Hampshire Writers Society, 13th September 2022
Report by Sarah Noon
Judith is a lecturer and writer. She has written many non-fiction books for children. Her first novel for adults, Snegurochka, was nominated for the Edward Stanford Travel Award. This evening, Judith is talking to us about how experiences influence our writing – when fact is used to create fiction and where the boundary between the two lies. She asks us, “is fiction just the stuff we make up?” and maintains, that we can’t avoid real life entering fiction.
Judith uses as an example, the novel “The Dig” by John Preston. It is extremely well-researched, she explains, but is nevertheless fiction. The characters within the novel are real people, but are fictionalised via their first person perspective. There are divergences between the real and imaginary versions of the characters. She also discusses the novel “The Fall Guy” by James Lasdun. Here the writer uses real places in the novel (a psychological thriller set in upstate New York). The place names are made up, as well as street names, the shops, the artisan bakery etc., and this allows for a degree of fiction. “Author Author” by David Lodge and “The Master” by Colm Toibin are both novels written about Henry James. Despite this, they are very different books and Henry James come across as a completely different person in both. Yet another example Judith gives of fiction stemming from fact.
Judith reminds us that as writers we are free to be inspired by real people and places. We can change the names and other elements. Using this type of inspiration allows us to get into the heads of people and explore their perspective.
Judith tells us about how she lived in Kyiv from 1992-1994. With regards to Snegurochka, she says she “did her homework”. She talks about queuing up for bread, fruit picking, watching the locals… She tells us about how hard life was when she first went out there as a young mum with a baby in a foreign country, unable to speak the language and a husband who was working hard.
She took dozens of photographs and made notes on gridded notepaper (she shows us some of these notes and photographs), explaining that she didn’t really know why she did this, other than a vague idea that she wanted to write something. She studied many maps and read lots of books, all with the aim of creating something “…authentic and real.”
Judith used an old instamatic camera – before the days of digital. This, she says, gives the images a sense of age. Judith conveys her fascination for the place. She knew she wanted to write about it, but wasn’t sure what exactly she was going to write. She knew she didn’t want to write a guide book. She considered a memoir, but soon dismissed the idea. She wanted to protect the privacy of her family, and also felt that her life wasn’t that interesting. She also confesses to the fact that she “… couldn’t help making stuff up.” Despite the collection of notes and photos, it was actually over twenty years before Judith wrote her novel Snegurochka. The title is from a Russian and Ukrainian folk tale about a couple who can’t have children so they create one out of snow. Lenin took two folk tales and morphed them together in order to create a winter tale, when endeavouring to move away from Christian society.
Judith explains that there are parallels between her characters and real people she encountered (for example her protagonist, Rachael, is not Judith but there are similarities). Rachael is terrified of the balcony and will not go on it. Judith explains how she knew the protagonist couldn’t be her, with her upbringing, child and partner, but she tells us how she drew on feelings that connected to the story. She remembers being scared of losing her brother’s camera off the Eiffel Tower and connects that to the feelings the balcony in the novel conjures up for Rachael. Judith’s husband being away from the flat, enabled her to focus on her protagonist’s isolation which is exacerbated by being terrified of the balcony and has to protect her child. Making Rachel English in a non-English-speaking country also adds to her the isolation. Judith explains that she felt people were angry with her, but she never knew why, adding to her feeling like an outsider – another facet to Rachael’s character.
Using these examples, Judith demonstrates how our own experiences as a new writer can give us confidence “No one can question the experiences we’ve had.” Judith tells us that those real-life moments are “…like stills and snapshots…” and the fiction is the moving images in between them.
Despite these connections being made, Judith reiterates that the final characters are not real. The character of Lucas, she says, is not like her husband at all, and with hindsight, would give him another profession in order to separate reality from fiction even further.
Judith continues with other examples – a photo of her husband’s hand with a cigarette. This formed the narrative of the twelve-year-old boy on the balcony above, describing looking down and smelling the smoke wafting up from beneath him.
The caretaker of the apartments, Judith describes as a “type”. Someone always watching everyone. She explains that to avoid it being a cliché she needed to make the character more rounded. Judith took parts of characters she saw in order to create more depth. It was a lady who when Judith was out shopping in Kyiv one day, began pulling at her hair, who finally became the Caretaker in Snegurochka.
In Kyiv, Judith was commissioned to find the prices of various products for the diplomats. Whilst doing this with her baby in his pushchair, she met a man in a white-goods shop who began stroking her baby’s head. This experience unsettled her – but became the basis of Mikala the racketeer.
Judith also tells us about an area near her flat that was poor and “shambolic”, but was built on prime real-estate. A Swedish couple bought a cottage belonging to an old lady. One day she returned to pick her apples, arguing that whilst she had sold her house, she had not sold the land around it – a conflict that triggered the idea for her book.
She has many stories, she says, but didn’t use them all. She reminds us that these events must be there to serve the story. However, she admits this can be hard sometimes.
Whist some writers “make everything up.”, Judith considers that she made bolder decisions as a result of basing characters and events on her own experiences. She says she needed the confidence of writing about what she knows.
Judith is asked about the photos that form the collage on the front cover of her book. She explains that they were not specifically taken for the book, but were actually taken for personal memories. She admits that she was not comfortable with the cover designer’s decision.
Thinking about the city twenty years later, when Judith began writing the book, she says she’s not sure if her descriptions are accurate. She describes this as “psycho-geography” in which she had created her own place. Judith returned to Kyiv in 2018. She says that it had changed and was now full of young people and families out and about. It possessed a greater sense of prosperity – a rather poignant comment in the light of the war the Ukraine is now fighting.
When using real experiences as a way to create fiction, Judith urges us to consider changing one thing and ask “… what if?” She did this in Kyiv, when looking at people on the trolley-busses and wondering what their world was like – to consider “cause and effect.” Finding connections between real events is what provides the fiction. It is this turning of “fact into fiction” that gives Snegurochka its sense of realism and truth.
Judith’s second novel set in upstate New York and she is once again using her experience in order to create fiction. We wish her every success with her new book.
You can find out more about Judith on her website: http://judithheneghan.co.uk/
Leave a Reply