R.S. Benedict
Welcome to Rite Gud, the podcast that helps you write good I’m R.S. Benedict. We all incorporate the real world into our fiction. It’s impossible not to maybe we base a character on someone we love or hate. Maybe we write a story inspired by a real life event, something that happened to us or something we heard about in the news, or in a history book. But what are the ethics of this? Are we stealing other people’s experiences? Are we exploiting other people? What if anything, do we owe the people we’re taking from, but insisting on some kind of Gag Rule is censorious and unreasonable and just unrealistic? There’s no way to avoid using the real world and your fiction. Here to weigh in on this topic is Ryan Estrada. Ryan, tell us about yourself.
Ryan Estrada
Hi, I’m Ryan and I have been making comics since I was a baby. Some of the things people might know me from are Banned Book Club, my graphic novel with my wife, Kim Hyun Sook. about her experiences taken from true life running from the police reading banned books, people might know the viral comic Learning to Read Korean in 15 Minutes that I forgot to put my name on. So you’ve probably seen it but didn’t know I made it. And for what we’re talking about here today, the two books I have coming out this year, are Student Ambassador: The Silver City, and No Rules Tonight, which are both fiction books that take aspects from real life. So I’m excited to talk about how, how this weird thing this sticky subject is thought about. Right,
R.S. Benedict
right. And I can’t stress it enough. To some degree we all draw from real life we draw from experiences, maybe directly, maybe indirectly, some writers do it a little more blatantly than others. So if you watch Law and Order, I’m sure you’ve seen the various ripped from the headlines episodes where you’re going up, that’s the Michael Jackson episode. That’s the this episode. That’s the episode that’s about OJ Simpson, blah, blah, blah. They deal with real life events in a very, very hilariously terrible and sleazy way. Or sometimes you’re reading a book where you feel like the author is very mad at a specific person from their life, like maybe an ex or something. And they’re not handling it super good. Their Season One of the terror, which was based on a real incident, although the real incident probably didn’t involve like a demonic polar bear. I mean, some works, do it more elegantly than others. And kind of what I’m wondering, is, is there a line where it becomes not okay, or should there be one? And I don’t have an answer to this.
Ryan Estrada
I think what’s what’s interesting about some of the things that you mentioned there, like, I think, within using true life, there’s a bit of an uncanny valley in the same way there is we talk about the uncanny valley of like animation, like if there’s a human character in a movie that doesn’t quite look like a cartoon character doesn’t quite look human, it just creeps us out. And I think a lot of the things like you mentioned law and order where you like, you’re clearly talking about this thing I saw on the news last week, it makes you feel weird, because like, you’re using all the details, but you’re just changing the names. And that’s kind of where the uncanny valley comes in. But I mean, everything we do is obviously based on real life, whether it’s fantasy, or science fiction, or slice of life, because, you know, all we know is what we’ve drawn from the world. And we’re kind of re mixing all of that for me. Like every character I write in anything, is me, I wouldn’t say anyone’s based anyone else, because I take aspects of people that I know and situations that I know. But then it’s kind of like, I have to fill in the blanks with myself, like the frog DNA in Jurassic Park. Because like, you never want to just retell someone’s story. Like, I think, one of the lines, I often use aspects from people that I’ve met. But if someone were to be like, Man, you would not believe this thing that happened to me, and they tell me a story. And then I just make a comic about that story. That’s theft, because they could, you know, they could make a comic about that they could tell a story about that. And I’m just kind of stealing that from them. There have been situate like banned book club is just that very thing where my wife told me a story. I couldn’t believe it. And then I tweeted about it. We were offered a book deal based on that story. And I said, Well, don’t just hire me hire her. It’s her story. And she’s like, I don’t write and I’m like, well, you’re, you got to write it with me because I’m not just going to tell your story. I wanted you to work with me and tell it together and we interviewed all the real people. So there’s that but also like, if someone tells you a story, and it makes you like it gets your imagination going, and you think of some other aspect of a story of life. Oh, this is what I would do in that situation. And part of the story is kind of loosely based on what someone else did. But you’re going off in another direction. I think that’s something you have to think about, you know, for yourself, is this. Is this right? Should I ask that person? It’s always a conversation with yourself,
R.S. Benedict
right. And I don’t know what the line is, I do get a sense that there is such a way of crossing a line. Like, I don’t know, if there are ways to write about another person that’s invasive or inappropriate. As much as I of course, believe in freedom of expression and freedom of speech. I also believe in like, trying not to be kind of shitty to other people. Like, I don’t know, for example, if someone I vaguely knew wrote really violent, smart about me or something, I’d be really upset, I’d be really uncomfortable, even though it’s fake its words on a page, nothing materially happened to me. I would not feel comfortable with that. And probably most people wouldn’t. So there’s definitely a line. But how, as a writer, do we kind of figure out how would we draw that line? Like, if you say, do a rule of thumb, oh, you should ask permission. If only for an etiquette sense, then that cuts off a lot of art. It’s not feasible for public figures. And in some instances, it’s like, you know what, fuck that guy. He deserves it. You know, if you have an abusive parent, and you use those experiences in your writing, I don’t think you should have to, like, ask permission from your abusive parent. Yeah.
