How to write anonymous non-fiction when the details would give you away?

[NightWatcher]

I'd like to start off a piece from a dramatic event and then expand into episodic stories. I can change the details, names, and places enough in the episodic stuff, but I'm wrestling with the introduction. I want the intro to take place on 9/11 and what I was doing and where I was doing it, but if I did so, anyone else familiar with the events of that day who was at that location (not NY or DC but a small, specific govt office) would be able to read it and say, "oh that's ____".

I'd like to be anonymous, but I'd also like to use specific details from that day that shaped where the character went afterwards. I can use the character's made up name and not have to refer to myself in the first person.

Has anyone ever struggled with detailed anonymity like this?

[SheilaT]

1. Where would this be published?

Would simply publishing under a pseudonym work?

I'd say, if the real problem is that your small specific govt office would give you away to co-workers and friends, figure out a way to fictionalize that aspect. My guess is that if you really think it through, you can fictionalize that office -- make it not a govt one and put it in a different location. Even if you think that the specific office is crucial to the story, you have to come to grips with the fact that correctly identifying or name it will give away who you are. Change that part sufficiently and it should work.

Even if you were in DC (which you clearly stated you were not) and let's say near the Pentagon, just a few changes in location and purpose of the office should be sufficient.

Good luck! I hope you write what works for you.

[Brainstormy]

2. It's an old struggle

for writers of fiction. You have to make your fiction out of something. You're entitled to use your own life experiences and your responses to those experiences as raw material and your fiction is stronger for it. But there's an ethical dilemma in revealing details of other people's lives and the possibility of doing damage to real life relationships. Many writers have had to wait for Mommy or Daddy to die to write their most authentic work, and many who didn't experienced the fallout. You can camouflage, alter details, settings, etc., but you may not get away with it. And conversely, you can make things up out of whole cloth and they'll be assumed to be autobiographical anyway. Everything I've ever written has provoked responses like, "I didn't know you were adopted." (I wasn't.) Or "When did your first husband die?" (He didn't.) All that is part of the nature of fiction.

I recall a conversation with Pat Conroy, many years ago, in which he talked about how he received complaints about both being too "true" and being too "false." That characters were too obviously real-life people but a ship in the Savannah harbor was given the "wrong" name.

The only practical suggestion I can give you is that, if possible, change the gender of your character. I don't know why, but folks suspend disbelief if your pov comes from the opposite sex. Then they seem to understand that it's fiction. (??? beats me. )

Just write your story. See what happens. You're not likely to defame anyone. And it's probably going to be damned if you do and damned if you don't anyway. It's the feelings, not the facts that are most important anyway. That's the fun of it. And why good fiction, for me, is always "true."

[mainer]

3. "Give him a small penis. He'll never recognize himself in the story."

This was a piece of advice I heard years ago, about how to disguise a real person as a character in a book.

[Ineeda]

7. Love it.

The only undisguised, or even lightly disguised person I've put into a novel had done some pretty despicable things. I did not hold back. His character fit perfectly into the fictional role I created, so I changed very little. I gave him the same name, more or less, same occupation, same narcissistic personality, same relationship to another character -- even the same sexual orientation. I gave it some thought, as he's a litigious person, but things must be untrue to be considered libelous, so he would never prevail in court and he knew it. Too many witnesses!

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

4. Are you familiar with the problem that Thomas Wolfe had with Look Homeward, Angel?

It's an autobiographical novel -- published in 1929 -- about Wolfe's life in Ashville, North Carolina. Unfortunately, many of his family, friends and acquaintances recognized themselves and were not pleased. A couple of them seriously considered suing, but were dissuaded by Wolfe's mother and sister.

[Brainstormy]

5. Perfect example! n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Unless you are the only person who had a specific job (like mayor of New York) at the time

I doubt that people will make the connection. If you worry about being recognized, try using a pseudonym of a different gender or ethnicity, change some of the details about yourself, about your job or your office. Create a vivid mental picture of someone who is most definitely not you but could still be you for the rest of the book. Once people get into their heads that you are ____,_____,____ they will not readily suspect that you are anything else.

I do the same thing, so that I can keep my writing self and my physician self separate.