Words, words, words. That's what we're made of. Herewith some of my thoughts on what we're doing with them.

Wherever you go, there you are, as the saying goes.

You may be drawn to writing fiction (or poetry) out of a desire to inhabit an imaginary space. You may populate that space in your mind with all manner of delightful, thought-provoking or scary things. You may design your characters to be able to speak Chinese or leap tall buildings. The problem is, though, that in fiction, all the characters are really you. Sure, you can pretend the guy is a suave, sophisticated, legally licenced serial killer, like 007, but he's going to have your inner make-up, so whatever predilections and attitudes you've got are going to come out. If you aren't British, and you read James Bond novels, you know what I mean. If you are British, try watching a John Wayne movie, and you'll see what I mean.

You can't get away from yourself, so you need to learn to use what you've got. Don't try to write about saintliness if you're not saintly, don't do ruthless if you're not. Know your limitations. Because as sure as you try to make up a character who isn't at all like you, you're going to get it wrong. I don't mean you can't describe an old person if you're young, a man if you're a woman, or someone of a different ethnic or language group, country, or time. I mean, that person is going to be you in some way, so deal with it.

I'm going to talk for a minute about To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's masterful reworking of her own experiences growing up in Alabama during Segregation. I'm not going to quote long passages from the book, because it's not old enough to be fair game for us. I hope you'll read it, if you haven't, or re-read it, if it has been awhile, because it is a fine book. There's a searchable copy at archive.org, so you can look there if you like. As I've mentioned before, Ms Lee was writing from her own life: her father was a respected lawyer, much like Atticus Finch, her best friend was a nutty little boy who grew up to be a famous author, too (Truman Capote), and life in Alabama at that time was pretty much what she said it was.

'But,' you will ask, 'If Harper Lee was describing her father in To Kill a Mockingbird, why do you say all our characters are really us? Atticus was Mr Lee, not Harper.'

Ah, my friends, that's where I think the rub is. Atticus is not Amasa Lee¹. Atticus is Harper Lee pretending to be Amasa Lee. She's showing us what she saw in her father – but she's playing the story out inside herself. Nothing else would work. Nothing else would be honest.

When people appreciate and admire Lee's book – and they do, it was a runaway bestseller, and it's used in schools – they often say, 'Well, Scout Finch is Harper Lee herself.' In a way, that's true. Jean Louise, the outspoken tomboy child whose adult persona is narrating this amazing story, is based on Harper Lee. She draws on her own reactions to the world she lived in, to give us a window into that world. She's Scout, all right. But she's also everyone else in the story, in one way or another.

I can vouch for the accuracy of that world, because although I was born a quarter-century later than Ms Lee, that part of the world had changed less than other places. Yeah, I remember all that. Even if you don't, you are sure to recognise the authenticity of the story from its internal integrity. And if you don't need anybody to explain to you the significance of separate water fountains, you'll still find something to learn in there. Take Mr Dolphus Raymond, whom Scout first describes (quite tongue-in-cheek, as it turns out) as 'an evil man'. On page 202 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mr Raymond offers Dill a drink from the bottle he carries around in a 'paper sack' (sorry, it's 'paper sack' territory, just be glad she didn't say 'poke'). Dill sips from the straw, and grins. Instead of whiskey, Mr Raymond is drinking Coca-Cola.

When the children ask why Raymond is going to such lengths to make his neighbours think he's an alcoholic, Raymond explains that this is an act of kindness towards his neighbours, who are otherwise at a loss to explain his anarchic lifestyle and preference for living with the 'coloureds'. You don't have to be from the American South to understand what Lee is telling us. And she found that insight, not from an outside source, but from her inside reaction to what she saw and heard. That's what I mean when I say that Harper Lee is also Dolphus Raymond.

Lee herself has said that she is Boo Radley, the reclusive, damaged neighbour and protector of the children. I can understand that. Lee is a very private person, who does not give interviews. Why should she? Does everybody think she's public property, just because she wrote a fine book? No, indeed. Let us be grateful, and leave her in peace. But isn't there a piece of every writer, at least, if not every person, that is just like Boo Radley? Damaged beyond repair from seeing what other people are capable of, hiding in the shadows, watching for an opportunity to connect, but wanting to remain anonymous…?

Okay, maybe that isn't something everyone would understand. Maybe it's just me, because Boo was the character I most identified with. If that isn't you at all, then you can't write about Boo Radley.

I am going to quote two sentences from this book. (Fair use.) They're on page 282:

Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.'

Yeah, it's like that. And if something you feel when you walk around in those shoes matches something the owner of those shoes could have felt, and you let someone else know, and they can smell the shoe leather, then you've got something.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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