When my mother and sister read drafts of INCONVENIENT, they told me their thoughts on plot, characters, and language. They told me what they liked and what wasn’t working. They also told me how the father character is just like my dad. “That is so him!” they both said. “But, you know,” said my mom, “when he reads it, he’s going to say that he’s not like that at all.” Ugh. Cringe. It’s not very hard to visualize that conversation with my father, and this is why he has yet to read any drafts of INC (um, that, and all the make-out scenes–yet another thing I don’t want to discuss with him).
The thing is I didn’t set out to base Alyssa’s father on mine. In fact, in the very early drafts, I didn’t want to deal with the dad at all. In one draft he was dead. In another, he was an absent father completely. However, as revisions continued, I realized (with lots of nudging from my writing group and readers) that the dad needs to be present and his reaction to the mother’s alcoholism explored, and with that his reaction to Alyssa. So then came the task of fleshing him out.
I needed him to be physically present but not emotionally so I thought of ways he could escape. Television seemed like a good outlet, the news too. I didn’t want him working close to home because he needed to be far enough away that he wasn’t available whenever Alyssa or her mom needed him. I liked the idea of a commute. So I put him in NYC. And I saw the character as meticulous, a little anal, wanting things to have their order and place. So I made him an engineer. All these things–on the surface–spell out my dad, who works in NYC, is an engineer, and loves watching the news, especially events going down in the Middle East. But is Alyssa’s dad mine? Nope. Do they have similarities? Sure. But my dad was around, my mom was not an alcoholic, and just because characters sometimes share traits of people does not mean they are that person.
I feel the need to get into this because people have been asking me about my characters since I began writing the book. The same is asked of my peers who write contemp fiction, especially “issue” novels. Some writers get insulted by the questions–like those asking are somehow implying that we’re not creative enough to make up our own characters from scratch. I don’t see it this way. I think people are just naturally curious and it’s also that thing of figuring out the writer, trying to make sense of the characters, discovering the hidden layers, what’s true, what isn’t. The part that bugs me–or puts me on edge a bit–is the idea of people reading my books and thinking this is how my life happened, this is who I am. With INC, for example, besides the dad comparison, the book is about a lot of what I know–the Russian-Jewish culture, the town that was based on the one I grew up in, the school mentality, suburbia. It’s natural for writers to write about what they know. To incorporate their own personalities and those of people they have met into their characters. But, usually, there is not one character that is us. In INCONVENIENT, the MC is not much like me at all, but there’s some of me in there, just like there is some of me in Lana, and even in the mom. Often, these incorporations are not even conscious efforts. The dad being an engineer? I know a lot about it. He could have just as easily been a doctor because I know about that profession too. The mom is a writer. Gee, wonder why? When we write, we want to make things interesting but if the books require little research, that’s a bonus. (And an added note–my characters rarely have siblings. And, it’s not because my sister and I don’t get along. We have a great relationship, thank you very much. Nope, it’s just because I don’t want to deal with additional characters. It’s terrible, I know. *hangs head in shame*)
I like writing contemporary fiction. I think there’s a big need for these kinds of books, and they were my favorites when I was growing up. I just worry that readers sometimes get too distracted from the book’s plot if they’re trying to solve the big “mystery” behind the characters’ true identities. Or, worse, make a running tally of what is not “true” or can’t/wouldn’t happen in the way depicted, as my dad did in some early drafts of manuscripts I’ve written. I mean it’s called fiction for a reason. As long as it’s believable, the towns don’t have to be exactly as they are in real life–same goes for the schools, carnivals, sayings, etc. Writers need to have some liberties.
A part of me is dreading those “What really happened?” questions about INCONVENIENT. I’ll let readers make up their own minds. Mystery is good for the soul. It breeds creativity.
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