'Delay the freakout': Writing/Life Advice from George Saunders

On writing, hurt feelings and getting closer to the 'truth'

Illustration by George Saunders :))

Some of you may remember that back in January I was preoccupied with a classic writing question: How to tell your story, truthfully, without hurting/ exposing your “supporting characters” that are very much alive? I wrote two essays about this writing dilemma. The first, Whose Story is it Anyway? outlined the arguments for, and against telling your story, while my second essay, The Stories we Tell Ourselves in Order to Live was more about the risk of not bringing forth what is inside you (your story) that could potentially save you, and thus, allowing it to gradually destroy you. While I turned to the wisdom of writers like Anne Lamott, Katherine Mansfield, Elif Shafak and Joan Didion, I never came to a conclusive conclusion on this question.

But luckily for me, in January I also joined Story Club with George Saunders on Substack, where I found a wonderful community of intelligent writers, not to mention wisdom and inspiration from George himself. So, I have turned to him with this question. George Saunders has over 100 thousand subscribers so I didn’t expect much. But low and behold, two weeks later when I opened his Office Hours post, I saw my question (unedited!) with a reply from George - as well as over 150 comments (within hours of this posted onto Substack)!

I cannot share the full post with you here because it is behind a paywall, and also because I feel somewhat uncomfortable sharing private details of this dilemma that were easier to share openly with George Saunders and his community anonymously. So what follows is an edited version of George’s reply, as well as a very helpful comment from the community. It is a real gem, so fasten your seat belt and enjoy!

FROM GEORGE SAUNDERS:

Well, this is a tough one, but I expect many of us have had similar experiences, when we’ve written about real people and have been worried about that person’s reaction.

So, let me respectfully offer a few thoughts and see if any of them appeal.

First: whenever I face this dilemma (or a similar one, for example, one in which I become aware that some part of my story is similar to another story I’ve read somewhere, egads, oh no!), I try to not freak out, knowing that the objectionable/questionable element may very well get edited out later. 

Often, weirdly, it does. 

Say I use a physical trait from someone I used to work with and worry about that person reading the story and getting offended.  Often, very often, once the story is within sight of the finish line, that part will reveal itself to be unnecessary and I’ll cut it out. (Not because it worries me but because the story is better without it).

Problem solved.

Likewise, if I go, you know, “Ack, I’ve got a father being asked to kill his son. Which is just like THE BIBLE!  Oh, no!  I stole that!  From THE BIBLE!” I’ll find that, late in the game, under heavy editing, that part will prove unnecessary to the story. 

I don’t know why this should be the case, but I’ve noticed it happening again and again: whatever I’m worrying about (in that certain neurotic flavor), will tend to get cut, later.

Which has led me to frequently apply the following mantra: “George: delay the freakout.”

“Imola: delay the freakout” is my new mantra!

So: no need to worry about offending someone until a piece has been really, really, really finished (and that mention is still in there).

Actually, strictly speaking, no need to worry until someone has actually agreed to publish the thing, and it’s gone through the necessary edits, and the problematic bit is still in there.

Then, worry.

Your case is, of course, a little more complicated: the details you mention are unlikely to drop out of the piece, it sounds like. […]

So, I see your dilemma, and I feel for you.  Things seem a certain way to you, and you want to write about your life truthfully, and you did – and now [the person you have hurt] has said, in no uncertain terms, that this has hurt [their] feelings.

Both Tobias Wolff and Mary Karr have written about this issue, especially as it applies to memoir writing.  The gist of their response, as I recall it, was that a memoir or work of autobiographical fiction from a first-person perspective is, of necessity, just one side of the story.  In this case, your side of it.  Your story – any first-person story – is subjective.  It’s distorted, shaped, chosen….by definition.  It emanates from the mind of the teller.

It’s not, and is not claiming to be, the whole, objective, truth. 

So, I wonder if this is something you might be able to talk to [that person] about.  “I’m sure it doesn’t seem this way to you, [person], but it did seem that way to me.  Isn’t that interesting?”

