Erm, hey everyone. This is my first post and I have some questions about ethics and what is right or wrong to include in a book.

I am writing a near future science fiction/horror story and one of my characters is a Serb and was a child during the Balkan wars, and the victim of one of the awful atrocities that occurred in the Krajina region of Croatia in 1995. I have done quite a lot of research about this and I've been trying to write about it in a sensitive and realistic way. However I am worried that there is something "wrong" that I am using other people's pain to write fiction and writing about something so controversial. Should I be or is this just stupid?

As well as this, my opening scene is about a suicide bomber (It's a nightmare scenario for the UK where society practically breaks down due to terrorism and a fascist regime takes over). One of my main characters is a Muslim but I am worried that in describing such events I might give ammunition to people who are prejudiced. I have tried to write about this sensitively, again, but I am still worried about it!


Also in a more general sense what is everyone's general view about writing about things that you haven't directly experienced yourself? Is it a good idea?

Hello, yaaseshalom, and welcome to WW.

In writing fiction we all feed off other people's lives, and I think if you're taking it very seriously, which you obviously are, and being sensitive to the importance of it, treating it with respect, as it were, then that's fine, and perhaps even ethically a good thing: these matters need exploring. What's offensive is to take something so terrible and use it frivolously, as a scrap of back-story for a vulgar bit of instant gravitas. But you're not doing that.

If you're worried that - for good reasons in the novel - using something which a reader might take the wrong way, like your Muslim, one possibility is to cast another Muslim, say, in a precisely opposite role. A light-hearted example, say, would be if you were writing an interior designer, and for reasons of plot he needed to be gay and love Judy Garland, but you felt that was an awful clichéd stereotype, just add in another gay character who doesn't conform to the gay stereotypes, but digs roads and loves Iron Maiden. Or whatever.

I think it's inevitable, unless you never write anything but autobiography, that you write about things you haven't experienced yourself. That's what fiction is, and a huge part of the fiction-writer's professional skill is in imagining lives and experiences other than their own. It's true that the litmus test of whether it seems authentic is to compare it with something you'd write about your own life: is it as living-breathing-convincing? Often the made-up experience is more convincing, in my experience, because the writer's had to try harder.

Emma

Hi, yaaseshalom and welcome to WriteWords.
In answer to your more general question about 'writing about things that you haven't directly experienced yourself' - go ahead. We all do it, that's why it's called 'fiction'.
As for the subject you describe, you will be one of many writers currently tackling the topic - afterall, in fiction there is nothing new under the sun - and who is to say that your storyline is any less valid than theirs.
I think you should go ahead and write it and see how it turns out.
Good luck with the novel.


- NaomiM

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Actually, a better answer to your more general question about writing about things we haven't experienced ourselves can be found in the following article about the Writer Richard Price:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/08/09/sm_richardprice09.xml

This facility for writing black characters, especially intelligent ones who are too reflective for their own good, carried on through Freedomland and Samaritan, and Price feared some politically correct academic or activist would take him to task for it. 'Finally I got word that Henry Louis Gates, who is like the dean of African-American studies, was writing an article about me, and I was like, "OK, kill me now." But the article defended anybody writing about anybody if they did a good job, which was pretty much how I always thought about it. You take the rationale in the other direction and you end up writing about your shoes.'

Hi again and thanks.

Yeah I do want to approach this sort of stuff sensitively and with respect. I just wouldn't want people reading it and getting upset. One of my main characters is Muslim and she is one of the good guys but even then with some of the stuff that happens in the book I'm still worried about it!

I have actually written the book. I just am re-writing a lot of things in it at the moment because a few things in there don't really make sense!

Have you read Helen Dunmore's The Seige? It deals with harrowing events which may yet be in some people's memories and in a very personal, sensitive way. I think it's important to have all your external 'facts' correct, but beyond that the character and its actions are entirely up to you - within that larger framework.

Thanks. I haven't read that book but it looks very good. I was actually in St Petersburg during the summer and I really love Russia so I should give it a read and see how other people have tackled this sort of issue.

I do want to get people to get inside the characters' heads and feel some sympathy for them. I have tried very hard to avoid stereotypes and the like, but don't know how well I have succeeded. We'll see ...

Yes, The Siege a wonderful book. Helen Dunmore's talked about how she felt very strongly that she must respect the living memories of the siege that she drew on for the book.

I do think, though, that in other cases that respectfulness can lead to a certain plodding faithfulness which is true to the facts but makes for a boring novel, and in another sense isn't true to the real nature of the events, which were anything but plodding. The middle two sections of Atonement would be a case in point - McEwan has also talked similarly about the respect he felt he owed to his father's generation's experience of WW2, but to my mind it's to the detriment of the book...

Emma

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One way of dealing with this issue is to acknowledge it in the fabric of the novel. I'm reading an (actually very readable) academic paper on this issue at the moment, and as the author puts it, books like Atonement (which she thinks works better than I do) and Toni Morrison's Beloved 'engage deeply with the purposes and processes of writing historical fiction, so that questions of authority, responsibility and authenticity are absorbed and expressed in their form.'