Ryan Estrada
And the situation with the abusive parent is your story to tell and that you can’t, yeah, but like this, something I really need to think about with the books I work on with my wife, like with banned book club, banned book club is a nonfiction book, we’re working on a follow up that takes a lot of the stories that we couldn’t fit into the book. And we’re calling it fiction because everything didn’t really happen in that order. Like we had to figure out how do we take these leftover stories and turn it into a narrative. So it’s interesting having a book series, or one is nonfiction one is fiction. But when we first started, like all of these people, all these book club members, all these teachers, parents, family, friends, they all gave us their stories, and they, we interviewed them, and they gave us permission to use their stories in this book, to tell this history. And even though we had their permission, I feel still felt a little weird about it. Because I’m like, you know, this is about running a banned book club under a dictator. So technically, even though these aren’t crimes anymore, they’re admitting to crimes. And so I changed everyone’s names. I took people’s stories and like, like, there’s, there’s one one woman that the character unit was mostly based on that actually, almost every character is based on her because I took some of her stories and gave them to different characters so that there was no one person that is her because, you know, again, even though they’re telling me the stories, I’m working from memories, I don’t know every detail. They don’t remember every word that they said. And so I’m having to create even in nonfiction, any nonfiction You see, there’s a lot of fiction in it, because I don’t know the words that were used. And I don’t want someone to say wait, I never said it like that or anything. So yeah, I worked really hard to not just disguise the character names, but also I changed the name of the city, I made up a fake university, just to show respect for everyone. And then the funny thing with that is that every single person and institution ended up doing their own press tour to make sure everyone knew like, the real uni is a politician. And she went around like, I’m the real uni, read this book about what we did. And then the mayor of the city invited us out the head of the school, invited us out, they did a big press thing, had all the media there and took photos and gave us like a certificate. And I whispered to my wife, I’m like, do they know that the government and the school are not the good guys? And then later the mayor’s like, Yeah, I know that. It’s about how the government does school are bad. But I used to be in a band book club, and now in the mayor, so we want. So it’s, it’s interesting seeing how people react and I, you know, again, and I didn’t need to do that, obviously. But I still felt it was important, just to make sure people were comfortable. But the difficult things are coming to when we then go on to the sequel, where it’s more, it’s based on things that happen, but it’s more fiction. Like, for example, that woman I said, went all over the press and said, I’m the real uni. There’s two characters union suji that I really, really ship and I really wanted to make them kiss in the book. But I can’t do that. Because like, this is a real woman. That’s a real politician. And I don’t want to make like a weird political scandal where they’re like, you know, this politician’s kissing another girl in a book and I’m like, wait, it’s fiction, but like, you know, it. Yeah. So I had to make a whole new character for that romance to happen with. So yeah, it’s always something you got to think about that. If you take too much from one person, then does that limit what you can do with that character and things
R.S. Benedict
like that? I’m also thinking about how if you’re writing a creative work about real life or historical events, sometimes the entertaining fake story can overshadow the real One in people’s minds because American History class in public schools terrible. And so we learned that what happened for movies and the movies are not very truthful. A really good example is the way the story of Pocahontas is portrayed in pop culture that most people kind of think they know, which is wildly different from what actually happens. And what actually happened was a lot more depressing. But on the other hand, is it a fiction writers job? To educate or to or to just have fun? I don’t know. Because I mean, season one of the terror, it is based on a real life thing. I love the show, I doubt interviewers will watch it and think, oh, yeah, they got killed by a demon polar bear. That’s what happened. But I kind of wonder, because there are like heroes and villains in the cast. And I’m guessing they were based on real life crew members, it’s like, Well, did they just call a guy who a sailor who like froze to death, you know, a cannibal? Like, that’s kind of rude. You should do that.