You might follow up by asking [them] what details and ideas, exactly, [they] find hurtful.  And you two could get into that a little bit.       

This way, you get a chance to hear [their] side of things.  Why did [they] do what [they] did?  […]

You know: interview [them].

I must say that this approach really resonates with me, and an approach I have tried…

The beauty of this is that it might possibly 1) make for some rich conversations […], and 2) open your work up to even larger possibilities.

Because, as valid as your story is, [their] side of it is equally valid.  [Their] memories and understanding of that time seem as indisputable to [them] as yours do to you. You don’t have an obligation to tell [their] side of it, but….maybe that would open up your fictive universe?  In fact, if you have siblings, their stories are valid too.  (And on and on, which is how we get, uh, War and Peace.)

In any event: after opening yourself up to the validity (not the correctness, necessarily, but the validity), you’ll know more.  You’ll know an alternate version of things, that runs in parallel with your version.

And that might be a powerful thing – for your work, but also for you personally (?).

This part made me cry, because I realized that this is why I wrote the piece in the first place. Not for the ‘glory of writing,’ but for my (subconscious) attempt to make peace with a past event that has completely changed the trajectory of my life, and - (as I wasn’t aware of while writing) I wrote it in the hope to illicit some answers to a question that I had tried to address with this person (who I love dearly) multiple times, always with deep respect and an open heart, to no avail.

At the heart of all of this is the idea that there is no one, fixed reality.  The world is (insert number of people on earth) minds, whirling around, feeling and positing and believing and responding to all this beautiful stimuli (Passing cars! Flocks of birds!  Political ideas! A former spouse!  A fallen tree!). 

That’s “reality.” 

The writer gets to play the game of moving around from observer to observer and, in this way, she simulates, very approximately, the mind of God, who, in my view of God, loves the multiplicity of it all and is fond of every single whirling mind down here.

Here, I was crying some more because I have found this passage too beautiful, and I hope that you find this beautiful too.

Let [this person] in, is I guess what I’m saying.

That will (possibly) make [them] feel less “done to” and more “seen and heard.”

Also: this process will, I almost guarantee, result in improvements to the story in question and to future stories of yours on this topic.  Your new knowledge of [their] experience will subtly infiltrate “your” story, making it richer, and more nuanced, compassionate, and complex.

Although, of course, it’s still possible that, even after all of the above, [they] will still be hurt by your story. 

And then (doh!) someone will want to publish it.

At that point, you’ll have a difficult decision to make.

But it’s weird – generally speaking, people like to show up in books.  I remember hearing a story about a writer whose family member objected to being in the writer’s book, and the writer did a hard edit and found that he was able to take that person out, quite cleanly – after which, the person asked to be put back in.

This made me laugh, because I have found this to be true :)

Also: family members tend to love it when we publish.  [They] will be proud when your story comes out, trust me.  [They] might grouse […]” but….[they]’ll be proud. 

And the better it does, the more [they]’ll like it.

I must admit that the person in question has always been my greatest supporter and encouraged me, always, to write my story, unfiltered, without concern to other people’s judgments - but that was regarding another story, that didn’t concern them…

I’m not someone who tends to write about real people.  This issue scares me, to be honest: the idea that I might put someone in a story and hurt their feelings.  It even bothers me when I’m writing non-fiction.  I’ve made changes in non-fiction pieces when someone asked me to, to protect their reputation, and I’ve had long apologetic email exchanges with people I offended, even when the quotes were 100 percent accurate and on tape and they knew I was recording as we talked.

I don’t like the feeling of hurting someone and I don’t like the fact that a writer has a certain unfair power over his or her subject. 

I have a lot of respect for the written word and would hate to put, into print, forever, something that was inaccurate or biased, or privileged my side over someone else’s side. (Although, in a sense, that’s what people want from a writer: a radical representation of his side.)

I’d prefer to have no real people in my stories, just shadows of imagined people, so I can use them to talk about human tendency (and be as rough and truthful and cruel with them as needed to make my point).

This may be part of the reason my stories operate so far from the actual. 