Amis's Time's Arrow and Sarah Waters' The Night Watch both run backwards, 'to acknowledge their own position with respect to the events they describe. Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy actually uses real WW1 writing, 'borrowing their mantle of authenticity.

If you want details of the paper, let me know.

And at the risk of plugging my own stuff, A Secret Alchemy is formed and structured around the question of how we can best 'get at' the real nature of past lives...

Cool, yes, that would be very useful!

A Secret Alchemy looks excellent, just by looking at it on Amazon, and it is the sort of thing that I like reading - I love historic/crime fiction - it's about a very under-explored subject as well, the princes in the Tower. I'll have to get that :D Have you had any others published?

I have written about what the character went through because it is quite important to the plot, and it does affect the way that she behaves and her attitudes to life (she's about the most "good" character in the whole thing, very forgiving and non-aggressive, and terrified of getting angry).

My book is basically horror and science fiction about events that will, I hope, never occur, but I wanted to frighten people and make them think at the same time.

I see what you mean about acknowledging this issue in the novel (of respect and such like). For that reason (and for the other events in the book involving my main characters) I've tried not to put in too many gory descriptions and that sort of thing. I'm just not sure how well I've managed to do it at the moment!

she's about the most "good" character in the whole thing, very forgiving and non-aggressive, and terrified of getting angry

This could be a really interesting character to then put into difficult situations! Sounds promising. Maybe you need to just keep going for now. If after you've finished your first draft you feel (or other readers feel) that the tone of how you've handled the tricky bits isn't quite right, then it shouldn't be too hard to do some tweaking to how those bits are written, because it wouldn't affect the things like plot and structure which are a pain to change later...

So glad you like the look of ASA - it was fascinating to write. My first novel The Mathematics of Love was published - yikes! - just over two years ago, and is in most bookshops as well as Amazon.

Emma

Hi there!
Thank you for raising this important point! The discussion's been so interesting and useful and I think it's a difficult issue generally for writers, whether we've had personal experience of the things we're writing about. We wonder if we're 'allowed' to write about something that isn't our very own story. You could bring it down to the real basics - can we write men if we're female, can we write siblings if we don't have them, etc, etc! But we can't possibly experience everything, or limit what we write about to what's happened directly to us in our lives – otherwise every character would be 'me'! I'm sure the skill is in our ability to imagine ourselves into the situations, coupled of course with getting the facts right!
I think always ensuring your characters are human (even if 'bad' and individual rather than stereotypes is key. I agree that religion is tricky – again, maybe focusing on the character's motivation rather than the religion itself helps with this??? (I don't know!)
Talking about setting a story within the realm of true historical events immediately made me think of Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, which I think did this extremely effectively. His main characters are women, their personal stories set against a back drop of a true socio-political situation... Real events can ground a fictional tale in authenticity and lend it huge gravitas – when it works, it really works!
Your book sounds really fascinating – I agree it sounds as though it's at the stage to have some people read it and give you feedback on the issues you're worried about. Very good luck with it! All the best, Jane

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P.S. I really have no idea how that smiley face got there! It's not my stereotypical idea of a 'bad' person! xx

I think always ensuring your characters are human... is key

I think my brain's fried from too much academic work today: my first thought on reading this was, 'Must they be human? What about Winnie the Pooh?'

Emma

!!!!!!!!!!! Now, if only I could find that smiley face now, when I actually need it!

That's so true, Emma - you've spotted the paw in my flan...! Jxxxx

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Heh heh - mind you, Winnie the Pooh is quite 'human'....!! Jx

Thanks very much!

Sorry I dont think I made it clear in my last post - yes I would like details of the paper, that would be very useful!

I'm on the second draft - I had to change SO many things about the first draft, haha.

I've given it to a few people to read and they have been quite positive about it. One person said that it was very good and they couldn't put it down.

I keep on finding things I need to change though, that looked good when I was writing it and then I just think "oh god..."

Oh God, yes we all have those 'Oh God' moments! Don't be too harsh on yourself though - you've had really positive feedback from your readers, which must mean you're nearly there! Wahoo! I'm trying to think of good suggestions for tackling your next draft so you're not defeated by the Oh God moments! From the concerns you've mentioned, it sounds as though you'll make an excellent editor, as you're very sensitive to the issues you've raised - which is good as long as you're not too critical of yourself! Have you had a bit of a break away from it, so you can read again with a fresher perspective? I find that's often good - you feel a bit less attached and don't cringe at everything just because you've written it! If a sentence or paragraph or whatever still niggles you then, you know it needs work. (And I think you can 'feel' a niggle, if you let yourself - it's not always just a head decision!). What stage is it at? (Are you sending it out, or, etc.) Very best of luck to you... JC x

Yes, you can certainly feel niggles. I always think it's like flicking a row of glasses with your finger, each rings with its own note, and then suddenly there's the 'clunk' of one which is cracked.

Yaasenshalom, the paper is here. I can't remember if I had to get at the full text through Athens or JSTOR or someone, but if you're a student that shouldn't be a problem:

http://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/65/1/138

Emma