Reality v Realistic

I loved Ian McEwan's novel Atonement - though I've had many a discussion about the ending. My mother, normally a McEwan fan, was sniffy. She'd been a nurse at a London teaching hospital during WWII, just like Briony in the book, and pronounced that it was unbelievable.

I was surprised. After all, McEwan had done extensive research at the Imperial War Museum and was even accused of plagiarism due to the similarities in Atonement to No Time for Romance, a novel by Lucilla Andrews who had been a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital during the war.

My mother was unrepentant. 'I can see he's done his research,' she said. 'And I'm sure each of those incidents did happen. But it's unbelievable that they'd all happen to one particular nurse.' In other words, real incidents, but an unrealistic situation.

That's one of the tricks of narrative writing. Real life, but exaggerated. (I'm using the term narrative writing because it's true of non-fiction just as much as fiction.) In real life, when drama comes, we try to go back to normal as soon as possible. In narrative writing, characters rush headlong from one crisis to another. In real life, we get home from work and settle down with a nice cup of tea for an evening's viewing in front of the TV. If a character starts their evening in the same way the author will either interrupt it with a crucial phone call or that's where the scene will end.

Real life, but without any of the boring bits. After all, we can do boring bits at home every day of our own lives. We don't want to read about them, whether in fiction or narrative non-fiction. So, McEwan was right to load Briony's life at the hospital with as much drama as he could find in the archives. It may not have been real, but it was realistic - and more to the point, it wasn't boring.

Real Life Doesn't have Resolutions

Last week I attended the sad celebration for the life of a young woman, daughter of some friends of mine, who had taken her own life aged 24. She had kept her despair well hidden - I certainly only saw her as an intelligent, vivacious and beautiful young woman with everything to live for, rather than the troubled soul she showed to her parents and siblings. At the service I stood next to her cousin, a year older, who kept saying she couldn't understand why.

And there isn't any answer to why. We'll never know what was truly going on inside her head, poor thing. We can only guess at the anguish that led to her to think the world would be better without her in it. There are no answers.

I was thinking about that conversation afterwards. How comforting it is to read - and write - fiction. There are answers. We can know what is going on inside the characters heads. And there are resolutions. Most novels start with something or someone disrupting the status quo, then the bulk is trying to resolve the problems that has created, and the end is when a new stability has been established.

I think that's why we read. Fiction has answers. It sorts problems out. Real life is cruel and sad and sometimes has no meaning at all. It happens, and continues happening. Fiction is finite. In 100,000 words or thereabouts it takes problems and solves them (or clearly hints that they are on the way to being solved). Yes, sometimes the ending is left open, but essentially, the main issue is resolved. Fiction provides security and reassurance in a scarily random world, and that has to be a good thing.

RIP Hannah. My thoughts are very much with you and your family.

Imaginary Places

'You really disappointed me,' the woman said, clutching a copy of A Single to Rome for me to sign. I gave a nervous smile, pen frozen in hand.

'Yes,' she continued. 'I'm going to Rome next month and I was really looking forward to visiting the Tea Museum, and then I read that you made it up. I'm really disappointed.'

Using public spaces and buildings as backdrops to a novel are a definite plus for most people, and all my books are set in real places. Smaller places, like individual cafes or private houses are different; I might use a real place, but not name it, or disguise it in some way. I know Rome well having been a student there and have visited many times subsequently, so when I was writing A Single to Rome it was easy for me to take my characters about the city but I couldn't write about the goings on of fictional characters running a real museum without expecting to be sued for libel. Plus, at the time of writing the first draft I didn't know whether the house Shelley lived in when he stayed in Rome was still standing.

The Tea Museum was completely fictional right from the start, from the contents to the layout. When you think about it, Rome's not an obvious place for one, but that's neither here not there. After the first draft I went back to Rome to check and discovered that Shelley's house was still there, and re-wrote the layout so the interior fitted the windows I could see from the exterior. I have no idea if in reality it looks anything like my layout inside (the building has been converted to offices so it would be unlikely), but it seems very real to me. I could take you up the staircase, I know what is in each cabinet of each room in every floor. I know how the light comes in through the windows, I know where there's a creak in the floorboards. I know what Olivia's office looks like, although we never go there in the book.

