Hi, Friends:
As a multigenre author, I always want to tell stories that pull at me to write them. I don’t care how intriguing someone else’s suggestion might be, if a story doesn’t beg me to be written, it lingers in oblivion.
As writers, we want to tell exciting stories. I’m a character-driven author, so I enjoy colorful characters who may be a bit outrageous.
Allow me to be a little gross, if I may. About 20 years ago, I was walking into a Wawa market (in Pennsylvania) with a friend, when a woman leaving the store walked past us with literal thick streams of snot flowing from each nostril like dueling waterfalls. Yeah, really. I turned to my friend and said, “I’m going to put that in a book one day.” She smiled and said, “I bet you will.”
Now, after having published thirteen books, that woman has yet to be seen. Why? Not so much that she was gross, although that is a factor, but I came to the conclusion that she sounded too outrageous to be believed—even in a work of fiction.
I’ve written two romantic comedies. In my first one, Molly Hacker Is Too Picky!, feisty Molly and her best friend run into Molly’s nemesis in the ladies room at the local mall. Of course, hilarity ensues. As the book is set in a fictional town, not a large city, the chances of that happening are not all that unusual. Yet, in a review, some woman wrote how improbable that sounded to her. (And yeah, this was comedy, not literary fiction.)
Many decades ago, here in Los Angeles, during my lunch hour (can’t even remember where I was working), I decided to go to the Beverly Center as I desperately needed some Lancôme moisturizer. For those who don’t know, the Center is located at the edge of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It’s huge. It’s a place where many of the rich and famous go to shop.
I can’t even estimate how many thousands of people are in the mall at one time, but as I stood looking down at the products in a display case at Bullock’s, the saleswoman asked if she could help me. I looked up, and before I could ask where I knew her from, I realized it was one of my dearest friends from junior high school back East. We’d lost touch when her family moved to California, and this is how we found one another again after ten years. This day, my trip to that particular store was the one and only time I’ve been there.
So, what if I wrote that in a book? Would it be plausible? I bet not.
Many years later, living in Los Angeles, I was trying to get together with a friend on the East Coast. She said she was taking a cruise leaving from Long Beach, CA and would have twenty minutes to spare before boarding the ship. No way was I going to drive that far for twenty minutes, especially in LA traffic that’s impossible to rely on. While I was planning a trip back East, where I was staying was nowhere near where she lived. So, we basically gave up and forgot about getting together.
One day, months later, I’m getting on a plane to go East, and for the first time in flying history, I needed to use the facilities immediately. The ones near my seat were occupied, and the flight attendant told me the one in back was free. I walked to the end of the plane, and in the very back row was the friend with whom I’d been trying to get together with. There was an empty seat next to her. So, I retrieved my carry-on items and moved to the back of the plane. We had five long hours to catch up. If I told that story in a book, I’ll bet review after review would claim that scenario ruined the book for being so implausible. And P.S. years prior to this, I’d run into this same person on the streets of New York City.
Believe it or not, I have more stories exactly like the two I just told. I’m certainly not alone, I’m sure, in hearing stories and seeing things in real life, good, bad, and horrible, that would have once seemed too unreal for fiction—and many that still do.
Novels, stories, and movies are often considered “places” where anything can happen. And I’m not debating the veracity of that. But for me, there are many times when truth is stranger than fiction—so strange that I hesitate to use it.
What are your experiences? Have you had real-life experiences too improbable to read or write?Tweet