I highlighted this point because I think it is an important one. A writer can have a certain power, and it is important not to abuse this power. I will address this in a moment, tying it with a very helpful comment on this post by another writer.

One might argue that, if you, to spare [this person’s] feelings, throw away this story, “your” issue will still be there (in your mind), and it will inevitably get channeled into another, less […]-enraging, work; one that, on its surface, is about something or someone else entirely but is, at its heart, still “about” or “concerned with” your issues ([…], forced estrangement from one’s true home, the denial around this topic, and so on.)  But you set that story in, you know….a theme park or something, ha ha.

And you’re home free.

However…

I once heard the story of a young writer who’d written a wonderful first novel that was almost one hundred percent autobiographical – a really winning, funny book, in which his family was present on every page, undisguised and eccentric.  At the last minute, this writer, worried about hurting his family, withdrew the book, thinking, “Well, I’m a good writer, as proven by this book, which means anything I turn my hand to, will be as good and publishable as this.”

And then he was (as a writer) never heard from again.

Apparently, his writing came alive when writing about his family, and didn’t come alive otherwise.

In the end, I guess…we’re all dying.  Books come into the world, feelings get hurt, and then the writer and the subject get old and die and there’s nothing left of the dispute, at all.  In a sense, a book is like a comment we throw out the window of a passing car.  It’s heard, it’s not heard, it hurts, it makes someone happy….and life goes on.

I highlighted this because I have found it to be a beautiful reminder about life, writing and a healthy perspective. Go ahead, read it again (you are welcome).

[…] So, I don’t know.  I guess we each have to make our own reckoning with this and then live with it, as imperfect as it may be.  And this depends on who we are – on how our minds work, on what we can live with.

I have to say, though: I don’t like the feeling of a suppressed story.  I don’t like to imagine you loving the story you wrote and then putting it into a drawer.  I think that might make a roadblock for your work and likely won’t do much for your relationship with [this person], either.

I mean, you can do that.  You can.  You can do that if that makes you feel better.  That’s your right.  And, in a sense, that is you having ultimate power over your work.  Silence can also be a form of artistic expression, as in the case of Isaac Babel’s famous end-of-career silence).

But, as suggested above, there are a number of things you might want to try before you get to that point. 

I’m sure others of us will have thoughts and insights and advice and anecdotes.

George Saunders has a reputation for being one of the kindest writers on the planet. I hope you can appreciate why. I read, and re-read his response many times. As you can see, George is divided on this question too, and as it turns out from the 186 comments (so far), many other writers feel similarly. It’s helpful to know that I am not alone :)

FROM ESMÉ WEIJUN WANG:

I want to share one comment in particular, from writer

Esmé Weijun Wang

that I have found extremely helpful:

Oh gosh, I have so much to say about this. I have an eight-class curriculum (plus twelve guest lectures) in an online writing school I created called The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy, and the first class in the Pre-Writing section is about Ethics in Personal Nonfiction, *precisely* because I get asked things like this often (as someone who writes personal nonfiction). But I’ll drop here five questions that I encourage people ask themselves when they’re really contemplating how to write a story with someone else’s touchy spots in it:

1. Am I actually writing a polemic? Is there room for nuance?

2. Why am I writing about this now? Am I in a place with my experience that I can write well about it?

3. What would keep me from being honest? Is this enough of a reason to still write about it?

4. Who am I hurting the most by writing this?

5. Who am I helping the most by writing this?

All of this is to say, additionally (and fittingly for this particular Substack), fiction is a brilliant way to transform emotional truths that are too touchy to write about in nonfiction.

These are excellent questions to ask ourselves as writers, when we are trying to navigate the tricky waters of truth telling without hurting our loved subjects. The WHY is a crucial question as it will point to that ‘power that you have as a writer over your subject’ that George spoke of in his essay. It’s worth asking yourself, again and again, why do you write this story? Do you intend to help, or avenge someone? How do you intend to exercise your power as a writer?

Every time I approach a difficult subject (which seems to be often, even if it is not directly related to me), I go back to this question. I don’t always get the balance right, but I always, always try.

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