Ryan Estrada
I haven’t seen that. But I’ve heard the drama of like, even Titanic where I forget which character is there’s one character that they turned into a villain, and that there’s an entire town that like is devoted to like, the where that guy came from? And they’re all like, oh, excuse me, he, he was kind of a hero. What are we doing here? And so yeah, it is something that you have to think about as an author, what good are you putting into the world? And are you kind of, you know, replacing reality with what you’re putting out there. And I think a lot of people more people shouldn’t be afraid to take inspiration from real life situation to tell your own story, instead of saying, This is what happened and then making up your own thing. And not to say people shouldn’t be allowed to but, you know, you kind of have to think about what the what is the impact you’re going to put out into the world by doing this and make your own decisions about whether or not that that feels right to you. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
I’m writing a novel that’s loosely based on a real life person. But I ended up realizing, okay, I’m making this way too dramatic to the point where this real life person’s, I don’t think she had direct descendants, but like, great, great grand nephews, and grand nieces might be like, Hey, don’t say that. About my great, great, great Auntie IDs. But it’s a character very loosely based on the Forgotten screen actress, theater bra or theater, Berra. But I realized, you know, what I want, I want to take too much poetic license. And I feel like it would be a little disrespectful to her to the real life person to have her doing all this crazy stuff. So that was my choice was to sort of do a story of a data burrow with the serial numbers filed off, so I could play with it a little bit more, because I couldn’t keep close enough to the truth. Without like, restraining myself from where I wanted the story to go. Well,
Ryan Estrada
like I said, every nonfiction book is basically fiction. Like, with banned book club, even though everything in that book happened. And I talked to the people that happened to and the people that did it, that collection of stories is not a narrative. So the events of the book actually happened over the course of four years. And maybe something that happened, the beginning actually happened, you know, in a senior year, or something happened late, you know, I shifted things around, you know, and also in between events, like she moved, she, you know, changed classes, people graduated. But like, if I just put all those events in order, it wouldn’t feel like a story. And so I had to kind of move things around to make it work and make it feel like it all happened within one year. And the same thing with a fiction sequel. These are just stories that happened at various different trips that my wife was on with different groups of people. And I kind of tried to bring in some of the same characters from the first book and make it all happen together. But yeah, I mean, it feels like when you’re telling a story about history, there’s always going to be some fiction. And sometimes the fiction is to make it clear, and sometimes the fiction is to make it more exciting. And you got to figure out at what point do you feel uncomfortable calling it nonfiction? At what point? Are you saying it’s fiction? And if it’s fiction, should you just change the names?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, like I’m thinking of that novel. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, which takes the death of Abraham Lincoln son and turns it into a weird ghost story. And the format of the novels interesting in that it’s all told us a series of quotations from gathered historical accounts, gathered testimonies, probably threw some real historians descriptions in there and real life quoted people in there with long conversations from ghosts in the graveyard where his son was laid to rest. And there’s a lot of it, which is just about the unknowability of history, like, there are different accounts of what the weather was, like, on the day the boy died or what time of day it was. And if you’re writing about history, I mean, unless you were there, and even if you were there, memory is really, really faulty. You’re still interpreting things as you tell them you’re still you’re framing things in a certain way. You’re you are making choices as to what details you put in and what details you leave out. So even then it’s still going to be not 100% objective. It’s impossible to be objective as a human being, I think, yeah.
