Is fiction autobiography in disguise?
Well, sometimes--at least, for me.
Like the famous Stanislavski Method of acting, sometimes I
use what I call the Stanislavski Method of writing. When I
come to place in the script where a deeper emotion is called
for, I try to emirs myself in my point-of-view character to
see and feel what he (or she) might feel.
Like the Stanislavski Method of acting it is a matter of
"becoming" the character. (I don't want to bullshit you that
I do this all the time or that I try to write so-called
literary fiction--I don't. Sometimes it is "just
there.")
It is a good way to get in touch with things that are "of"
the character. I suspect that in a biographical novel like
"Manifesto for the Dead," that Domenic Stansberry did the
same thing.
As for plotting? It's a litte of this and a little of that.
Someplace in my past, I saw or read something that had a
particular twist. In a sense it is borrowing or even stealing
bur more often than not it is unconscious. As an example,
Richard Helms pointed out that an instigating circumstance in
my first "Bludis" novel was liftred from "Chinatown." Not
conscious at all, but I see it and it is a far more important
issue in "The Big Switch" than in "Chinatown."
Since I particularly write Historical novels, not pastiche--I
avoid most of the Chandler and Hammett jargon and go for my
own style, such as it is.
I often find myself digging even into my childhood to
remember things like a stylized chef that hangs on the wall
with a clock in his belly, or a grainy coffee pot. I have
even brought back whole scenes--OK tell me I'm crazy--but I
have come up with memories of things that I think happened
before I could talk--like being in a bar with my father and
wanting to go home and not being able to tell him that.
In a sense, all of my PI novels are idealized versions of my
father's life. He was there, he lived it. Sometimes I was
with him and I remember it. Sometimes I remember his
stoies--he was a grat story teller. Sometimes, as a young
adult, I was there myself--i.g. on Baltimore's infamous
"Block." In those cases, I have had to "back project" what I
remember to what might have been.
So yes, much of my writing is autobiographical, but most of
it, I think, is biographica, (Note above about my father.) He
was an avid reader of the pulps were left after WWII and of
the paperback novelslate of the forties and early fifties. It
was finding an old box of books that introduced me to Tavis
McGee (sp) and John D. MacDonald.
Jack Bludis
http://www.jackbludis.com
Shamus nominee for "Shadow of the Dahlia" Amazon.com / BN.com
/ MysteryLovesCompany.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 18 Nov 2005 EST