Truth in Fiction
I think a lot in terms of what I am missing in books that I want. And I am missing a story of redemption that I find believable. Lyrical, but believable.
–Me, quoted on Salon.com, March 31st, 1998
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About Dorothy
Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the first child of a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who worked as a waitress. Now living in Northern California with her partner Alix and her teenage son, Wolf Michael, she describes herself as a feminist...
Causes Dorothy Allison Supports
Lesbian Health Center
Believability in fiction
It seems to me that what one person may find believable the next individual may find totally unbelievable.
I belong to three face2 face reading groups. One of the most interesting things about the groups, is the fact that the most "heated" issue that comes up consistantly in each group, is the ending of novels. There are as many desired endings as there are group members. The biggest complaint is the way a novelist ends a book.
Perhaps this isn't exactly what you meant ? But I am thinking that a sense of redemption is also a personal opinion, depending on what our sense of justice and/or fate may be.
Jeannie from Wisconsin
redemption
I think I know what you mean, Dorothy, about redemption. I feel it too; a lack of believable redemption. I'm wondering if, for me, that lack is because of how I am defining redemption. Like true love, or forgiveness, or peace, or all those other things we long for, perhaps "redemption" isn't about *getting* something, but about letting something go. Letting go of fantasy, of what we can't have, rather than accepting what we can have, what we do have. Redemption doesn't mean some kind of a win. It means acceptance of the way things are and still being strong, still going on. the whole older but wiser thing, maybe.
and still, do we even get that in most books? Is it possible to write, do you think? do you see such a thing in your own novels? I can't tell whether my own writing does this or not, probably because I am still so much in the middle of it all.
Deborah
comedy and story
Hey, Dorothy--Just became a Red Room Author and I'm traveling around the site a bit and found this blog! Have you ever seen the Preston Sturges film SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS? In it, a priveleged director wants to make a movie about poor people called OH, BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? He decides to travel around and get to know some poor people. Unfortunately, he also temporarily looses his identity and gets put in jail. To make a long story short, he finds that what the people want is comedy and story.
I've always loved this movie. It reminds me how humor and story-telling made life bearable in my childhood. I find that I'm exploring the redemptive power of humor and story in my work and that's what I look for in other peoples work. It's, I think, a fundamental way the mind works when it's working with power and strength, optimism in the face of the beauty and ugliness that's true reality.
Hi Ms. Allison
I am such an admirer of yours--truly! I had the opportunity to ask you a question and meet with you briefly at a writers conference in CHicago at Columbia College last year or the year before. your work has helped me deal with the south.....thanks and kudos from a northern soul located in the south.....
Well put!
Judy Joy Jones
Thanks for your blog.
Joy
Tin House Anniversary Edition Story
Yours was by far the best story in this past issue. I remember it fondly from the reading last year at the Tin House Workshop.
Redemption?
Why don't you write that story? You seem to be very good at it....
Truth in fiction is the emotions. The reader recognizes when these emotions are real, and that is the truth of any good fiction.