Ryan Estrada
And I think that like, historical fiction is a great thing. There’s nothing wrong with making historical fiction, especially I’m not familiar with the book you’re talking about, but like, if you say, Lincoln son was a ghost, like, no one’s gonna be like, Hey, did you hear that Lincoln son goes and did all these things, like, you know, they’re gonna understand it’s historical fiction. And even if you’re telling a fictionalized story of Lincoln’s life, Lincoln is a person that there’s enough written about him, and fact and fiction, that like his family isn’t going to be like you said, What about, you know, because he’s a figure of the popular imagination. But you know, and so, I think, you know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making like Abraham Lincoln, or was it vampire hunter or whatever, like, sure. There. That’s not going to replace anyone’s idea of who Abraham Lincoln is. But say you’re making a film about a serial killer, and you reinvent one of their victims. That’s a family that has suffered trauma? And are you making their trauma worse, by like, reanimating the person they’re grieving? And making up things about them? That’s where you kind of get into the danger zone of is this going to hurt another person? And is that worth this story? Would I be able to tell the same story by making up a fictional victim, a fictional serial killer, or, you know, even if you want to tell a story about this person? If we’re making fiction anyway, why don’t we just completely fictionalized who they murdered, there was a job once that I was offered to work on a thing about real life serial killers, and I’m like, I don’t, I don’t feel good about doing it was like a board game. And I’m like, I don’t feel good about doing that. Because like, it was like, you choose what serial killer you want to play is and like, they listed their victims. And I’m like, those people are still around that, like, survived that, like I’m not comfortable doing that. And that, you know, everyone has their own level of comfort. But I think it’s important for someone to think about like, what, how is the person this is about, like, I’ll I want to segue into I want serial killers to a very silly story. But to show the way you have to think about this. Another thing in band bookclub is one of the main characters is my wife’s father, my father in law. And he, when we interviewed him, he was more than happy to tell me about the history and the politics that led up to it and the time in history. And I’m like, Yeah, I already researched all that. Tell me more about your failed state Crestron, because I’d heard the story about his lifelong dream was open the steak restaurant and he gave a risk to everything and spent all his money to build it. And then the the chef that he hired, turned out to be a con man that had never cooked in his life and stole all his money. And, and I kept asking him question, he’s like, why are you? Are you gonna make a book about the biggest failure of my life. And to me, that was important because it kind of worked as a metaphor for everything that happened where like, during the time in history, if you stuck your neck out and tried to do something new society would like stomp you down. And I’m like, this is explaining everything in a personal way. Because I didn’t want to make a make book about politics. I wanted to make a book about people. And so I kept asking him, and like it just, he didn’t understand. But I mean, he told me the story. And he allowed me to use it. But I’m like, I can’t wait to show him the reason. And then there was a very awkward moment at the end like he died before the book came out. So I never, I never got to show it to him. But it was so close, because books were on our way, but we live in Korea. So like the book hadn’t made it there yet, but people had already started reviewing it in America. And a lot of them though, has specifically called out how meaningful his story was to them. So as he’s on his deathbed, I’m trying to explain to him how meaningful his story was, but I don’t speak any Korean. He doesn’t speak English. So I use the Google Auto Translate where you like, you speak and you turn around and it talks for you. And I tried to keep it simple. And I said, thanks to the way you raised your daughter, my wife has named hansebooks. I said, thanks to the way you raised your daughter Helen sucks. Life has touched so many people in so many places. And then Google talked and he had the small sour expression like how what dare you say? That’s a weird reaction. And then later, I looked down at the phone as someone else’s talking saying their goodbyes and I realized that Google didn’t recognize him sucks life as English words. So what it said was, Oh, God, thank you for your daughter. Our sex life involves touching Oh, no. So many people. Oh, no face. And so am I going away? I need to turn in his terms. Please explain this. And so like yeah, so yeah, I mean, that’s kind of like when you think about I mean, I don’t know if that was necessary for this topic, but I needed to I need I love that. stories tell it but but yeah, I mean, this is a person who’s not a public figure. But this story is something that he has anxiety about, he has regrets about. But he also was happy that he did. He has very complicated emotions. So for someone to use that, it really takes some thought about how you’re doing it and some conversation with that person. Like, that’s something that because I use the story word for word, like I couldn’t do that without his permission. Like, I could be inspired by that if I were writing a fiction book, maybe I would write someone who had a dream and failed. Or I might write someone who was robbed by someone they trusted, but to use all the details that would be immoral to just steal that story from him. But he allowed me to do it. And you know, if this were a story that were he was a public figure. And it was story everyone knew, like maybe I could be more free with with using aspects of it. But I think it was important to talk to him about it and make sure he understood and even though I failed miserably at trying to make sure he understood. I think that’s important thing to think about
