WHEN THE PROTAGONIST IS YOU – THE CHALLENGE OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FICTION
It’s no surprise that many fiction writers choose to write in an autobiographical mode with protagonists that are alter egos of the closest kind. For many of us, to write the self is to break generations of colonial silence; to defy with our work the malignant societal edicts that insist lives like ours do not matter, are unworthy of literature.
At a strictly practical level, writing an autobiographical protagonist is enticing because nothing is more familiar to us than ourselves and because of the economies it offers —
A) the writer doesn’t have to create a fully-fledged character ex nihilo
and B) the writer can tap a deep well of self-knowledge to “flesh-out” and “sell” the character.
Yet, in spite of these seeming efficiencies, writing autobiographical fiction or, more specifically, writing an autobiographical protagonist, is a riskier proposition than it might seem. In the thirty-odd years I’ve worked with fiction writers up-close, I’ve observed that autobiographical protagonists do not seem to possess any special dispensation, suck as often, perhaps even more often, than completely fictional ones.
There are no doubt many reasons why this might be so. Perhaps the writers are too close or too respectful of the self-material to fictionalize it well — familiarity breeding a kind of dramatic dud-ness.
But what I often find in my classes and workshops (and in some of my own writing) is that most of us writers protagonize ourselves without interrogating what exactly it is about ourselves that will make for interesting fiction — or what is worthy of protagonizing.
Usually a variation of “because it’s me” will be the only reason offered — as close as creative writing comes to a genetic fallacy.
Chances are, though — unless you’re Sandra Cisneros brilliant — “because it’s me” will get a writer in trouble a lot quicker than it will get them published.
I know this from personal experience, having spent years trying to write in an autobiographical vein and failing failing failing.
It’s one of those ironies of fiction writing: writers who bang with “because it’s me” often pen autobiographical protagonists that are nowhere as interesting or as deep as the writer themselves. How often have I read a manuscript and after I sat down with the writer wondered why the hell the writer sent their dullest fifth-generation-VHS-dupe-version of themselves to star in their story?
How often have I written a manuscript, and afterwards wondered the same thing?
It’s something I’ve reflected on a lot, and for anyone in a similar situation, here are a few thoughts and some possible solutions: