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After our initial correspondence, posted on 12/12/02, author Janice Eidus answered some more questions I posed based on what she'd
written to me. I am delighted to share the continuation of our correspondence
this week:
When you do decide to write an essay, are you exploring issues that are the
same or different than the ones you explore in fiction?
I try not to “make things up” when
I write essays. When I write fiction, I glory in making things up.
Nevertheless, in each, I do find that similar issues and themes recur.
For instance, the battles I have fought and won in my own life, as well as the
battles I’ve witnessed others fighting and winning have led me to believe that
much of the time, if one possesses the imagination to imagine a way out of a
dilemma, one can, indeed, find a way out. This idea -- that imagination can
triumph over both interior and exterior obstacles -- is extremely dear to me,
and therefore it’s one that recurs frequently in both my fiction and
nonfiction.
Is it hard for you to switch to the unmasked voice of a
first person essay?
When I first began writing memoir
and personal essay, it was difficult for me because I very much loved adopting
myriad persona via a wide range of fictional voices. Maybe I’m a bit of a
frustrated actress, because it gave me (and continues to give me) enormous
pleasure to enter the minds of the “other,” i.e. women completely unlike
myself, and men, and children, and the elderly, and the very rich, and the very
poor, etc. Why stick with just being “me” when there are so many other
characters to be?
However, now that I’ve grown to delight in memoir and personal essays, I’ve
found that “unmasking myself” (a beautiful, apt phrase) isn’t nearly as difficult.
There is something tremendously heartening – and special, perhaps even
cathartic – about having readers approach me with their own similar life
stories. It’s a unique way of communicating.
Has an essay ever sparked fiction, or fiction an essay?
My short story, “Making Love Making
Movies” in Vito Loves Geraldine, is about a successful Los Angeles
screenwriter happily married to an actress. They each, unbeknownst to the
other, grow increasingly obsessed with romantic Hollywood movies, and
eventually this obsession leads them into adulterous affairs which have the
potential to destroy their marriage. I’m commenting, in the story, about how
easy it is to allow oneself to be suckered into believing in a false, idealized
vision of what “love” is. We’re constantly being sold, in our culture, via
film, books, TV, and advertising on the fact that love conquers all, and that
princes and princesses “meet cute” and then live happily ever after.
Unfortunately, many people sabotage their own chances for happiness in relationships
by clinging to unrealistic expectations, fostered by a cynical media. In
“Making Love Making Movies” I critique this culture, although not in a didactic
way – it’s actually a very whimsical and funny story.
Anyway, after I wrote it, I realized how much of a film buff I am – and that,
despite my critique, I’m as obsessed with movies as the next girl and guy. And
I ended up writing two nonfiction pieces about film. One, a personal essay that
appeared in a British anthology, is called “In The Company of Wolves,” and it’s
about a bona-fide riot that took place in a Times Square movie theater while I
was in the audience. The other is an instructional essay that appeared in
“Writer’s Digest,” called “The Visual Scene,” in which I offer suggestions about
how to make writing more vivid and visual by integrating techniques and images
from film.
What advice do you have for
writers who are using personal experience in fiction, since the demands of
fiction are different than the demands of essays?
Don’t think that because “it really
happened that way,” it makes good fiction. In real life, you may have two
brothers, and now you’re writing a short story based upon your relationship
with your younger brother. Well, then, think, long and hard, about whether you
really need characters based upon both brothers in the piece. Maybe in
this particular story your older brother is superfluous. Or maybe he isn’t. But
in either case, it’s a good question to ask yourself – is he or isn’t he? --
since you don’t want to crowd your story with characters that aren’t essential.
Maybe, in fact, your “excised” older brother will inspire you to write a second
story based upon your relationship with him (which is, undoubtedly, different
from your relationship with your younger brother). Or maybe you’ll write a
story based upon some other aspect of his life: his years spent following the
Grateful Dead; his stint in the army; his conquering of a serious illness....
And remember to be flexible. Let’s say you’ve written a story in the first
person point of view because it’s based upon your life and, naturally, YOU want
to be the one to tell it! But maybe, just maybe, this particular story is
crying out to be told in the mother’s point of view because, as it turns out,
she’s really the one who grows and changes in the story, not her daughter or
son (i.e., you). Or maybe it needs to move back and forth between both points
of view. The main thing is to allow yourself the freedom to try something new
and unfamiliar.
Which leads me to my final piece of advice for writers of both fiction and
nonfiction: Be adventurous. Challenge yourself. Experiment. Have fun. Think
less about whether you’re following a formula that will lead to fame and
fortune, and think more about refining your artistic skills so that you can, as
Judith Barrington says in Writing the Memoir, “ … effectively
communicate the hard-won, deep layers of truth that are rarely part of
conventional social discourse.” For me, that beautifully sums up why I write –
and why I hope most writers write. . . .
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