A professor once told me that writers are all liars and writing is a liar’s game. It is our job to be con-men (or women – surely that’s a subject for a future blog), to have our readers (or viewers for writers of visual mediums) buy into our lies. A story, after all, is a fabrication on at least one level. Not only are we liars, he also said, but we’re thieves.
The best fiction, even the purest fantasy novel or the most futuristic science fiction story, is grounded in reality – on actual people and actual experiences. The best lies are based on the truth. There’s an old bumper sticker or t-shirt marketed towards writers offering a warning to their friends and family: you might end up in my novel. And it’s true. Many people that I know, or have known, have become characters in my novel. Sometimes it’s just as simple as physical appearance, sometimes it’s a quirk, maybe an anecdote. It happens. And it doesn’t have to stop at people you know – you can draw inspiration from people you randomly see out in the world or on television. You can take a newspaper story and mold it into your story.
A different professor taught me that no matter how great or horrible you make your characters, whether they do heavy drugs or hate children, if they think about death constantly or believe in true love – that your characters are always a part of you. And why shouldn’t they be? You can’t ever truly know what it’s like to be anyone other than you. That’s what writing is for: to try to convey the human experience as you observe it to others. So your characters may be based on other people, but they’re still you. You’re presenting another person as viewed through your lens. Your lens just happens to be biased because you can never entirely separate it from yourself. And why would you want to? That’s what makes your writing, your characters, your story unique.
I suppose that’s why I rather enjoy con-job stories and con characters, because writing is a con-job. And a great story with great characters is like a great con-job with experienced con-men (again, or women)- you believe it even if you’re told it’s all a sham.