For those of you who have been reading me a while, you’ll notice that I’ve been a little fictionally quiet of late here. There are a lot of things that have contributed to this.
The whole site/blog fiasco was a big distraction, of course, but I was being somewhat subdued before that. Also, I’ve been doing some writing of a private nature.
Finally, I’ve been looking over my work and having some serious discussions with myself on the subject of identity: mine, my characters’, and the way I see the people I know through this medium.
One of the reasons for penning Click was to prove to myself that I could indeed write a character who I didn’t like and felt little empathy or attraction for. It was a kind of reaction against Beautiful Losers, which is populated with characters I am extremely fond of and indeed somewhat in love with.
What Click taught me was that realism could ruin a story from an erotic perspective, but still make for excellent writing. That, perhaps, there is a limit to how much realism erotica can tolerate, before it moves irredeemably over into the world of literary fiction.
A deeper lesson for me was that it caused me to critically examine how I construct my own understanding of people with whom I have long-term online relationships. The absence of the physical form, the lack of non-verbal interaction and the visual clues that are so much a part of everyday congress with another human being…leave dangerous gaps in the way I constitute the entirety of that person in my mind. These gulfs, these black holes, are easily filled with fantasy.
It’s easy, but it is a terrible betrayal. Better to leave the gaps unfilled than to stuff them full of one’s own projected desires. I have to learn to live with holes in the weave of the people I know, and not knit up the gaps creatively. It’s fine to do this for my writing, but not with real people. It’s disrespectful. It’s a betrayal of trust.
I think that to really care for someone, honestly, within the parameters of this environment, require an extreme discipline of the imagination. That is not easy for me, because it is the one place I have never practiced any self-control before.
So…an abstract dilemma, I realize, but an explanation for why some of my work is stalled. I have to puzzle this out for myself first, before I can go back to indulging in fictionalizing.
Your patience is much appreciated.
In the meantime, tell me: do you ever fear you do the same thing?
I’ve watched others do it so spectacularly that I was warned before I was in a position to do it myself. You’re right about the reduction of cues online, but I have thought about this question as it applies to the betrayal of trust (excellent term for it) in face to face relationships too. I see it as a matter of artistry – to hold the awareness of how much liberty I am taking with my interpretation at the same time I am enjoying it. (Otherwise I tend to get out of balance & judge myself harshly.)