R.S. Benedict
right? Oh, gosh, that is that is got some more defining story. It’s great, though. So let’s talk about a couple of somewhat well known controversies or scandals, or whatever you want to say whatever you want to call it, incidents in which a writer maybe drew too much from real life in a way that was perhaps not not the best. We will start with the cat person controversy. Most of you are probably familiar with it. But in some Kristen repente and I hope I’m pronouncing that name right, Kristen are opinions wildly popular, short story cat person about a very bad very short lived relationship between a young woman and an older man? Well, it was the story that went viral at which is pretty rare for short fiction, especially literary fiction or mimetic fiction. It was very, like hashtag me to era was really, really big. And it was a story that really, really resonated with a lot of women. A lot of my female friends said like, this is it this, this is how it feels like, Oh my God, I feel so seen by the story, which is great. You know, I’m not, I don’t want to take anything from anyone who enjoyed the story. I kind of enjoyed the story, but I felt like the ending felt a little cheap. But it turned out that this really huge short story, use some biographical details from two real people who did date for a while. And the two of them after the story got huge, found out and were really, really, really uncomfortable with it. Like the man who was not a creep, like his fictional counterpart, the dude in the story is a real creep. And the real life man is just not. And unfortunately, the men had mental health issues and died a few years later, I’ve heard rumors that it was suicide, but I’m not sure the girl that the story was based on was really, really upset for a few reasons. First, she felt like, Hey, you didn’t ask permission. This is gross and feels weird, I feel a little like, invaded. And number two, the story framed this real life relationships she had as something that was, like ugly and sleazy and degrading, when in real life according to this girl. That’s not what it was. The relationship didn’t last very long. But it sounds like she remained on good terms with the guy. It’s just, you know, they weren’t meant for each other that that’s how it goes. So the question is like, did the writer do something wrong? What should we take from this as writers? There were people who were saying like she owes the money, or it’s her fault, the guy died in a way and I’m like, I don’t really think so there. But on the other hand, like, as you probably shouldn’t use so many of these specific biographical details about these two people in this way.
Ryan Estrada
Yeah, I think taking too much from one person without their permission. I think even beyond the, the moral issues of I think can get to just laziness as a writer. Like, I’m always I’m always taking details, people I know, like, just from the sample thing of like, the friend I have, like, the way he scratches his ear, when he’s nervous. I’m gonna put that in a book. That’s fine. Or like, when I’m writing a scene that takes place in an apartment, like, I can’t, you know, I need to, I need to know in my head, like, where’s the kitchen? Where’s the living room? Where can people hear each other? So like, if I’m inventing, like completely fictional architecture for every scene in my book, I can’t keep that straight. But if I’m like, I’ll just picture my friend blah, blah blahs apartment, like, picturing that apartment and I’m describing that apartment, and maybe like others, this really ugly picture on my friend’s wall that I’m gonna use as a metaphor for something. And that’s great. But if you are then like, I’m going to take my friend’s apartment, my friend’s ugly picture, but also the main character is a caricature of this one aspect of my friend I don’t like then you’re then you can make a character based on an caricature of an aspect your friend do like you can make a character lives in your friends part of you, you both then you’re saying that’s your friend. Even if you’re if that’s not how you feel, you’re making it that like there, there are a lot of characters I have that have like terrible personality flaws. I did a book years and years ago called Aki Alliance about a, it started off just like a teen is bad at making friends. But by the end, it’s basically by the team sociopath, a preteen sociopath. And it comes mostly from like, complaints. Like within my family and friends like things people complained about each other. Like they’re stereotypes of another person when they were mad at them. And I take that and be like, how can I make that, you know, an interesting character, but like, none of those people are preteen girls, and not as nothing to do with this character. So I can take those aspects and put them in there. And they would never know because they don’t see themselves that way. And I don’t see them that way. And a lot of it is like, someone would say something about someone, I’d be like, Okay, I can understand how you would feel that and I look at my own flaws, and put that into a character. And like their situations, I wrote another comic called the kind about a werewolf and the werewolf character when she’s not a werewolf, just a woman. And every single outfit she