After our initial correspondence, posted on 12/12/02, author Janice Eidus answered some more questions I posed based on what she’d written to me.  I am delighted to share the continuation of our correspondence this week:

When you do decide to write an essay, are you exploring issues that are the same or different than the ones you explore in fiction?

I try not to “make things up” when I write essays. When I write fiction, I glory in making things up. Nevertheless, in each, I do find that similar issues and themes recur.

For instance, the battles I have fought and won in my own life, as well as the battles I’ve witnessed others fighting and winning have led me to believe that much of the time, if one possesses the imagination to imagine a way out of a dilemma, one can, indeed, find a way out. This idea — that imagination can triumph over both interior and exterior obstacles — is extremely dear to me, and therefore it’s one that recurs frequently in both my fiction and nonfiction.

Is it hard for you to switch to the unmasked voice of a first person essay?

When I first began writing memoir and personal essay, it was difficult for me because I very much loved adopting myriad persona via a wide range of fictional voices. Maybe I’m a bit of a frustrated actress, because it gave me (and continues to give me) enormous pleasure to enter the minds of the “other,” i.e. women completely unlike myself, and men, and children, and the elderly, and the very rich, and the very poor, etc. Why stick with just being “me” when there are so many other characters to be?

However, now that I’ve grown to delight in memoir and personal essays, I’ve found that “unmasking myself” (a beautiful, apt phrase) isn’t nearly as difficult. There is something tremendously heartening – and special, perhaps even cathartic – about having readers approach me with their own similar life stories. It’s a unique way of communicating.

Has an essay ever sparked fiction, or fiction an essay?

 My short story, “Making Love Making Movies” in VITO LOVES GERALDINE, is about a successful Los Angeles screenwriter happily married to an actress. They each, unbeknownst to the other, grow increasingly obsessed with romantic Hollywood movies, and eventually this obsession leads them into adulterous affairs which have the potential to destroy their marriage. I’m commenting, in the story, about how easy it is to allow oneself to be suckered into believing in a false, idealized vision of what “love” is. We’re constantly being sold, in our culture, via film, books, TV, and advertising on the fact that love conquers all, and that princes and princesses “meet cute” and then live happily ever after. Unfortunately, many people sabotage their own chances for happiness in relationships by clinging to unrealistic expectations, fostered by a cynical media. In “Making Love Making Movies” I critique this culture, although not in a didactic way – it’s actually a very whimsical and funny story.

Anyway, after I wrote it, I realized how much of a film buff I am – and that, despite my critique, I’m as obsessed with movies as the next girl and guy. And I ended up writing two nonfiction pieces about film. One, a personal essay that appeared in a British anthology, is called “In The Company of Wolves,” and it’s about a bona-fide riot that took place in a Times Square movie theater while I was in the audience. The other is an instructional essay that appeared in “Writer’s Digest,” called “The Visual Scene,” in which I offer suggestions about how to make writing more vivid and visual by integrating techniques and images from film.

What advice do you have for writers who are using personal experience in fiction, since the demands of fiction are different than the demands of essays?

Don’t think that because “it really happened that way,” it makes good fiction. In real life, you may have two brothers, and now you’re writing a short story based upon your relationship with your younger brother. Well, then, think, long and hard, about whether you really need characters based upon both brothers in the piece. Maybe in this particular story your older brother is superfluous. Or maybe he isn’t. But in either case, it’s a good question to ask yourself – is he or isn’t he? — since you don’t want to crowd your story with characters that aren’t essential.

Maybe, in fact, your “excised” older brother will inspire you to write a second story based upon your relationship with him (which is, undoubtedly, different from your relationship with your younger brother). Or maybe you’ll write a story based upon some other aspect of his life: his years spent following the Grateful Dead; his stint in the army; his conquering of a serious illness….

And remember to be flexible. Let’s say you’ve written a story in the first person point of view because it’s based upon your life and, naturally, YOU want to be the one to tell it! But maybe, just maybe, this particular story is crying out to be told in the mother’s point of view because, as it turns out, she’s really the one who grows and changes in the story, not her daughter or son (i.e., you).  Or maybe it needs to move back and forth between both points of view. The main thing is to allow yourself the freedom to try something new and unfamiliar.

Which leads me to my final piece of advice for writers of both fiction and nonfiction: Be adventurous. Challenge yourself. Experiment. Have fun. Think less about whether you’re following a formula that will lead to fame and fortune, and think more about refining your artistic skills so that you can, as Judith Barrington says in WRITING THE MEMOIR,  “ … effectively communicate the hard-won, deep layers of truth that are rarely part of conventional social discourse.” For me, that beautifully sums up why I write – and why I hope most writers write.