Fictionalizing History

I didn't think I could do it. It was hard enough to write my personal history the first time, I really didn't think I'd survive a second go-round.

There's a certain chunk of time in my past that holds a really good story. It is important to me, and to my family. Everyone who hears one of us talk about it inevitably tells us we should write it into a book.

So I did. 

Hemingway once said all you have to do to write is sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. He wasn't kidding. It was almost that painful, more in some ways. My husband had to step back a bit. I told him to, because he's one of those guys that wants to fix or kill everything that makes me sad and I needed room to let that sadness manifest. My sister told me I was going to have a nervous breakdown, and my mother accused me of being on a witch hunt.  It was almost as uncomfortable for my family as it was for me to write this traumatic, dramatic event.

I wanted, no needed, to catch every detail. I didn't want to leave anything out because I felt that anything omitted would be a lie. No one would believe this was a true story if every single iota of detail was in place. They wouldn't understand the depth of it unless they had all the history, all the back story, all the reasons and all the rhymes.

Then I gave it to two separate published authors whose opinion I value highly. And I waited. I waited like a woman in the waiting room of a hospital, waiting for someone they love to come out of life or death surgery.

And then it came back to me. The diagnosis wasn't good. It had fallen far short. Somewhere in those facts and details I had lost the thrust, lost the drama. Both of my critiquers were very positive - it had potential.  It could be really great - if I fictionalized it, turned it into a novel instead of a memoir.

I went through every stage of grief over that verdict.

Denial. What did they know, anyway? Anger - gut wrenching fury. Bargaining - decided the project would have to die, because I was not going to fictionalize it. I'd put it in a drawer and leave it there forever before I'd cheapen it by making it fiction. Depression - all that I had gone through meant nothing. My dream of putting it out there for others to read would never come to fruition.

..and finally, acceptance.

The Acceptance started with a phone call. I mentioned, in passing, to my family what had been said to me about fictionalizing the story. To my absolute surprise, they jumped all over that idea. It was the best idea ever, in their opinion. I about fell off my chair.

When I picked myself up, something changed. Suddenly, if my family was okay with it, then it was surely no sin to fictionalize the story. It wouldn't be untruth, it would be based on truth. And if that was the case, then it didn't matter if every little detail, every word, every movement was actual - the spirit of the story would remain intact, even if the parts were rearranged.

So this is the crossroads at which I currently stand.

I went through the photo album of pictures I had compiled specifically for the original version, and pulled out a selection of pictures. I pulled out only those that embody my characters, the setting, the general feel of what I want to portray in the novel. Then I could, literally and figuratively, close the book on the past and begin anew.

I bought myself colored index cards, one for each viewpoint. Since I was no longer telling the absolute truth, I no longer have only to rely on my own point of view - suddenly I have four POV's to work between, and whole wide worlds of possibility have opened up. The two blues are my parents, pink is my sister, and yellow is me. Green are actual events, the few white cards you see are things that are made up from whole cloth. There aren't very many of those, the vast majority of the story is actually factual.

I no longer have to worry that the main dramatic point was not, chronologically, the climax of the plot. Rearrange a few cards, and the thrust of the drama returns.

I used to worry that fictionalizing would be a burden, a weight I was not strong enough to carry. But I'm finding as I work farther into this, it's actually quite liberating.

It Was Almost Like a Novel... almost.

By way of explanation for my latest hiatus, here is the premise of the story:

A couple prays and hopes for years for a child of their own. When finally they find their son, a legal battle ensues that lasts for two years. They not only fight the negligent and suspectedly abusive birth mother, they fight for a little boy that doesn't think he wants, or needs, parents because he's been taking care of himself since he was a toddler. When the legal fight is over, and the papers signed, and the worst of the little boy's baggage under control, the couple thinks they can relax and settle into family life.

Fast forward three years, when a letter arrives on the woman's Facebook page. It is from the birth mother of her son. As she reads, she is horrified to find that the other woman believes that her children were kidnapped from her, that she was a great mother, and that the legal papers were signed under duress.

How far would you go to protect your adopted child?

She disappeared.

Every online identity she had that related to my given name was deleted: every presence, every network, every profile. Hundreds of long distance friends, professional acquaintances and online opportunities were lost within minutes, with no time for explanations. Five years of online blog, the only  journal of their adoption journey, gone. According to the internet, for well over a year that boy's adopted mother no longer existed. 

The family even moved their physical address to the other side of the city. Only cell phones, no listable house phone. Notes were given to the new school that if anyone other than the parents asked about the child, the police were to be called immediately. She doubted 'that woman' would bother searching public records - that would require knowledge, effort and money, but if 'that woman' did, this family were prepared to disappear even farther. She had grown up in the wilderness, she knew places in this old world beyond "the grid", even in this age of satellites - places where even the government didn't go for fear of what they might find. She could do it, live in the deep woods in that old camper her husband bought a while back. But for the moment, falling off the net seemed to have done the trick.

Sounds like an excellent plot, doesn't it?

Except, this is all one hundred percent actual. Add a bunch of sub-plot twists in there, and you've got my life. 

Only in the last few months have I made any kind of a come back to the world at large. Slowly, I am refinding my friends online, while apologizing to those I abandoned without explanation. 

I have another identity besides that mother described above - my life and name as a writer.  This one, too, had to disappear for a while.  It's hard coming back from something like that, and I wonder if I'll ever get back to where I was before, social-media-wise.I doubt I will ever make up the opportunities I might have had during that year of invisibility. 

But I'm back, and I'm determined!  

And maybe, just maybe, I'll turn this into a novel someday.