Michigan State University
I received my BA in Marketing from Michigan State University. I wrote some research papers, but I do not remember most of them. The paper I do remember is a Personal Economic History paper in my 400 level Economics class. Although I do not have a copy of it, I remember it well. We were given the assignment by the instructor toward the end of the course. It was a term paper worth a lot of our grade. As I listened to the requirements, I became nervous: we had to interview our family elders and document their economic history in the United States. This seemed easy enough for most people, but I do not really talk to my mother's parents and my father's parents are deceased.
I went home to Sterling Heights that weekend ready to pump my dad for any family history information he had. He was not very helpful. He did not remember what his great grandparents did for a living and did not seem very interested to tell me. I thought about calling my Aunt Diane, the family information-keeper. My dad laughed, "Just make it up. They'll never know." I was nervous; wouldn't that be lying? What if the professor found out?
After thinking about the odd of the professor actually being able to research these details, I figured making up my family history was my only option. Aunt Diane was not much help on the economic history front.
I started with a brainstorming session with my dad. I had to come up with an interesting story that was believable. Somehow the two of us decided my great grandfather should own a business of some sort. "Retail store?" Sure. But what kind? We decided it should be a hardware store. Now we had to figure out a compelling event. My dad helped with the next idea: a fire. My "great grandfather" owned a hardware store in Cleveland that burned down. Interesting? Yes. Believable? Yes.
I took this story and true details of other relatives, and wove a paper full of facts and fiction. I held my breath as I turned the paper into my professor. I half thought I would be kicked out of school.
Of course, I was not kicked out of school. However, I think this story shows what most good writers already know: there is no such thing as complete non-fiction. We are human and forget details or remember things differently. Sometimes these diversions from the "truth" help to enrich the story and fill in gaps to memory. Although this is not a technique an author wants to use on any major events (such as the fake hardware store), adding details as you see them is an important part of writing. I think this is most true of dialogue as most people cannot exactly remember what was said in a conversation they had ten years ago. This lack of information should not keep anyone from writing stories they need to tell.
I went home to Sterling Heights that weekend ready to pump my dad for any family history information he had. He was not very helpful. He did not remember what his great grandparents did for a living and did not seem very interested to tell me. I thought about calling my Aunt Diane, the family information-keeper. My dad laughed, "Just make it up. They'll never know." I was nervous; wouldn't that be lying? What if the professor found out?
After thinking about the odd of the professor actually being able to research these details, I figured making up my family history was my only option. Aunt Diane was not much help on the economic history front.
I started with a brainstorming session with my dad. I had to come up with an interesting story that was believable. Somehow the two of us decided my great grandfather should own a business of some sort. "Retail store?" Sure. But what kind? We decided it should be a hardware store. Now we had to figure out a compelling event. My dad helped with the next idea: a fire. My "great grandfather" owned a hardware store in Cleveland that burned down. Interesting? Yes. Believable? Yes.
I took this story and true details of other relatives, and wove a paper full of facts and fiction. I held my breath as I turned the paper into my professor. I half thought I would be kicked out of school.
Of course, I was not kicked out of school. However, I think this story shows what most good writers already know: there is no such thing as complete non-fiction. We are human and forget details or remember things differently. Sometimes these diversions from the "truth" help to enrich the story and fill in gaps to memory. Although this is not a technique an author wants to use on any major events (such as the fake hardware store), adding details as you see them is an important part of writing. I think this is most true of dialogue as most people cannot exactly remember what was said in a conversation they had ten years ago. This lack of information should not keep anyone from writing stories they need to tell.