wears is something from my wife school, like I opened my wife’s closet, and like, Oh, she’ll wear this one and this one. And her first kiss is my first kiss with my wife, like I just straight up drew it. And, and that was just because like, my wife is not aware. Well, she’s never eaten anyone. And she’s not like a depressed shut in because she has trauma over eating people. None of that is based on my wife. But this is a character who murders people. So I’m like, I gotta make her lovable. So I’ll put aspects of someone that I love. But if I took those aspects, and then also made the characters flaws similar to my wife’s, then my wife might be really angry and like that, her Yeah, her flaws, doing my wife. She’s a werewolf that needs people. You know? So I think that’s kind of what you have to think about is, can someone look at this character and think this is me? You know, again, you’re talking about, if this is your own story, a trauma that you experienced from someone? Yes. I have no issue with you using that person to tell that story. Because this is your story. They can’t take that away from you. But not just, you know, this story someone else experienced. Sounds interesting. I want to make a comic or a story about it. But I can’t just steal it from them and use their name. So I’ll make it fiction, and just barely do it. I think that’s where you get a little shady.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. So moving to another controversy. There’s the bad art friend controversy. That was huge a few years ago, so unpacking this whole thing is massive, and I can’t even begin I get the feeling that there’s a lot of messy writer drama that I’m just not privy to, so I won’t be able to fully understand it. But to make a very long story short, a pair of frenemies who are both short story writers and literary fiction ended up suing each other when one of them wrote a story about a kidney donation based loosely on the other writer’s real life donating her kidney to a stranger. And the rough draft of this story actually copied a letter written by the real life kidney donor word for word, but subsequent drafts ended up rewriting it because I mean, that is plagiarism. That is that is blatantly plagiarism. And you can’t do that. And they ended up suing each other over it for for various reasons. There was a lot of messy, crazy drama in there. But something that was striking is that this short story about a kidney donation, like the the donor, and the story is very much a character of the real life woman. It’s this very kind of clueless white woman, at least in the story and the recipient. I don’t, I don’t think anyone I don’t think the writer knows in real life who actually received this kidney. But the recipient in the story was is also a huge jerk. So I remember there being a huge controversy on it in which the, you know, the the kidney donor looked ended up being accused of being like kind of a vindictive person. Or maybe the writer was accused of being like an intrusive, obnoxious plagiarist. Or there was also sort of a racial aspect to it too, because the kidney donor lady was white, and the author was, I believe, Asian American. And it was just this this massive, massive, very strange controversy, but I don’t know like, yeah. Like, it’s hard to even weigh in, because I don’t know any of the people. And I
Ryan Estrada
remember, I don’t know all the ins and outs of this story, but I remember what stuck out to me is, like when I said earlier that if you straight up to steal someone’s story, that’s a story they could have told. And that you know, a lot of times people roll their eyes at that, like, you know, I mean, my mom is not going to write a book, but you know, there you never know what your mom could do with that story. Don’t take it from her but like this is specifically to writers and you’re stealing someone’s story like, clearly they want to use their own life experience. And that’s not to say you couldn’t be like, Oh, that I heard this interesting thing from my friend who’s an organ donor, you can write something about being an organ donor, you could take the emotions that that story made you feel and figure out how to make those emotions with a different story, but just straight up stealing someone’s story and then changing details. That’s theft, you know, of course, especially with just printing her letter that’s straight up like legal theft, and not just moral theft. So yeah, it’s it’s you really have to think about what you how much you’re taking from other people who trusted you with their stories. And like, you know, that we were talking before about like ripped from the headlines. That’s that’s even a very different thing from a story that someone in your life trusted you with a stealing that that’s why like, even with man book club, and occulted, these ones that I write that are nonfiction, I always I would never have done them if the person didn’t agree to come on as a co writer. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
I do think in personal stories, even if it’s not legally theft, I think morally or ethically or at least etiquette. It’s pretty fucking rude. It’s interesting that you mentioned ripped from the headlines, though, because I do think I mean, ripped from the headlines can be also kind of exploitative, in a way, because we know how media news media likes to sensationalize things. And there’s what really happened. And then there’s what the suppose that story is there’s there’s sort of, we decide who’s the good guy who’s the bad guy in a story. And that’s not necessarily who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy in real life and rip from the headline stories often have to add another layer of excitement to it. Because I mean, maybe a real life story is kind of interesting to read about. But again, if we’re doing a law and order episode, it has to be a lot sleazier and more fun. I’m just remembering. Law and order had this was years ago, a very obviously inspired by the whole GamerGate thing. Episode. In a in this episode, the woman who’s based I guess, based on Zoe Quinn, the unlucky target of this whole weird, like video game hate movement, I believe on that show. That character gets sexually assaulted. So if you’re that woman in real life, you’re watching the show go seeing like a character who’s based on you get sexually assaulted. And it’s like, I’m not cool with this. That’s not I don’t I don’t feel good about the fact that this is on TV right now. And
