For a fiction writer, I’ve been spending an awful lot of time lately reading biographies.
First it was Sally Field’s autobiography In Pieces. Now I’m almost finished reading Julie Andrews’ second book in her autobiographical trilogy, called Home Work. Next in my reading pile is a brand new biography of Janis Joplin, called simply, Janis.
I’m not sure why I’m on this little non-fic reading kick. I like to read a biography or two a year, but three in a row? Not typically. Nevertheless, as a writer who enjoys focusing on character development, reading biographies and memoirs provides a tremendous resource for learning about other people’s lives straight from the horse’s mouth. They’re also invaluable for researching a character you might write in the future.
When it comes down to it, as writers, we’re curious about other peoples’ lives (and if you’re not, then you’re not a writer).
Sally Field, the Oscar-winning actress who got her start on the 1960s TV show Gidget, writes a very emotionally accessible, unvarnished memoir. Julie Andrews, also an Oscar-winning actress who got her start in vaudeville in England, does not.
Both women grew up with alcoholic mothers and abusive stepfathers. Both got their start in Hollywood in the 1960s, when roles for women weren’t particularly meaty or diverse, while the pay was nowhere near what male actors were making. Both women had to navigate their way through what was considered proper for the times (ie., not working but staying home and having babies), being role models for other career-minded women, and eventually changing with the times culturally and socially throughout the 1970s and onwards. Both were working mothers, both divorced their husbands, both rode the rollercoaster of success and not finding work.
What struck me most about how different the two memoirs are is the writing style. Field lays bare her childhood pain and takes a deep dive into her complicated relationship with her mother. Andrews writes from a much more emotionally distant place, doing a good job of telling the reader everything that happened to her, but not letting the reader feel the things she felt. The Field memoir kept me engaged, the Andrews’ memoir didn’t.
The two very different memoirs remind me of the importance of writing characters from an emotional place. They remind me that for the reader to truly care about your characters, to want to root for them, to be willing to go the distance with them, there must be a deep emotional connection no matter how exciting or interesting a life that character leads. Interesting does not equal emotion.
I wonder what Janis will have in store for me next. And oh, how I wish she’d lived long enough to write her own memoir!
