Sins of the Genre

I can see the whole basing your novel off your life as a sin. But in the same respect my novel comes from something I didn't see in the marketplace, something that...

When I was 16 I found a lump in my breast. There wasn't anything out there to help me deal with it. I mean if I had my heart broken I could've found something in YA... but there wasn't anything in fiction that had a young girl realizing "oh crap I might have breast cancer." And furthermore the way I dealt with it, I haven't seen it adressed in fiction or really even non-fiction. I dealt with it very differently than most people I know. I realized really early on "I'm not strong enough to take this seriously." So I had to make the whole time as silly and lighthearted and non- ohmygod! There's nothing on the marketplace about this or similar to the experience I had, which... is a shame. And it needs to be adressed towards teens, because there's going to be other kids who were in my boat that don't want to read "it's going to be scary, it's not going to be fun." So if I have to write something quasi-based on my life, I will break a writing sin because this needs to be told.

Interesting commentary. What happened to the whole write what you know notion? Of course, neither of my main characters in either of my novels are writers. One gave up a journalism job to go to law school. The other is a photo editor. And neither of their lives resemble mine at all, but they have experiences and influences that are similar and they both are from very similar backgrounds.

maria, still seems to be sigless.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria
http://cosmicink.livejournal.com/
A Promise Unfulfilled '06

"…therein is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident." H.L. Mencken

Probably another sin is using cliches. Like honestly, if you start off with 6 main characters, 3 guys 3 girls. Its obvious they will all end up in a couple. I really hate when cliches are used to much in stories.

I don't know about ya'll, but I think that sometimes real life can be tons more interesting than any fiction. However, if you're writing a novel about your life and changing names, then perhaps that would be considered a sin.

Clichés are a pretty frustrating problem, but they can work out, I think, if you can skillfully manage it. If you can craft the cliché to make the reader WANT it to happen (i.e., various parts of Harry Potter, for instance) as opposed to loathe the moment when the cliché is revealed, I think you could probably get away with it.

Live more and commemorate less.

Such good points brought up! Thanks for the discussion guys.

Writing What You Know - this came up several times in several different panels that I attended. Of course you pull from what you see, hear, read, know and experience in your own life, but as one author put it "it's the What If clause that makes fiction so much fun. Like, what if the roof of this building was suddenly blown off?"

Another author pointed out that when she made the jump from poetry to writing her first novel it was after reading a great fiction (and I completely forget what book it was that she read) but she came back from reading that novel and realizing that her story was worth telling as well. Not quite her story, portions of it here and there, some of it true, some of it completely made up.

Family Dynamics - There was one whole seminar devoted to books written about family and family dynamics. Of 4 authors who sat on the panel, all of them had fantastic novels about family and family dynamics. None of them pulled from their own family experience, family of friends or that they had heard of through other means.

Cliches - I personally don't believe cliches, at least in the romance/chick lit genre are as bad as we might make them out to be. When I pick up a romance novel I expect certain things, and find some romance novels that don't hold those certain things to be a bit of a disappointment... often those cliches are not very important to the story, but having them helps keep the reader engrossed in the story.

I think it's just plain insulting to tell a young writer what they can and can't write. Surely teaching writing skills is all about *how*, not *what*

Sure, if you want to build a career as a writer, you will ostracize a lot of your family by continuously basing your writing on your experience with them.

On the other hand, it takes great courage to write your history out for others to read and criticize. I think every writer should write their own story down.

I think I read somewhere that publishers don't want any more plots about writers. It comes down to what the publishers want. :)

IWIT TGIF

Erica Jong has made quite a living committing both of those sins. :)

Writers write about writers a LOT. I don't see anything wrong with that at all. We have interesting minds...I really think people LIKE to read about writers.

In Chick Lit I think it's lazy to write ABOUT your own life, but I think it's vital to write FROM your own life. This genre is compelled to be filled with drama and traces of romance but unless you have a very objective view of your life your book will come across arrogant and biased, simply because that's how you feel. Absolutely take events from your own life to use, because they include emotional responses from you that will affect the way you write and then translate onto paper, but jazz them up, flip them around, and paint them a different color. It makes for good fiction because it's original, but it has a ring of truth that the reader will sense and identify with emotionally. Emotion is the most important thing when writing Chick Lit, right? :-)

As an example I will say this about my novel: my MC goes to Chicago for a major in fashion design and she falls in with these girls who are really horrible to her, but they are her "friends" so she is blind to all the mean things they do (my real life expereince was with a tight-knit group who I did dramatic presentations with), eventually she discovers some tangible way they have been gossiping about her, like the answering machine in the dorm, or a blog, or emails, something recorded, and it's only then that she realizes how stupid she's been (my experience was similar, I found a blog that my boyfriend at the time had been keeping about how much he hated me and my family).

See how that works? Spend some time just trying to conjure the most emotional experiences you've had and then work them into your story, hidden, but with their essence shining through.

Coming NaNo 2007:
Working Title: The Yellow Rose

I know that I'm writing about my life, but a very small part which is I worked at an amusement park for six months. I'm going to make it over the top because it's fiction, but I know something about it and the type of people that work at a theme park. I guess my question is, if you exaggerate a situation that you are familiar with is that still a sin?

