Storytelling
We went and saw Seabiscuit yesterday; it was very good. The acting was absolutely wonderful.
It got me thinking about narrative. I’m having trouble organizing my chapter outline for the proposal. The outline isn’t set in stone and it’s very likely to change under the guidance of an editor but I need to hammer it out as best I can to make clear what exactly I’m going to be trying to do in this book.
I want it to be about infertility the way Seabiscuit was about horse racing: not so much.
Bear with me here; I’m trying to work this out.
I’ve got some hurdles to get over, the biggest being that infertility books generally don’t appeal to non-infertile people. I am working on how to make the topic (crisis) universal. Everyone has life crises; mine happened to be infertility. The story is not that I couldn’t have another baby, it’s what I did when that happened.
It’s also hard not to make it sound like one big whine. Listen, I felt pretty whiny at my lowest but people don’t want to listen to whining. In my experience, a lot of people find it very difficult to be supportive when someone is trying (and failing) to have a baby; why would they want to read a book about it when they can’t do more than give a sympathetic shrug in real life? You know and I know that the inability to have a baby is life-shattering and people know it in theory, but confront them with pain and some of them say, “Well, be grateful for what you do have.”
I have to overcome that attidue in the book.
Most infertility memoirs I’ve read tell the story from diagnosis to baby, making the getting of the baby the crux of the story. I don’t want my book to be about that because it turns out that the baby was not the point. The baby, it turns out, was separate from the journey to get the baby.
The other thing is that we didn’t get very far into treatment. The heavier treatments (IVF) open up a whole new world of storytelling possibilities. Medicine is interesting for one and infertility medicine creates a host of topics that go beyond the actual process. The decisions that people make when they’re using reproductive technology are fascinating and when the story is told right, you get a glimpse into a world of ethical and moral values that is enlightening and thought provoking. What people will do to get a baby is heroic, really. Me, I didn’t get past clomid and an IUI so I don’t have much to say about that, leaving me with a pretty ho-hum medical story. May as well get the focus off of that entirely.
Anyway, I’m trying to tell a story with infertility as the vehicle to tell it and I’m trying to figure out exactly what story I’m telling and how to tell it without letting the infertility overwhelm it. I’m getting closer, I think. Brett listened to me ramble yesterday and he thinks I’m getting a bit closer, too.
For reference, have you read Jaqueline Mitchard’s “Mother-less Child” ? It may be out of print. It is long, a personal story of fertility problems and solutions, starting with the tubal pregnancy that almost killed her. I think her issue with fertility was a search for family and connections; maybe a struggle to be in control of her life.
She has also written very moving columns on the topic of people regarding her children as adopted or birth children, and people’s biases. (She has an adult stepdaughter, adopted sons and birth sons, now ages 20-14 or so, two young daughters).
Mitchard was a reporter/newspaper columnist when she wrote Mother-Less Child. It was later, after her first husband died of cancer several years ago, that she started writing novels; the one on Oprah’s book club was her first.
I think an infertility memoir will appeal to everyone depending on how it is written. Memoir is difficult but if it is done artfully, stepping out of the “self” it can have broad-based readership (think of all of the stories you’ve gotten really involved in that have nothing to do with your personal life). You are trying to do so much with this book all at once–hows about one thing out a time? Developing the manuscript (getting it as tight as possible) will create a personal intimacy with the topic and approach to it; this will probably enable you to pitch it to the person who can take it to the next level. Believe me, I know that itchy feeling, call it passion or whatever, that drives one to write, try to get an agent & publisher in close succession but in reality it is counterproductive. I’m not clear here though, is this a memoir, a nonfiction sourcebook or a combo?
My publisher likes innovative memoirs–look at her list, you don’t need an agent to work with her.
M & M
You write so well, and are so good at narratives with personal exploration as the focus– it seems to me that you find the right agent, you’ll be off and running.
As a totally self-interested aside: my twins play Jeff Bridges infant son in Seabiscuit, so it was especially exciting for me to hear you liked the movie. Theirs is one (very) short scene around the breakfast table, they cry and JB picks him up and tosses him/them into the air. So, there. My proud stage-mother moment. BTW, acting is not our thing- this was done on a whim.
I admire your writing and your commitment to your art. I understand what you’re going through with completing your outline. I’ve finished the second draft of a novel and for various and asundry reasons have chosen to outline each chapter to be sure that each is necessary to the story as a whole, checking for inconsistencies, etc. It’s excruciating at times.
Re: your story. I think what you have to say is interesting all in itself. I’d advise not to labor over what readers will think and if anyone will like it. I know that for your agent and your editor it all boils down to whether or not the book is sellable but for you, the artist, the first and only charge should be to write the book and tell the story from your own POV, bringing your emotions and the things you’ve learned on this long journey, the things that no-one else has said or can say. I think at some level we have to remove ourselves from the business side of publishing during the time we’re creating the work b/c it can be extremely distracting to the creative flow of things.
Just my own .00002 cents.
Wish you the best,
ANGEL
Have you read FAMILY by Susan Hill. It is a beautifully written book about infertility,and miscarriage and is the story of the authors journey through this.I found it extremely moving.I was going through the pain of miscarriages myself when I read this.
Laura