Whose Story? ... an excerpt

Recently I told a story to a lively audience at a literary feast. Six other authors and I were invited to tell a 'tall tale', to 'sing' for our supper. The meal was superb and the only issue in sight, from my point of view, was the capacity of the story to get me through the challenging role of stand up comedian. After the dinner, an editor came up to me and suggested I develop my 'tall tale' into a book. I took her seriously and began. So, too began questions of ethics.

My story was based on an incident between my daughter and me that happened in the car on the way home from school. For three consecutive days she had told a bold faced lie to her teacher. She was losing her nerve. The thought of fronting up to her teacher the next morning was too much. She knew her time was up. In the car on the way home, the bubble burst mid traffic. 'What can I do ?' she cried, tears spurting everywhere. I tried lightening up the situation by proposing a far more elaborate excuse - a tall tale - than she had so far dreamt of. It didnt stop there. We each added on other excuses until we were laughing ourselves silly.

In front of a supportive audience, the story took shape, leaping and bounding beyond the actual events in the car. Through this exaggeration, experiences common to others came into focus and truths could be distilled. When I began writing the story down, this process continued. Experiences from real life that were useful were picked out, others were let go or substituted.

When it came time for my daughter to read a draft of the story, I witnessed her pleasure in parts, but I could also feel her discomfort. When we showed the story to friends, from her body language more than from anything she said, I could feel that the story didnt sit happily with her. I guessed that she felt exposed for telling a lie and suggested this to her afterwards. The ethics of lying was not the issue in this instance. She felt quite at ease, if a little amused with this 'exposure'. Still, her unease continued to grow with each new draft.

It was when we were driving home from school that the bubble burst again. The real 'her' had now become a fictional character with a different name. Many of the incidents described had never happened. These delighted her. Nonetheless, she was concerned that a character she recognised as resembling the real live Boori, my partner, was casually described as this fictional childs father. I explained that rather than describing the father figure in our house as the fictional mother's 'boyfriend', 'de facto husband', 'present life partner' or 'lover', I had used 'dad' for ease. I didn't think it mattered. It did, she assured me. We had a long discussion. Elements of the story that I held precious, were disintegrating before my eyes. I had to let go.When faced with the dilemma of whose story this was, I had to loosen my grip and listen to my daughter. We talked through relationships in our real family with its set of four parental figures, naming and giving status to the role of her parents' new partners. My daughter decided on the terms, 'step-father' and 'step-mother' and felt pleased with the shape this gave to our family. Only then could we go back to the fictional story and begin to recontruct the 'father figure' character. We made up a far more entertaining title for the little girl in the story to call her 'step- father'. He became 'One two three, step-dad Gee' or 'her Gee' for short. This opened up all kinds of possibilities to play with - 'Gee whiz', Gee wolly wonkers', One two three' and so on. My daughter took great pride in reading the new draft of the story, 'Flytrap', to friends and visitors. This experience illustrates for me the complexities of questions of ethics and exposure that play an integral part in the writing process.

Ethics is tied to context and is specific to circumstance. In this situation, the fundamental ethic of lying, of making up stories, some of which obscure the truth, was not an issue. The ethical question that needed addressing here - regarding relationships - was the one held to be most sensitive by someone close to the source of the story.

Whose Story? was first published in
The Writers Reader
A Guide to Writing Fiction and Poetry
Edited by Brenda Walker
Halstead Press
ISBN 1 875684 75 1 (pbk)

copyright meme mcdonald 2002