AJ

http://dietfantasy.livejournal.com/

See that's what I am doing. I am not taking my whole life and going "here..." rather I am taking my experience and talking to people I realized of the woman who have experienced what I have when I did experience it... as different as our experiences were there are a lot of weird similarities. Here's the list:
-everyone had really small chests, found the lump, got the biopsy, and suddenly the boobs grew very quickly and caused rumors. Everyone thought I got implants because I got a biopsy and then over the course of 2 months I went from A to C! My friend got called out in the middle of the lunch room for stuffing her bra in front of the school. She got into a fight... that's just the interesting rumors.
-we all found our lumps because we were "exploring our bodies."
-After finding them every single person who as between 15-20 didn't want to tell anyone, and waited at least a week to tell their parents.
-Everyone is a tomboy. Yet pre-incident weren't.
-Despite this, our jobs are all female roles. Teachers, stay at home moms, secretaries, and nurses. Traditional 20th century/ early to mid 20th century female positions.

There's something to that. So yeah there's going to be a lot of my experiences for that part of my novel, but at the same time there will be pieces of the women I met.

"In Chick Lit I think it's lazy to write ABOUT your own life,..."

I don't see anything lazy about it at all. Believe it or not, some of us have lead very compelling lives. ;) And personally, a story will stick with me more if I know it is based on fact.

"...unless you have a very objective view of your life your book will come across arrogant and biased."

Now there's an assumption and a half! We'll see what unfolds in November, shall we?

This is an interesting thread. I was told to write about what you know -- and while it doesn't all have to follow exactly what your life has turned out to be, it is easier to tap into raw emotions that you have experienced in your life. But this is my first time tackling a real novel, so I guess we'll see how successful drawing on past emotions turns out to be (for me).

I believe that since the whole spirit of Nano is to finally sit down and write the novel you've been dying to write, you should be able to write whatever you want and not worry about the 'rules' or what some other writer has told you.

This year I took a detour from historical romance and decided to write a story set in the world of finance because I have spent the last ten years working in the financial industry and I feel that I can tell a good story about it.

And by the way, Chick Lit is all about voice and if you have a great voice and an interesting way of looking at things, people will enjoy your novel no matter what. Feel free to draw from your own life and experiences, only you can tell the story.

-Daisy

Right on daisypappa! I agree, the Nano experience is about writing freely without being critiqued.

Like anything, a good read is one that offers a fresh perspective.

Back to writing what you know: One or both the authors of The Nanny Diaries had nanny backgrounds. Blowing My Cover - My Life as A CIA Spy...a female autobiographical account of how the author came to work for the CIA and what it was like for her (LIndsay Moran) once she was in.

Also, I haven't run across any books about any 16-year olds who have found lumps in their breasts. There is, however, a book about a 20-something year old's experience in a book called Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy.

I read "My socalled normal life." Erin Zimmerman's story, oh my gosh that made me cry!

Here's a sin: giving a crap about what people who aren't signing your checks think.

Quit being scared and make it happen.

I'm also going with the "write what you know" idea to a large extent. But there are two people who might be directly recognizable to others who know me. In those two instances, I'm asking the person permission to use them as the basis for a character, even though they will be fictionalized. The first one said "yes" today, the second one is a student I'll see tomorrow, and I anticipate that she'll be okay with it also.

I'm setting my story at a fictional university art department in Florida, and I just couldn't pass up the smart chick who comes to class every day with maroon fuzzy cat ears on a head band with small Christmas balls safety-pinned to them, and with a cat tail to match pinned to whatever skirt or pants she's wearing. This in combination with tall organge plastic stiletto heels, is just the touch of detailing that makes her stand out. I couldn't make up a character like her, so I'll see if she'll let me use her eccentricieties for a minor character to add realistic color (no pun intended) to the story line.

Another "sins of the genre" question: in Chick Lit, how important is it to do the name-brand dropping when describing people's clothes? Since I'd rather save my own money for travel, I'm a little out of the loop on the "in" brands of jeans, dresses, etc., and so I was planning on being more generic with regard to the garment descriptions. However, lots of Chick Lit really emphasizes the "Mahnolo" and "Jimmy Choo" aspect (I don't think I've ever even seen real shoes by those designers!!) and I'm wondering if that's something that's come to be expected in such novels?

LOL! Heather, that's awesome. I'll definitely second that one.

Christina
ML of Adelaide

All we can do is keep breathing...

That's a very good question! I really don't think it's necessary (see the chick-lit cliche thread ;-)..). There's a trend with a lot of the very popular chick-lit novels right now to have their main characters in a huge metropolitan area that is typically tied to fashion, who also work in fashion. I don't live in a huge metropolitan area so I don't even know if places like NYC etc are like that for the average woman.

I don't think that you must have fashion as a key item to the story... As people have repeated many times, it's mostly about voice and having a strong independent heroine. Could set it in the outback of Australia or in the middle of Africa and so long as it had the key elements of chick-lit I don't think brand dropping is necessary.

