Lauren Hynde
Hitched
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2002
- Posts
- 21,061
Imagine, if you will, the following hypothetical situation.
You are a writer. By this, I don't mean that you're a retired accountant or a housewife or a grad student who also writes pornogr- erotica in your spare (or full) time, or even that you're a retired accountant or a housewife or a grad student who is trying to make a living out of writing and with a couple of publications under your belt. I mean, you are a writer. You have an MFA from a prestigious university, you won three important nationwide literary awards, your stories have appeared at several magazines whose names would be instantly recognised by any person living in a civilised country, your novels have had print-runs in the order of hundreds of thousands. At social gatherings, you don't need to introduce yourself as a professional writer, because everybody knows you are, and most have even read one or more of your books.
You are also a member of Literotica. One of the stories mentioned above, one of your first to be accepted by a magazine, actually, was erotic in nature, and it appeared under a pseudonym in Playboy Magazine - something that some will argue is more difficult to achieve than to have your first novel published by Knopf, which you did. From that point on, you have enjoyed occasionally returning to writing erotica for pleasure, for exercise, for relaxation in between sessions of your "regular" writing. You are not the only established author to do this, you know. A few other writers of your circle of friends do the same, and one of them, a good friend, is even a member of Literotica as well.
The two of you, for a laugh, decide to write a collaborative piece, a good old-fashioned bodice ripper set in the contemporary society you both inhabit and observe daily, a cross between romance and satire, filled with the clichés of the genre. Your partner-in-crime writes and posts the first chapter, you write and post the second, and so forth, once a week. Following all the canons of the genre, it is a story of torrid affairs, forbidden passions, adultery, intrigue, betrayal, obsession, implied incest, STDs, and murder.
And then something happens. You start receiving private messages from someone who speaks in the name of a certain important, respected, and old family; you know exactly who, he adds, don't insult us further by denying it. Not wanting to threaten you (but doing it just the same), he tells you to stop writing the story. It is obvious this fellow is convinced that you are writing the sordid story of his family, a story he would rather not be made public. You, of course, dismiss him as a madman and continue writing. The messages continue, and then turn into actual letters delivered at your home without a return address. The threats become more specific, threats of exposing your own secrets - and you have them, and it would hurt. You are followed and have hostile and even life-threatening encounters with people who do indeed seem to have been taken right out of your story - not only the ones written by your friend, but yours as well. The more outrageous you write the story, the more clichéd, the more unbelievable - since it is a satire, there is a lot of latitude there - the closer it seems to get to the reality of these people. A black car with tainted windows tries to run you over, one night, and partially succeeds it.
I don't really have a question for you at this point, but this situation does raise a number of interesting - in my opinion - notions. There is, for example, the matter of how a writer deals with outside pressure to change or terminate a story. There is the matter of accountability of the writer; if you draw inspiration from real life to write your story, shouldn't you be held accountable for any inspiration real life draws from your fiction? There is also the more surreal matter of an actual reality/fiction blending effect; how would you react if fictional characters of one of your stories appeared at your doorstep?
Anyway, I'd just like to know what thoughts this brings to mind. Any comment on any aspect of it.
You are a writer. By this, I don't mean that you're a retired accountant or a housewife or a grad student who also writes pornogr- erotica in your spare (or full) time, or even that you're a retired accountant or a housewife or a grad student who is trying to make a living out of writing and with a couple of publications under your belt. I mean, you are a writer. You have an MFA from a prestigious university, you won three important nationwide literary awards, your stories have appeared at several magazines whose names would be instantly recognised by any person living in a civilised country, your novels have had print-runs in the order of hundreds of thousands. At social gatherings, you don't need to introduce yourself as a professional writer, because everybody knows you are, and most have even read one or more of your books.
You are also a member of Literotica. One of the stories mentioned above, one of your first to be accepted by a magazine, actually, was erotic in nature, and it appeared under a pseudonym in Playboy Magazine - something that some will argue is more difficult to achieve than to have your first novel published by Knopf, which you did. From that point on, you have enjoyed occasionally returning to writing erotica for pleasure, for exercise, for relaxation in between sessions of your "regular" writing. You are not the only established author to do this, you know. A few other writers of your circle of friends do the same, and one of them, a good friend, is even a member of Literotica as well.
The two of you, for a laugh, decide to write a collaborative piece, a good old-fashioned bodice ripper set in the contemporary society you both inhabit and observe daily, a cross between romance and satire, filled with the clichés of the genre. Your partner-in-crime writes and posts the first chapter, you write and post the second, and so forth, once a week. Following all the canons of the genre, it is a story of torrid affairs, forbidden passions, adultery, intrigue, betrayal, obsession, implied incest, STDs, and murder.
And then something happens. You start receiving private messages from someone who speaks in the name of a certain important, respected, and old family; you know exactly who, he adds, don't insult us further by denying it. Not wanting to threaten you (but doing it just the same), he tells you to stop writing the story. It is obvious this fellow is convinced that you are writing the sordid story of his family, a story he would rather not be made public. You, of course, dismiss him as a madman and continue writing. The messages continue, and then turn into actual letters delivered at your home without a return address. The threats become more specific, threats of exposing your own secrets - and you have them, and it would hurt. You are followed and have hostile and even life-threatening encounters with people who do indeed seem to have been taken right out of your story - not only the ones written by your friend, but yours as well. The more outrageous you write the story, the more clichéd, the more unbelievable - since it is a satire, there is a lot of latitude there - the closer it seems to get to the reality of these people. A black car with tainted windows tries to run you over, one night, and partially succeeds it.
I don't really have a question for you at this point, but this situation does raise a number of interesting - in my opinion - notions. There is, for example, the matter of how a writer deals with outside pressure to change or terminate a story. There is the matter of accountability of the writer; if you draw inspiration from real life to write your story, shouldn't you be held accountable for any inspiration real life draws from your fiction? There is also the more surreal matter of an actual reality/fiction blending effect; how would you react if fictional characters of one of your stories appeared at your doorstep?
Anyway, I'd just like to know what thoughts this brings to mind. Any comment on any aspect of it.
)
