Enjoyed the writing/commenting today. However, since I never understood nor used the word 'woke' in any context besides "he woke up at 7 today", I was lost in some of the references.
I appreciate your perspective here, though I don't think I'm quite on board with all of it. I don't agree that "co-opting stories as plot devices" is the definition of using our imagination to write fiction -- or at least I would ask whose stories we are talking about.
An example: several years ago a woman in my writing group told us excitedly she had been on the train and heard a young Indigenous man called "Shadow" telling some of his life story to his seatmate, and she had decided to use this overheard material as the basis for a piece of fiction. She was going to write about a young man named Shadow who had these same experiences, etc. "It felt like a gift," she said. She had not spoken to the young man. She had no idea what he intended to do with his own life material; maybe he was going to write a book or a play himself, or make a film. Maybe he had another writer in mind that he was going to ask to put his story on paper. Or even if he had no such plans, what if she had written and published her version of his story, and he saw it?
Anyway, at our next meeting our writer friend said she was having second thoughts and was not going to write it after all. "It's not my story to tell," she said. I thought this was a wise rethinking on her part. I think sometimes we can become quite arrogant in believing that people and events around us are simply laid out before us as "content" that we are free to use -- and calling that "using our imagination." Maybe asking if something is our story to tell is a worthwhile question.
I love it when you write about writing. In an age when we are at the beginnings of AI-everything, it is good to read someone who points to the invisible, the intangible that makes us human, makes us artists, and makes us, specifically, writers. That in itself sets us apart as all three—something that cannot be duplicated by artificial anything, whether it be machine or a human parroting formulas that fit the marketability of the money culture.
"What good is telling stories if I’m just enforcing my own experiences on the characters within them? What good is an imagination if I can only use it to live within the frame of my own lived experience?"
Enjoyed the writing/commenting today. However, since I never understood nor used the word 'woke' in any context besides "he woke up at 7 today", I was lost in some of the references.
I appreciate your perspective here, though I don't think I'm quite on board with all of it. I don't agree that "co-opting stories as plot devices" is the definition of using our imagination to write fiction -- or at least I would ask whose stories we are talking about.
An example: several years ago a woman in my writing group told us excitedly she had been on the train and heard a young Indigenous man called "Shadow" telling some of his life story to his seatmate, and she had decided to use this overheard material as the basis for a piece of fiction. She was going to write about a young man named Shadow who had these same experiences, etc. "It felt like a gift," she said. She had not spoken to the young man. She had no idea what he intended to do with his own life material; maybe he was going to write a book or a play himself, or make a film. Maybe he had another writer in mind that he was going to ask to put his story on paper. Or even if he had no such plans, what if she had written and published her version of his story, and he saw it?
Anyway, at our next meeting our writer friend said she was having second thoughts and was not going to write it after all. "It's not my story to tell," she said. I thought this was a wise rethinking on her part. I think sometimes we can become quite arrogant in believing that people and events around us are simply laid out before us as "content" that we are free to use -- and calling that "using our imagination." Maybe asking if something is our story to tell is a worthwhile question.
Good feedback and I agree with you! That sounds like stealing someone’s story and I’m definitely not on board with that.
If you haven’t read it, you might enjoy Zadie Smith’s “Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction” essay
I love it when you write about writing. In an age when we are at the beginnings of AI-everything, it is good to read someone who points to the invisible, the intangible that makes us human, makes us artists, and makes us, specifically, writers. That in itself sets us apart as all three—something that cannot be duplicated by artificial anything, whether it be machine or a human parroting formulas that fit the marketability of the money culture.
Very thoughtful piece, my friend. So grateful for what you bring to the table and to the conversations most needing to be had.
Here now is goodness:
"What good is telling stories if I’m just enforcing my own experiences on the characters within them? What good is an imagination if I can only use it to live within the frame of my own lived experience?"