“Creative Honesty”

As a child, the difference between truth and lie was a little lost on me. I never thought about why it might be wrong to lie. Wasn’t it just fun to say I had twenty-four Dalmatian puppies at home (I had a fondness for 101 Dalmatians) and was born in Hawaii? I had thought I had left this little liar back in my childhood until I started writing creative nonfiction for this class. I would write a sentence and no matter how much it helped my point, no matter how witty, artistic or descriptive it was, no matter how much better my story would be with it, I would have to delete it because upon further reflection, it wasn’t technically true. Unfortunately for me, creative nonfiction is defined by its adherence to the truth; truth separates creative nonfiction from fiction. For that reason, the ideas of “truth” and “story” began to collide in creative nonfiction. In an ideal world, these two things wouldn’t conflict but that’s the exact reason why they do; it is not an ideal world. It is not a simple world.  Even the most complex story, events are simplified, ruled by cause and effect. If they are not, often times the work is considered “unrealistic.”

In fiction, the author can act as god, master of his/her sphere, the absolute authority on what really happened, what the characters were really thinking, and, most importantly, why it happened. In creative nonfiction, a writer has no such position or power. A creative nonfiction writer is not in the clouds, shaping the word, but on the ground, seeing the world as far and as detailed as his or her eyes allow. The world is populated by unknowns, contradictions, and randomness. There is no absolute. In a story, however, this happened and this happened, and this shows this message. In a particularly good story, these events are complex, and there are multiple, multi-faceted messages. A creative nonfiction writer has to impose this structure on the real world, real experiences, real people and his or herself, with so little authority and so little information at his or her disposal.

 I developed this pessimistic view during my struggle with my essay called “Cruise Control.” The basic plot is this: my mother is controlling, I want more freedom, and naturally conflict ensues.  The scene where my mom delivers my punishment was my biggest struggle. In the first draft of it, my mother is a cold judge and I am the slightly rebellious defendant but that wasn’t how it was. I returned home, penitent and emotional, expecting horrible repercussions and knowing that my disobedience wasn’t worth it. My mother wasn’t that severe, despite the relative harshness of my punishment. She wasn’t the cold judge and I wasn’t the rebellious defendant but in the story I had built up until that moment, the characters that I had created would have been expected to act that way. It would fit better, be simpler and more streamlined, if it had been that way. Yet, it wasn’t true and it wasn’t fair to the real person that is my mother. I changed it and used my current voice to convey the bit of rebellion I feel about it now.

Overall, I struggled with my characterization of my mother. One of the big conflicts in the essay is defined by her controlling tendencies. As such, I needed to prove that she was controlling and talk about why she is controlling. This had unforeseen complications. By focusing on one of my mother’s negative qualities, I chose to describe her positive attributes less. I tried to balance this out by saying that her controlling nature comes from her background and urge to protect me but I was plagued by fears. I kept asking myself and anyone else who read my essay, “she doesn’t come off as a bitch, right?” I asked this both because I did not want to badmouth my mother and because it wouldn’t be true; my mother is controlling but she is not a bad person.

Lee Gutkin, “the godfather of nonfiction” suggests “one way to protect the characters in your book, article, or essay is to allow them to defend themselves – or at least to read what you have written about them.” (353)  There lies another hurtle a nonfiction writer has to face. There can be real life consequences for their work, the declaration of “their” truth. Family members and friends can disapprove and dislike a fiction writer’s work, which is hurtful in its own way, but it is doubtful that they would become enraged or hurt at how the writer portrays them or how the author sees their actions.

This advice created another set of dilemmas as story and real world clashed: Would my story be better if I had my mother’s input? Would it be worth it if my portrayal hurt my mother? Could something good come out of it? Would it change our relationship? The answers to those questions came down to two answer, one yes and one no. Yes, it might be good for my story to take a different perspective into account.  I speak a lot about what my mother intends. I do not preface these statements with “I believe” and “I think” because I expect the reader to understand that they are from my perspective, and all naturally stem from my opinion, my version of the truth. I hope that the events, scenes and information in the story all show that my opinion has some validity but it could be wrong. However, though it may have been wrong, it is the truth that I thought that at the time and the story is from my perspective.

The second answer was no. I decided not to show my work to my mother for both artistic reasons and personal ones. Artistically, if I were to show it to my mother, I would definitely soften things a bit and weaken my own case. Not only that but, I may tell the story differently with new information and have my past perspective be changed by what I know now. Personally, I didn’t want to risk hurting my mother feelings. In the process of writing “Cruise Control”, I not only explored our relationship in story but out of story. It turns out that I’m protective of her, just as she is protective of me. It forced me to own up to the fact that in some ways we’re not so different after all. Even if “Cruise Control” is a bad essay, I still have that lesson learned. I’m not advocating this approach in general. Brave writers can use multiple vantage points to bring depth to their pieces, for a more objective truth. I did in fact question my mother about the events “Vision Correction,” being a less sensitive topic. There again, I was confronted with a hard truth. In critique, I was advised to include a bullying scene about my eye patch. Unfortunately, as far as anyone knows, it never happened. They say the truth will set you free but in creative nonfiction, sometimes I feel pinned down.

 However, creative nonfiction offers a freedom that fiction lacks. In creative nonfiction, a write can tell his or her story. Nonfiction writers cannot hide between characters and narration. They can directly share how they see the world to a bunch of strangers with their own opinions and prejudices. They can look at a complex, chaotic world, the events of their own lives, themselves and announce “This is what I saw happen or what I did. This is what I think about it. This is who I am,” attempting to order the chaos and speak to its complexities at the same time. The world’s complexity is not always a negative either; it provides an immense amount of raw material. I find it challenging to deal with. I want to lie. I want to portray my mother more harshly for heightened drama in my story. I want a scene where I’m bullied for my eye patch. I want it to all make sense. The irony is, if it all made sense and was simple and clear cut, there would be no point writing about it. There would be nothing new to discover or understand. As such, the hardest things to write about are perhaps the ones we should write about the most.  So, I wrote about my mother and I strove for truth as the godfather of creative nonfiction said to do.

Bibliography

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