Real Life Tragedy Inspires Fiction

[Philip Overby]

For those that don't know, I live in Japan, which was struck by a massive earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami which has left the country reeling. In addition to nuclear reactor issues, it compounds the level of danger involved in the situation. Luckily, I was far enough away from the center of the quake, so I was only shaken where I am.

This begs the question: when is it ok to use real life tragedy in fiction?

I lived in Mississippi when Hurricane Katrina hit, so this is the second major natural disaster I have experienced first hand. It's almost impossible not to want to use fiction as some sort of catharsis to write about these horrors. I can't help thinking writing and my other hobbies are inconsequential when looking at the news and seeing that real life is much more powerful than fiction can ever be.

I've been reluctant to talk about writing or anything else the past couple of days, but I know that these things keep me sane and give me ease. It's good to escape into fantasy worlds but it's hard to do it when reality is smacking me in the face.

One of my projects I am working on now involves a world in which natural disasters rock the world on a daily basis. I'm now experiencing this first-hand. There have been at least 50 aftershocks I have felt here since the initial quake.

It feels strange to use my experience to write a fantasy story, but I feel compelled even more to write this story than I originally did. Now I actually know what it feels like to live every waking moment paranoid of the next quake. And I can instill that into my characters.

There is also a moment I had conceived where a character, consumed by guilt for feeling she let the world down, stands on the beach and lets a giant wave suck her in. In real life, one my fiance's friends lived near the beach and was lucky to survive. She is now holed up in a make-shift shelter for foreseeable future.

These are scenes I had imagined before the disaster even happened. It feels so bizarre to see them reflected in real life right in front of me. My heart hurts for those people affected and it hurts even more to look at the internet and see some "trolls" making light of the situation and poking fun.

Japan is like my second home and I love it here. It feels so strange that a story that I was writing about disaster is now manifesting itself around me.

But I remember after Katrina, I wrote two poems that were both published in anthologies. Because I was writing about my home, my pain, my helplessness about my situation. It wasn't something contrived that I thought up. It was real emotion, raw and unfiltered. Here I am again, posed with the same feeling: should I use the pain I'm feeling in my writing?

I feel the only answer is that yes, in time I will. Real life is at times boring and mundane. But when faced with stark reality, it will always be more powerful and affecting than anything I could dream up or find in a book.

 

[Ravana]

It's completely appropriate. And glad to hear you're okay.

"Real life" is what we write about: we just put it in "unreal" settings. But if what you're writing has nothing to do with real life, your readers won't be able to connect with it.

I'll take two examples, drawn from the same tragedy: the events of September 11, 2001. The first is personal: I'd written a poem some time earlier that made reference to the Oklahoma City bombing. In the most poignant irony I have yet personally experienced, it appeared in print in the literary magazine my college published at the beginning of every fall term… two weeks after 9/11. It had, of course, been accepted back in the spring, long before anybody imagined something like 9/11 could take place; I'd forgotten about it until I came in the first day and found my contributor's copies in my mail slot. The faculty member in charge of the publication had also forgotten; I located him that first day, held the magazine opened to the page–and watched the shock hit him. I think his complete verbal reaction to it was: "Oh."

I don't know if anybody else, under the same circumstances, could not write a "sequel" to it; I, at any rate, felt compelled to. It was duly submitted to the same magazine, and appeared the following fall.

The second example came from Marvel Comics. The event was quite simply too big to ignore. So they didn't even try. Nearly all of their titles had their characters involved in the rescue operations, all of them feeling just as helpless as the rest of us did, except with the added facet of wondering what they should or even could have done to prevent it, whether or not they somehow bore personal guilt by omission. They were the "super"heroes, after all. This sort of thing "wasn't supposed to happen" in their world… but of course that "sort of thing" happened all the time, just as it does in ours; the only difference was scope. And proximity.

The final line of the first poem, the one referencing Oklahoma City, reads "I don't think we're in Kansas any more." It's always worse when it's "home."

Marvel, by the way, also published a number of excellent special editions, based entirely on the activities of normal people–"real" "heroes": police, fire, medical, search and rescue responders. If you're a fan of comics, they're well worth tracking down. (I believe DC did much the same, but can't speak to that, as I didn't pay much attention to their titles. Imagine how hard it would have been to explain how Superman was unable to respond to and largely mitigate the disaster… they eventually decided he was off-planet that day.)

Oh, and Phil? For the next year, the first writing assignment in each of my classes–which, following the syllabus, was to be a "personal recollection" paper–was "Where were you when…?" Not fiction: reality. But still writing. I got some of the best essays I ever had from that topic… and, particularly in the first term, was thanked by most of my students for assigning it. So write about the quake, about Katrina… whatever format you choose to present it in. Even if you never end up showing it to anyone else. It helps.

 

[Mdnight Falling]

I think stories are told better when the author puts their all into it.. If your story mimics what you've experienced first hand, then more power to it since it will dredge those feelings up and implant them into the work. The more a person puts into their work, the more the reader will feel in response when reading it... Never question on what to put in your work emotion wise. Your other stories for the contests are funny because you've put your joy and your joking nature into them which passes to your readers. If you write your story with the pain you feel for your home, it will come to the readers to. I myself find there's no better book written then one that can make you laugh, smile, feel happy, angry, or even cry if that's what the author put into it upon its creation

 

[Chilari]

Everyone is the sum of their experiences and choices. Those experiences are now part of you. At the same time, a work of fiction draws from the experiences of the creator. Intentionally or not, your experiences with Katrina and the earthquake will inform your writing. And that is a good thing. They should do. It makes for better writing and it allows you to process the events in your own mind and come to terms with them while keeping a sort of emotional buffer between yourself and the events, because the purpose is writing fiction, not thinking specifically about the earthquake, and this has a cathartic effect.

In other words: it's always okay to use real life tragedy in fiction, or any real life experiences, as long as you know the line between the fiction you're writing and the reality you experienced, and don't try to write the reality.