “right and wrong” ways to deal with longing. [Feel free to bombard me with emails about “boundaries” if you must. Then take a real close look at why you feel so compelled to bombard me with emails about boundaries.] I’m not even going to try and define longing here. But you know it, don’t you. You know what it is.
It is a truth.
Though I choose not to tell my true story, I still feel compelled to write. (Hey, I’m a writer. It’s what we do.) And that, my virtual friends, is why I write fiction – short stories you can read here (if you have a strong stomach for angst and don’t mind digging a bit to find the hints of hope in the pain) – and a novel, which will finally get stamped with “The End” by summer if all goes well.
Let me make something abundantly clear: I’m not writing my “true story” in novel form. For the record, I don’t think that’s such a good idea for writers. But I am telling the truth. The truth of longing. The truth of what it feels like to be lost. Of what it feels like to be desired. Of what it feels like to be forgotten. Of what it feels like to wait. Of what it feels like to sip grace.
These truths are universal – and such universal truths are exactly what make a novel both believable and compelling.
I’m sure you’ve read novels that resonate with you. Maybe you couldn’t articulate exactly what it was that captured you, but you knew that this novelist was telling the truth. I suspect you’ve also read a few books that have had the opposite effect – you simply couldn’t relate to the characters or the storyline. Why? I’d bet the story was a little short on truth.
If you want to be a good writer – a writer who connects with readers, you have to get in touch with the truth below the true. Fair warning: getting to the truth below isn’t always fun – in fact, the journey can be ugly and scary and dangerous. But ignore it at your own peril as an author.
Tell whatever story you want, be it a mystery or fantasy or historical romance. Make up characters and plot lines as far removed from your own true story as the fiction demands. Hey, that’s part of the fun of being a writer. You can go anywhere.
Just be sure to tell the truth when you get there.
24 Comments
Kathleen
It seems like whatever you write, a tweet, a status, a post – it is from your heart and so real it always makes me ache with understanding somehow.
That’s art making a connection. I like it. My favorite thing is that you never seem ashamed or embarrassed of desire or longing or sadness-you don’t try to kill it dead. Somehow you live in the tension of it – well. I like it. 🙂
It seems like a great gift.
Steve P., ND
If this is a gift, I can assure you it didn’t come cheap. But thanks for the kind words, Kathleen.
sarah
Yes. I completely agree with you on this. I write a great deal about longing, and I worry sometimes that people think I have written down my own secrets. But that sense of longing – that awareness of the space between – is universal and regardless of its origins in your own heart is easy to transform into a story that sounds biographical simply because it is a truth we can all acknowledge, and therefore people assume it must be true.
The best writers have a gift for truth-telling, which is funny considering they are really story-telling a bunch of lies. It’s something I like about your stories, that you tell the true things so simply. I’m looking forward to reading that novel!
Steve P., ND
Well said, Sarah. Good novelists are writers who use lies to tell the truth.
Mair Q.
I know, right? Ugly, scary and dangerous is the stuff my writing is made of, but it’s true, whether you write bestsellers or not, dangerous fiction touches on the tenuousness of life, and we’re all fragile. We’re all dust.
I’ve missed you and your words. It’s really good to be here.
Steve P., ND
Hey, Q, so good to see you here. And I know your novels are all about truth. You couldn’t write any other way.
Nicole
So true. (No pun intended.)
And as “they” say: sometimes the truth hurts. Big time.
You’ve always managed to capture that truth, sometimes it’s the downside, but it’s always real.
Steve P., ND
I know, Nicole. My stuff can seem rather depressing. That’s because the stories are birthed from pain more often than joy. But I like to think there’s a touch of hope even in the darkest stories. Sometimes I don’t see it until the second or third read-through. But it’s usually there. And when it’s not? Hope is revealed by its absence. Or something like that.
Can you tell I’m making this up as I go?
katdish
This was probably an excellent post, but I’m really distracted by what you said in the second paragraph…
Okay, kidding. Great stuff, as always Steve.
Steve P., ND
I knew you’d comment about the second paragraph. Maybe that’s why I wrote it in the first place.
Or maybe not.
Either way, glad you liked the post.
Maureen
The first good piece of advice I received was, write what you know. The second came from Lucille Clifton, who said, “A poem doesn’t have to be factual but it does have to be true.”
Steve P., ND
I think we could boil down most “how to write” books to those two pieces of advice. Good stuff.
Billy Coffey
There will most likely never come a day when I write as well as the words I’ve just read here, but I’m gonna try anyway. That was fantastic.
Steve P., ND
I’ll have to disagree with you here, Billy. I’ve read your blog. Your writing is already brilliant. And that’s just the non-fiction stuff. Once I get a chance to read your upcoming novel, Snow Day, I’m sure I’ll be quoting the first sentence above right back at ya.
Tony Noland
Very insightful post. Finding the underlying emotions and relying on them for the truthfulness of the story is the key to writing that touches the reader. Thanks for expressing it so well.
Steve P., ND
Your comment sparked another thought: while many authors desire to have their words touch their readers in some meaningful, memorable way, not all are shooting for that goal. Some just want to take readers on an adventure. I believe truthful emotions can make just about any story better, but I’ve certainly read (and enjoyed) my share of action-packed novels with which I’ve had little personal connection to the characters apart from the visceral thrill of joining in on the chase.
Michael Goodell
Tony Noland tweeted a link to your website, and I ran here because I am entangled with the question of truth in fiction. I’m writing a novella which brings a mass of truth together in the form of autobiographic details in the telling of a story which is manifestly not true. It is not true because it never happened, except in my imagining of it. I won’t go into the details of the plot because I don’t think this is what this forum is designed to do, but I will say it is the hardest, most complex, yet when it works, the most gratifying writing I have ever done.
Steve P., ND
So glad you stopped by, Michael. I think you’re absolutely right – truthful writing is as gratifying as it is difficult to do well. This may account for the fact that my novel is still so far from finished. Well, that, and my general laziness.
Susan Cross
My imagination needs a kick start so I often start a story with something that happened and then leave that path and let myself wander. I hope that readers can’t tell which is which. Using your terms, it’s all true — in some way, to someone. I’ve had a pretty weird life and my husband’s 2 favorite phrases are “You can’t make this stuff up” and “truth is stranger than fiction.”
I enjoyed reading your post. This is why I try to check in on Twitter now and then. I never know what I’ll find there.
Steve P., ND
I always liked that phrase, “truth is stranger than fiction.” I also like it’s cousin, “if you want to tell the truth, write fiction.”
Terry
I like that, “if you want to tell the truth, write fiction.” So true. I wouldn’t dare write in non-fiction what I write in fiction. The underlying truth in my work slays our last sacred cow.
I wouldn’t want those cow paddies, or is it patties,(I’m a city girl)thrown at me.
Elisabeth Black
I’ve been thinking about this so much lately.
You’re a brave soul.
Steve P., ND
Brave? Maybe. Or perhaps a fool.
Probably both.
caitlyn
Hi Steve,
Got tweeted to here. Lovely. Hilarious. Yum.
I urge you to find the poem “Exchange of Fire” by Susan Musgrave. If you can’t find it, email me, I’ll get it to you. I think you would….
Just putting my writing website together: Caitlyn’s Write: but you knew that already (http://caitlynjames.com) and something more every day about the development of the imagination (educational theory), neuroscience, parenting, teaching at-risk youth, joy, honesty – you know the usual. http://ImaginingBetter.com.
Hopefully, you won’t mind, but it is my intention to put a link to this site on my writing site. I’ll be back & I think my writing friends will love your bravery & insanity. Always a cheery combo.
🙂 caitlyn