Those of you following the television musical soap opera Glee will be aware that the character Finn Hudson died mysteriously and unexpectedly—because the actor who played him, Cory Monteith, overdosed on “a lethal combination of alcohol and heroin.” This is a tragic situation, and the more so to watch because the actor who plays his love interest on the show was also his fiancée in life. They lived together, as far as I understand it.
It is not my habit to gossip in this newsletter, so you may be wondering why I am talking about the behind-the-scenes drama here. It’s just that how the writers handled the situation on Glee has gotten me thinking about the differences between story and life.
1) Build. Because, as is often the case in life, the death was unexpected, shocking even, there was no build toward it in the story. Had the writers simply killed him off, the cards would have been stacked well beforehand. Matthew’s death in Downton Abbey seemed shocking and sudden—but it actually seemed more shocking and sudden because it came at the exact worst moment. He was finally married to Mary and a new father! Life was so good. Crash. Shocking, but fitting in terms of story.
Fynn’s story did not build to a particular moment when his death made the most or the least sense. It simply happened in the middle of the many threads of life story that had entangled him.
2) Questions and Revelations. The episode that dealt with his death did not engage at the story level. They refused to reveal how he died. My guess is that they did not want to take advantage of the real story (nor had they built in a struggle with drugs for the character in earlier episodes), and neither did they want to invent a different death for him. So there was a withholding—how he died—with no subsequent revelation.
In story, withholding can be a great technique for raising reader questions, and reader questions are what drive us through a book, seeking revelations (while enjoying the gorgeous rhythms of the prose and the brilliant portrayals of the characters). In life, many questions go unanswered. It’s been said that this is why we turn to books for solace . . . and for suspense that resolves.
3) Causality. In the aftermath of Fynn’s death, a few mentions have been made of how sad Rachel is, but little drama has been accorded to the situation. It hasn’t had much impact on subsequent events. I have not seen the upcoming season of Downton Abbey, but you can be sure that Mary’s grief, anger, denial—whatever her reaction or reactions to Matthew’s death—will be built into the script. This is story. Matthew’s death will cause reactions, choices and more events.
In story, events are causally related: one causes the next. That chain creates story. In life, we search for that kind of meaning, but we do not always find it. Because there was a real death, and not just an actor neglecting to sign a new contract, we are watching the show’s makers tiptoe around the real grieving survivor. In life, story can be awkward, even irritating, as when someone tries to impose unwelcome meaning or causality on the events of our lives. (i.e., “Maybe you brought that on yourself because of your childhood patterns . . .”)
I’d love to know: What have you noticed about the differences between story and life? How have you used one to fuel the other, and how have you needed to keep them apart?
Hi Elizabeth:
Stories I’ve collected over several decades of counseling cops naturally find their way into my mystery, Burying Ben. These real life tales inspired me, they kept knocking on the inside of my head, demanding to be let out. The difference between real life and the dramatized stories is pace, particularly for mystery writers. Real life police work is often boring and filled with detail, as is real life psychotherapy. (Although Ellen Ullman was able to infuse the therapy sessions in her wonderful novel By Blood with a lot of drama.) So maybe story is real life without the boring parts.
I love this insight, Ellen. Pace is key, of course. And this: “Story is real life without the boring parts.” Beautiful!
Definitely agree– story is life without the boring parts. Sort of the difference between autobiography (although–I know–that can be told interestingly) and memoir.
I also think that most of our lives are made up of the little daily stuff– the “boring” stuff that we would weed out if we were to narrate it to another– and that we would do well to attend to those with more care and attention– not to make it big and dramatic, to make it a Story with a capital S, but to understand that all those little bits do, in the end add up to a life– that most of life happens in between the lines of the big Story.
A bit of a contradiction, but I suppose that is why anything is worth writing about.
Lea, Reminds me of that quote attributed to John Lennon: “Life is what happens while we are busy making other plans.” Or Annie Dillard’s observation that “a day spent reading is an ordinary day, but a life spent reading is an extraordinary life.” She also says, “A schedule is a net for catching days, a life raft where we find ourselves, decades later, still floating.” (These are from memory and may not be exact.) It’s in the examination of those quieter (or “boring” moments) that we discover their larger cumulative effect or notice their texture.
Hi Elizabeth,
Great post. For Nanowrimo this month, as a writing exercise, I focused on mining my past for story ideas. I have no intention of writing a memoir, but I knew that if I could find experiences and work through them, it could inform my writing. What I discovered about writing about my own past instances, was that I “tell” the story of my experiences, rather than showing the experience. Sometimes, granted, Nanowrimo is a time of writing it fast and getting the story down. But I also noticed a bit of “emotional witholding” on my part. In fact, with memories that were still raw, I tiptoed around my emotions and it flattened my piece. of course, these things can be handled in rewrites, but I thought it was worth noting.
Lisa, Funnily enough, I am doing exactly (more or less) the same thing you are doing, and discovering much the same in the results. I read a wonderful essay in the early parts (maybe first chapter) of Patricia Hampl’s I Could Tell You Stories. I highly recommend it. She talks about the layering necessary in this kind of writing, the sketchy first draft. I don’t remember and don’t have handy her exact language, but it comforted me. I’ve also been enjoying Phillip Lopate’s To Show and To Tell, which reminds us that in non-fiction, there is more room for a rich, voice-driven telling.
Funny thing, I am dealing with this exact thing in my revision: a few of the earliest fragments are much more of a telling than they are in scene. I noticed, just yesterday, though, that one of these sections, while it isn’t told in scene, is told with what could only be labeled extreme snakiness and pettiness. I was settling down to re-write it in scene, and I realized that this was entirely the wrong thing to do. It wasn’t the actual events that were so important, but how the telling of them reflected on me, the character. I realized that my attitude WAS the story, and that the way to make it less flat was not to turn it more to scene, or showing, but to turn up the snark-o-meter and really show the extent of my feeling and reaction.
I am fully thinking, with my own very limited experience now with first drafts, that while they may be shitty, they are also SACRED. Just as they come out. What you write and how your write it tells you so much. There is a wisdom to it, even the flat parts, as Lisa said.
And, this is apropos of nothing, maybe, but I was listening to Steven Pressman the other day and he said, in response to a question about what project to work on if one has lots of ideas, that you should always work on the one where there is the most resistance. That is the one, he said, where there is the most passion. Yes, you have to get over your terror, but the resistance tells you that it is important.
I thought that was rather a kick in the ass.
Ooh, Lea, I love the thought of that–work on the one where there is the most resistance. I have enormous resistance to this non-fiction piece, to opening memories, which can feel, going in, like wounds. They turn out, though, to be something else. Not quite trophies, but substantive, maybe substance itself. My life–it’s all still there, tucked away but I lived it.
Of course, like any great truth, the opposite is also true. We creative types like to resist ourselves, resist our natural urges, and sometimes it’s okay to go with what is easiest, too. To go with the flow, especially when the flow is a stream of lovely words.
I found some of the quotes about first drafts, too, from Patricia Hampl: “But the piece remains a first draft because I haven’t yet gotten to know it, haven’t given it a chance to tell me anything. For me, writing a first draft is a little like meeting someone for the first time. i come away with a wary acquaintanceship, but the real friendship (if any) is down the road. . . .
“I try to let pretty much anything happen in a first draft. A careful first draft is a failed first draft.”
There is more. This is from “Memory and Imagination” in I Could Tell You Stories by Patricia Hampl.