Writing Right with Dmitri: How to Be a Literary Imposter

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

Writing Right with Dmitri: How to Be a Literary Imposter

A man in green with a feather in one hand and drawing a theatre curtain with the other

This discussion of writing tricks is ongoing. A couple of weeks ago, h2g2's more experienced fiction writers got a bit upset at my claim that fiction required homework   – to wit, that it was a shame to practice upon the reader fiction that lacked verisimilitude. In spite of their insistence that a good yarn was a good yarn, whether or not it broke the laws of God and Isaac Newton, I stand by my statement.

Writers, you see, are liars. And it is a well-known fact that liars need good memories.

Of course, some writers are worse liars than others, in both senses of the term. For example, some of us use – I blush to say this –   pseudonyms. Full disclosure: My family name is not really Gheorgheni, and my mother did not name me Dmitri. That would have been a bit odd for a Scots-Irish dirt farmer's grandkid. But that's all the name you'll get from me. At least I'm up-front about it.

Some writers, though, have been much sneakier. They've claimed to be somebody entirely different from who they were. Icy North reminded us of Grey Owl, the Sussex imposter who reinvented himself as a Red Indian. (Check out Icy's Guide Entry. It's top-drawer, as usual.) Sometimes imposters tout their stories as true for noble motives – at least, the motives seem noble to them. For instance, you might claim to be a member of an exotic group in order to draw greater attention to that group's outlook, needs, or achievements, as with Grey Owl or 'Little Tree', the imaginary author of The Education of Little Tree. Another, more suspect reason, is to bolster the claims you make in your book. Go Ask Alice is really a novel about a hippie teenager. The Mormon author wanted it to be a monitory tract. She thought it would turn more teens off sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll if it were a memoir.

Of course, the reasons for imposture are often less noble than that. A hoax such as the Hitler Diaries is easy to figure out. Which is worth more euros, the 10,000th novel about World War II, or a 'genuine' memoir of the Führer's? Uh-huh. Some writers just can't stand themselves (I can relate to that), and make up false personas…well, just because it's so much fun to be someone else. Who wants to be boring?

Which brings us to Thomas Chatterton.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediaeval grace
Of iron clothing.

– 'Miniver Cheevy', Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1910

You and I might be forgiven for finding the 18th Century pretty romantic. Chatterton was born back then, though, and he didn't think it was romantic at all. He had a lot in common with the hero of Robinson's poem: he missed the mediaeval grace of iron clothing.

Oh, and he didn't like being ordinary.

According to his family, Chatterton learned to read with the family Bible. This was not devotion. It was merely the biggest book in the house, and the little boy didn't want to read a 'little book'. By the time he was eight, Chatterton was telling everybody who would listen (and probably some who wouldn't) that he was going to be rich and famous someday. He had a lot of ambition, and he liked things classy. Sort of a Hyacinth Bucket, if you will, but with his father's old book collection instead of Royal Doulton.

Chatterton wanted to live in the 15th Century. It was so much nicer than the 18th. Since there was nobody from the 15th Century around to ask, I suppose we can forgive him for not thinking about improvements in hygiene. Be that as it may, Chatterton produced a large amount of drivel disguised as the writings of his 15th-century alter ego, a fellow named Thomas Rowley. Like Konrad Kujau many years later, Chatterton produced some 'originals' by using old paper he found in the family library. His poetry fooled some of the people, some of the time:

Swythe lette the offrendes to the Goddes begynne.
To knowe of hem the issue of the fyghte.
Potte the blodde-steyned sword and pavyes ynne;
Spreade swythyn all arounde the hallie lyghte.
 
– Thomas Chatterton, writing as Thomas Rowley, Poems

I'm not sure what Magnus was telling the 'Hie Prieste' to do when he instructed him to 'spreade swythyn all arounde the hallie lyghte', but I'm pretty sure I know what Chatterton was spreading around here. Moral of the tale: if you're going to do this sort of thing, at least read some Chaucer first.

Making up mediaeval lore was practically a cottage industry in the 18th Century. We remember the Ossian poems of James Macpherson. Very inspirational stuff – particularly as Macpherson remembered to add all those footnotes. Footnotes give a pleasing sense of academic seriousness to a really good faux work, don't you think? Of course, nowadays we wouldn't bother suggesting that the author pretend this stuff was real. We'd just market it as the plot of a fantasy MMO1. Different times, different customs.

So what am I saying? Basically this: when you write fiction, you are shucking the audience. Most of the time, they know you are shucking them. Sometimes, you are shucking them in ways they aren't on to – particularly if you're using a plot twist or tricky gimmick. The unspoken social contract, though, is that you're being honest about being dishonest. You're not selling your fiction as a memoir, or swearing up and down that your second cousin's dog groomer told you this was true. And if you use a device, you make sure it isn't one that makes the reader angry at the end – like telling a story in the first person, and then killing the character off halfway through.

Although, come to think of it, there might be a way to make that work. Let me go off and think about it…

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

26.09.11 Front Page

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