Storytellersunplugged

Where Words Meet

Melanie & Steve Tem: TELLING OTHER PEOPLE’S STORIES

Melanie:

When I was in Haines, Alaska, a couple of summers ago, I was emphatically told by members of the native Tlingit tribe that I am not to use any of their legends or modern stories in my oral storytelling or writing, because I am not Tlingit and would have to have permission from the tribal council, which I would be highly unlikely to get.  In the Haines library (which–perhaps irrelevantly, perhaps not–had recently won the ”best library in the US” award for its size from the National Library Association) is a long shelf of Tlingit, Athabascan, and other Native tales, collected between covers for, presumably, the general public.  My Tlingit instructor stated that the authors, Native and non-Native, who collected and wrote down those stories had stolen them, were guilty of intellectual property theft under US law and of stealing sacred artifacts from The People by Tlingit standards.

“Tell your own stories,” he admonished me.  “Our stories are ours to tell.”

Wanting to be respectful, aware of my status as a visitor and an outsider, I said okay.  But it didn’t take long for me to think: Wait a minute! Isn’t that what writers do? Don’t we take on other personas, work at creating characters different from ourselves, develop our craft so that we can speak in a voice not our own? Don’t we tell other people’s stories much of the time? In fact, isn’t it one hallmark of a writer becoming more mature, skilled, and self-confident when her/his writing becomes less self-referential? Am I “allowed” to write only from the point of view of a 59-year-old Caucasian heterosexual woman of eastern-European and English descent who grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania?

“Allowed”? Wait a minute!

Then, I was about 120 pages into the first draft of my new novel when I hit a wall.  One of the plot lines is about a man 20+ years sober who still struggles with pre-sobriety trauma; I’m not so much interested in telling a story about how someone gets sober as about how someone stays sober and re-builds his life.  I got interested in this because of an old friend with whom I’ve re-established contact in the past few years; catching me up on the several decades we hadn’t been in touch, he has told me a harrowing, exultant, very moving tale that he and I both think deserves to be told.  So I started writing the book partly for him.  The POV character isn’t my friend, but he’s definitely inspired by him.  My friend has been very involved in telling me wonderful anecdotes, explaining the culture of alcoholics and of AA, answering questions, making suggestions.  He’s also emphasized again and again that no one who isn’t an alcoholic can possibly understand how life is for an alcoholic.  I got spooked, and at about p. 120 I was suddenly paralyzed: This isn’t my story to tell.  How can I do it justice? What if I do it wrong? Do I have a right even to try?

Wait a minute.  A “right”? I’m a writer.  That’s what writers do.

Steve:

You’re right. That is what writers do. We tell other people’s stories. When I get into conversations with people regarding the function of fiction, the purpose of it (and no, I don’t seek these conversations out—if anything, I try to avoid them. But they have a way of tracking me down.), I usually feel on pretty shaky ground. When I was young, I was pretty convinced that fiction could change the world. I’m a lot less sure of that now. Oh, I can point to some historical examples—Uncle Tom’s Cabin being a primary case—but today? Perhaps I’ve been beaten down by all those people telling me that this is a medium for entertainment purposes only, but for whatever reason I normally tend to doubt fiction’s ability to change anything significant.

With one small exception, and make it as significant as you like. I’ve always believed that fiction, telling and reading other people’s stories, teaches us to empathize. If we’ve had good parents and adequate interaction with other people, perhaps we already know that. But there are always holes, aren’t there? And there are fictional characters in books and in film waiting to fill those holes. In fact when I meet someone who never reads fiction, and never watches movies, and seems to have no interest in stories of any kind, I really wonder about how empathetic that person could possibly be.

For me, fiction is the human handbook. And the reading and writing of it the truest spiritual act I can conceive of.

That doesn’t mean I think we should just take other people’s stories, or show little regard for the real personal and cultural investment they have in them. Sensitivity is required. (And isn’t that true of most things?) And in the situation of a small tribal group that so strongly feels their stories are sacrosanct (even to the point that “retellings” and “references” are frowned upon) I’d be inclined simply to respect that and avoid those legends whether I thought they had a valid moral or legal claim or not. After all, there are thousands of stories available to us—we breathe them in and out every day. I don’t need to reference theirs specifically.

But beyond that, anything’s fair game as far as I’m concerned. I still hear the statement now and then that a woman cannot adequately tell a man’s story, and that a man cannot adequately tell a woman’s story. Two books I’m working on now are YAs told from the points of view of young teenage girls. Someone is bound to question the wisdom of this, but one of the things that has surprised me in the process of writing these is that I’ve come to believe I may actually understand girls of this age better than I understand boys.

In another, adult project, I’m spending time in the heads of Adolf Hitler, Stalin, and some other pretty unpleasant people. What chance, even with all the research I’m doing, do I have of getting it right? How do I truthfully tell other people’s stories?

I frankly don’t know. But I’ve come to suspect that truth, “getting it right” isn’t entirely to the point. I think it’s more about the process of trying to understand what goes on inside another human being’s head, about what goes on inside us as we attempt to understand.

Fiction making is at its core, I think, an act of empathy. The writer begins that empathetic act, which is then taken over by the reader, who extends and develops it, transforming it into something which may or may not be pure entertainment, which may or may not be as “truthful” as we would like. But which may be one true human story.

Related posts:

1. Melanie & Steve Tem: INVITING THE READER IN
2. Steve & Melanie Tem: THE GENRE THING
3. Steve & Melanie Tem: SHOCKING READS
4. Melanie Tem & Steve Rasnic Tem
5. MELANIE & STEVE TEM: SELLING YOURSELF

Share on Twitter

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.