Mind you if you could convince Jimmy Choo to give you a pair of shoes for dropping his name in your novel..... it might be worth it lol.

I think the advice to "write what you know" can become an issue when it's mis-interpreted as "write your autobiography."

That attitude is fine if you *are* writing an autobiography, but it can hamper an author who is writing *fiction.*
I've actually heard writers in fiction workshops, when discussing a plot/structure/character problem, say they couldn't possibly change the element [whatever it was] because "that's not what really happened."

!!! Again, these authors were supposedly writing fiction -- as in, making up what "really" happens.

I believe "write what you know" means, draw from your own life experience to inform your stories. That's what makes an individual author's story unique, fresh, and original.

As Anais Nin said, "We write to taste life twice."
:-)

I agree that in this case, the point is to get experience writing--not to "follow the rules." And in a NaNoWriMo novel one should write whatever one pleases, as that is the best way to encourage one to finish one's manuscript.

Under ordinary author circumstances (as in, are you actually planning to market this book??), I also agree that the main character's being a writer has been done quite a bit and would need special treatment and a lot of originality in the details if it were to "fly." It reminds me of all those old Broadway musicals where the main character was a singer or dancer trying to make it on the stage in a Broadway musical.

But again, there seems to be only one main rule in this event, according to "No Plot? No Problem!" and that is that you're not allowed to write in the second person. So presumably one is free to write from the viewpoint of a writer, or to write one's autobiography. As Chris Baty puts it, "If you think it's a novel, we think it's a novel."

"If a teacher is just a frustrated actor, is an actor also a frustrated teacher?"

On the other hand, the Bronte sisters all wrote their very famous classic novels based on their own lives, didn't they? As did Louisa May Alcott, Gene Stratton-Porter, and probably lots of others I'm not aware of?

"If a teacher is just a frustrated actor, is an actor also a frustrated teacher?"

"Write What you Know"
Everyone is right it is a very touchy subject, but when writing fiction, most anything goes. Think of Devil Wears Prada, Lauren wrote a book based on her experience at Vogue. Sex and the City was based on Candance Bushnell's experiences in dating and friendships in New York. I went to a signing she was doing for her most recent book "Lipstick Jungle". She was commenting on watching the show and remembering certain conversations she was having with her girlfriends. She based the female characters on her closet friends.

I have been to a couple of mini sessions and classes at UCLA where the professors are published authors talk about writing about experiences in your life.
The other thing to remember is "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story" I am experiencing that right now. There is a novel I started a few months ago based on a verbally/emotionally abusive relationship I was in. (I am putting it on hold for November) There were many things in my experience that still I can't believe happened. It was more like fiction than real life. So I just started writing and eventually as many writers will also tell you, the characters start talking to you, telling you where to go. When you start writing fiction based on real life experiences it is okay to let the imagination go and the story will tell itself.

The "sin" of "write what you know" was explained to me thusly:

If you're writing about a starving student in a skimpy efficiency studio apartment, hunched over a computer, complaining of writer's block, you're writing far too much of what you know.
No one wants to read about the drudgery of the writing life. They read for escapism, mental stimulation, and any of a hundred other reasons to get away from daily drudgery.

I'm with the others above who've said to write from your life, but not about it, per se :)

My favorite recent quote came from Jennifer Roberson, a fantasy author, who just did an authors panel here in town - "Write what you wish you knew."

Love that! Cuz really, all good stories - chick lit or otherwise, have an element of fantasy (or something out of the ordinary) in them.

Municipal Liaison for Tucson, AZ - on call 24/7 during November
~~~~~~~~ Winner 2002 * 2003 * 2004 * 2005 * 2006 ~~~~~~~~

I think there are bigger writing sins out there than basing a story on your life and writing about a MC who's a writer.

As for cliches, there is nothing new under the sun. An idea can be one that has been done a hundred thousand times, but you do it and put a new spin on it, or write it from a different POV, and it ceasces to be a cliche. Everyone's take is different, and that makes a tired old idea new.

Amen to the "write what you wish you knew" quote! lol Everyone's making such good points on this thread... I'm glad this convo got started... very interesting! :)

Instead of fear of failure, maybe we'd do better to fear the death of dreaming.

No one has time during the month of November to conduct any sort of extensive research, so I think that in this situation more than any other, writing from what you know is going to be extremely important. This is my first NaNoWriMo. If I had my druthers, I'd be writing a fantasy novel; however, because of the extreme writing conditions of NaNoWriMo, I've decided to try a "chick lit" novel...using many of my personal experiences, though a bit more over the top.

The novels of the Bronte sisters weren't based on their lives. "The Professor" and "Villette" had some basis in Charlotte's life, but they were only loosely connected and everything else written by all three was in no way like their lives.

Well, I'll be breaking rule #2 as well! I'm not writing my life story, but there are many snippets of my life that my MC will experience as well. That doesn't mean she will have the same outcome as what happened in real life. For my first attempt at NaNo, I want to do this for the experience of it. I'm still relatively new to writing and I'm hoping that I can continue to learn over the next year and my 2008 novel will be more of me breaking out of my shell.

I don't think there's anything wrong with writing what you know, especially in this setting!