So I'm sorry the lady was disappointed when she discovered that the museum doesn't exist, and has never done so. But I'm also pleased I managed to make it as real for her as it is for me.

Ooops! I've Done It Again

My first book was called Adultery for Beginners and was the story of Isabel, wife of Neil, who has a torrid and obsessive affair with a man called Patrick. Patrick, I realised quite recently, was an amalgamation of of a couple of men I'd known, but at the time of writing I could honestly put my hand on heart and say none of the characters were based on any real people or events.

Then my sister sidled up to me. Several people had asked, she reported, her eyes not meeting mine, whether the character of Neil was based on her husband. I was astounded: as far as I was concerned the two couldn't have been further apart. I couldn't see why anyone would think that. Well, she replied. There's the moustache. And the job. And the ex-pat angle. And the reading computer manuals in bed (which I naturally didn't know about). And... I was so embarrassed because the points of similarity were there but honestly, it had never occurred to me before.

And I've just done it again. Kissing Mr Wrong has as its main male character a WWI expert called Nick. And my son is a WWI expert called...Nick. My only excuse is that I think it's a nice name and apologies to my son...but if he's divorced with two children, then as his mother I really should know about it. I suppose that's the answer - you give 100 characteristics to a character, and the chances are some of them are going to coincide with those of a member of your family and friends. Still. It is embarrassing. Sorry Nick.

I was the Juliet of Putney

I wrote a week or so ago about Jilly Cooper and me, and how even as an utterly self-absorbed teenager I recognised how hard she worked. It stirred old memories, not least how she was a magpie around other people's lives. At the time she was writing a weekly column for the Sunday Times about her life and was obviously permanently on the look out for material.

I didn't mind being written up as 'the pretty girl across the road who has a different boyfriend in a sports car taking her out every evening' - I just wished it were true. I minded a bit more when I went out a couple of times with the boy next door but two, whose parents had put in a planning application that my parents had objected to. We were written up for the benefit of the nation as the Romeo and Juliet of Putney, immediately withering any romance that may have blossomed.

So you'll understand why I'm very careful when I 'borrow' from real people. Which I do - I think every writer does. What I borrow is always something small - a gesture, perhaps, or a snatch of remember conversation - and it's always for minor characters. I couldn't lift a real person, any more than I lift stories from real life. It was mortifying when people asked if Neil in Adultery for Beginners was based on my brother-in-law. They both had moustaches and similar jobs (hence the questions) but in my head Neil looked and was so different it never occurred to me others might see similarities.

I hope I'm sensitive to other's embarrassment, and if using real life people did work in writing fiction, then I still wouldn't use them. But there's actually no moral dilemma here. The fact is, real life doesn't work as fiction, and nor do real people. Reality is inhibiting, stultifying; you have to make it up to make it convincing.

Real Life, or Something Like It?

When I'm taking part in a workshop, a comment I dread hearing is: But it really happened. The trouble is that real life doesn't always make good fiction.

Real life goes on and on, whereas fiction is packaged into neat parcels: a novel or a short story.

Real life contains all the boring bits, the brushing of teeth, the walk to work, the ten minutes faffing around before making that call. Fiction cuts out all the boring bits (or should do!).

Real life takes time - a life time, literally. Fiction is the edited highlights compressed into a few minutes or hours of reading time.

Real life is full of coincidence, missed opportunities, inconsequential happenings. Fiction avoids coincidence, grabs every opportunity, and all happenings have consequences.

Real life may well see the good go unrewarded and the undeserving flourish. We may like to dream that Simon Cowell is unhappy deep deep down to balance his incredible success over the last decade, but to me he looks like a man who's pretty content with life. Happily, in fiction, the good can win and the baddies get their come-uppance.

Real life hampers the writer's choices as they worry about offending family and friends or getting it wrong. Fiction gives the writer free rein to do whatever they want or imagine.

Fiction gives the illusion of real life, but it is just an illusion. Writers make it up, and sometimes they make it feel more true than real life. Fiction isn't real life - it's better.