At 07:24 PM 4/3/2003 -0800, you wrote:
 >I'm going to throw a spanner into the works



 >How do people here feel about plagiarizing from life?

I think it makes the very best fiction.  It's my personal suspicion that 
much of _To Kill A Mockingbird_ (best book in the world, IMHO) is patterned 
after actual events in Harper Lee's life and some characters based upon her 
family members, and I also think that Dorothy Allison's _Bastard Out of 
Carolina_ may be somewhat patterned after either her life or that of one of 
her close relatives.  It's just a feeling I get because of the passion 
surrounding the various events drawn in the books and the realism of 
certain events in the books.  I also know that many of the most powerful 
scenes in fiction are drawn from the lives of the authors, such as the 
death of the horse scene that Laurie mentioned as one of her favorites.

It's best not to use actual names, though. . . .  Many a book has 
gone out there as a _roman a clef_ that wasn't particularly well received 
by those with the key to decode who was who.  Truman Capote (basis for 
"Dill" in TKAM, hearsay has it) found this out when he wrote the book that 
had lots of people's secrets in it, and he was summarily dumped by everyone 
who got into a snit over it.  Maybe if he'd waited until they'd all passed 
or gotten senile to write it. . . .

 >if something happens to me, I own the interpretation of what happened, right?

I think so.  "What are we but our memories?" someone wrote.  And so that's 
a part of your microcode.  Can't help it if others saw the same events 
differently, as long as you're honest with yourself.

 >two writers A and B both know some person C, and both fictionalize the 
life of C

(eep -- is C still alive and likely to recognize herself?)

 >based upon what they knew of that person during the hippie era -- and
 >both novels come out sounding much the same, because both A and B were
 >there for many of the same events ... who owns the character D -- the
 >composite of the interpretations of C as seen by A and B?

Well, as much as it might resemble the real person, it still isn't the 
person.  So the character, I think, is something different for each 
author.  (Which doesn't answer your question.  It's a good question, 
thought-provoking.)

 >If Mary and I had an affair when I was 18, and she was 28 -- am I
 >allowed to fictionalize it and almost tell it word for word -- or can
 >she sue me? What amounts to reasonable care in hiding her identity

That's a real gray area.  I think the story could be told without making it 
that clear who the principals were, except to those principals.  And can 
they sue you?  They can try, I suppose, but wouldn't that just call 
attention to the situation?  Whereas if they say nothing, then no one but a 
few insiders will know who it was about.  Tough one.

This makes me think of Joyce Maynard's tell-all memoir, in which she 
reveals that she was sent to live with J. D. Salinger for about a year when 
she was what, fifteen or so, and he saw promise in her as a winner of a 
writing contest.  The way that she remembers it (and I don't know what the 
truth is, though my heart believes her version is true), he basically took 
advantage of her and then dumped her when he decided things weren't working 
out.  The story is very upsetting.  Salinger really got upset when he read 
it.  He already had told her not to contact him again, and he is notorious 
for not wanting anything printed about him in the press, and this must've 
been a real blow to him, I'm sure.  Still, he wasn't able to block the 
publication of the book, though she doesn't try to hide his identity.  It 
must have damaged both their reputations in the eyes of various people.  I 
think it opened people's eyes to a few things, as well.  I related to the 
tale because I, too, had an early relationship/crush/what-have-you in which 
I felt afterward that I was mistreated (even though this was not a 
going-all-the-way sexually relationship, and if you read Maynard's book, 
she really didn't, either), but forever after I was still "in love with" 
this person and felt that if only I had been better or thinner or smarter, 
maybe he wouldn't have fallen out of love with me, and it colored my entire 
life up to this very moment.  The way I read her story, she had this same 
situation all her life, never quite getting over his "falling out of love" 
with her.  Sigh.  But the story deserved to be told, and I think her 
interpretation is probably true from her viewpoint.  (He might say it's 
not, from his.)


The only thing that flies faster than an F-16 is your guardian angel
- - - -
Nine out of ten doctors recommend reading my books.  The tenth is a quack.
Shalanna Collins                                          shalanna{at}attbi.com
_Dulcinea: or Wizardry A-Flute_ by Shalanna Collins (e-mail me for excerpt)
ISBN 0-7388-5388-7 trade paperback  http://home.attbi.com/~shalanna/>

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha