I write a lot about the mindset for writers, because I believe it’s important. If you’re the writer who wants to focus on writing only for the market, then my words are not for you. I think, as writers (as anyone engaged in creative work) we have an obligation to write what we feel needs to be said, and worry about marketing it later. That, to me, is the difference between engaging in your art and practicing your craft (both of which are necessary). If it’s worthwhile, it will find a market.
That is not to say that you should not consider your reader. You should. If you don’t make them believe you, then what’s the point? That brings me to something that’s been on my mind a lot lately: accuracy. Which, it should go without saying but appears not to, requires careful research.
A couple of years ago, I was working on my most recent novel, The Hapless Life of Samuel Joseph. I wrote a passage where my character was trying to convince his uncle, who was a profound inspiration and influence in his life, to go hang-gliding with him. The uncle refused, and Samuel called him a wuss. I stopped, looked at the passage, and then wandered out into the living room, where I asked my then-housemate, “When did we start using the word ‘wuss’?”
She looked up at me. “I dunno.”
It took me three days and hours online on linguistic and etymology sites to find out that I was about a decade too early to have Samuel use that term. I changed it to “wimp.” (Which, by the way, dates back to a 1927 Poppye cartoon - found that out, too).
What does it matter? It matters, and here’s why:
Some time ago, I went out to the theater to see the film “The Social Network” with three friends, all of
whom are fellow-educators. Afterwards, we went to dinner. At dinner, one of my colleagues, let’s call her Blah-Blah (those who are HIMYM fans will know where I got that), was going on about Zuckerberg’s character and the things he did.
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| This never happened, by the way |
“Blah-blah,” I said, “We don’t know that he actually did that.”
“But,” Blah-blah looked confused, “It’s right there in the film.”
“Exactly,” I said, “it’s a film. It’s Hollywood - who knows what they invented.”
“Oh,” she said with confidence, “Aaron Sorkin wouldn’t just invent things.”
Oh? … thought I, but went back to my dinner and let it drop. Sort of.
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| Aaron Sorkin |
Over the next few days, I researched both the film and Aaron Sorkin. In an interview, someone questioned him about the accusations of inaccuracies in that film, in other films of his, in The West Wing, etc. His response? ““What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy’s sake?” (to New York magazine - link to source below)
A few years before that, I was reading (because one of my book groups was reading it) .. well, let’s just say it was a book about horses. And Montana. And a best-seller. It was beautifully written, but I was pissed off. The valley in which the story is set is a place I spent a great deal of time in my youth, and I knew it well, and the author had both the geography and the weather and much, much else completely wrong. I couldn’t finish the book. I hear the film was awesome. I couldn’t make myself go see it, because I knew that place and those people, and he was just. Completely. WRONG.
I researched the author and found he’d never been to Montana, had, in fact, never spent any significant time outside of London. Yeah.
If this were a problem only for fiction, I’d shrug my shoulders and blow it off. But this attitude of “what’s the big deal” has completely worked it’s way into our culture in a way that is destructive to many of the foundations of our culture. As a “f’r’instance” (as my mom used to say) - another book I read for a different book group was Stupid White Men by
Michael Moore. I admire a great deal of what Moore has done - Roger and Me and Columbine were ground-breaking, and essential to transparency. But, his books I have problems with. I laughed my way through Stupid White Men and then, as I am wont to do, got into research before going to the book group meeting.
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| Michael Moore |
I selected 40 quotations and statistics he used, looked them up in his bibliography, then went to check the sources directly. Twenty-nine of them (29 out of 40!) were inaccurate, totally absent from the source he’d cited, quoted out of context, or edited to fully change the meaning. So I checked a few more. Same results. I wrote Moore a letter to which he never responded.
At the book group meeting, I brought up a few of these inaccuracies, and was waved off. So I got out my list, cited the actual sources, told them how freaking many I had found - (72.5% of the sources checked were just plain wrong). There was silence for a moment, and then they began arguing with me. We need to support Michael Moore, no matter what. He’s on our side, Judy. Then, it hit me: they were mad at me. Not mad at Moore for playing fast and loose with the facts, but mad at me for questioning something that held up their belief system.
And that, for God’s sake, for the absolute love of God, is why accuracy is important. That, Mr. Sorkin, is why it is, in fact, a big fucking (pardon moi) deal. Putting down things in print is a tremendous responsibility, precisely because, no matter how much you quote artistic freedom, there will be people who will believe you, and act on those beliefs.
‘Nuff said.
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