Ryan Estrada
that’s where I talk about that, that uncanny valley thing where like, that wouldn’t be an issue if you said, Hey, here’s a situation where a group of men are treating women the certain way, I don’t need to make it a group of games, you know, like, why don’t we just think about why that story makes us upset. And figure another scenario that could tell that story and not then you’re not putting someone in a situation of being Oh, this episode is about me. And if I turn on my TV right now, I’m gonna see someone playing me being sexually assaulted, even if they changed the name. I think that’s something that, you know, there’s no law against doing something like that. But I think it’s something that as an author, you think, Am I comfortable with doing that to someone? Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
yeah. This is one of those things where I want to stress we’re not arguing in favor of like actual laws or censorship, or lawsuits or anything like that. is tricky. On the one hand, yeah, of course, I believe in free expression, freedom of speech. And I don’t believe that art needs to be more realistic or that art needs to teach you a moral lesson as a human being. But on the other hand, writers and artists are also human beings and member of society. And as a human being, you do have an obligation to like try not to be pieces, she has a
Ryan Estrada
lot of things that make me feel icky. Do I think that should have been banned? Note? I think she’d be against the law? No, if that person went on Reddit, and went to MIT asshole and said, I wrote this book, am I the asshole? I might vote? Yes. But um, you know, that’s just what we’re talking about is how do we, as humans figure out how to treat each other well with our art? And do we want our art to make the world a better place? Or make someone feel gross?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, so one of the reasons I really wanted to talk about this topic is kind of personal. And this is something I actually learned about after my father passed away, I’m going to go into story mode. Here’s some deep lore for me. And I’m going to try very hard to avoid naming the writer in question because I don’t want to beef with this writer. I’m not mad at this writer. I don’t think they’re a bad person. I don’t want to start a war. I guess sometimes when you talk about a writer doing something wrong, people go like you should sue. They owe you money. They’re bad. And like I don’t actually want to hashtag cancel this person. I actually think they’re probably a probably a very nice person, and I wish them well. So but way back in the day way before I was born, this was like late 70s, maybe early 80s. My mother was friends in college with a writer who went on to be read really, really, really big and successful in fiction like, award winning author, book adapted into a movie with some Oscar winning actors in it like huge fucking deal. Huge, huge deal. This writer, you know, their friendship kind of drifted apart because mom moved out to New York and this writer did stayed in the state where they went to college. And you know, that’s just how it is people don’t drift apart after college. That’s how it goes. So my mother kept this writer’s books in in the house, and I wasn’t super interested in them. But I ended up picking up a copy of this writer’s first novel, which was like a really small one out of print. Not a very good book, to be honest, it’s not one of the acclaimed books. And I was really shocked because when I opened up the first page, I realized that this book was about my father, who my mother was dating in college when she was friends with with the writer. So my dad and this writer, they like hung out. They were friends, he, the writer was friends with my dad’s family, and you know, they just drifted apart after college as people do. But I was really astonished because on the first page, like the name is 75%, the same name, there’s just a couple of letters switched out the description of the living room like that is the living room of my father’s childhood home down to the pet dog in the refrigerator magnets. The relationship between the main character and his mother is, was how my dad’s relationship with was with his mother. The relationship between the main character in his kid sister is like 100%, how my dad and his younger sister used to bicker. And the story is about an adolescent main character going on a hitchhiking trip, which is something my dad did when he was in adolescent. So the author swears up and down that no, this isn’t based on you. This isn’t based on him, but like everyone who knows them goes, Yeah, this is 100% about your father. This is like, we all agree, like no, he 100% wrote this book about your father. And my dad didn’t mention this to me growing up, which I always thought was weird, because like, if that was me, I would brag about it. Like this massive prize winning author wrote about me, like basically wrote a fanfic about me like, holy shit, that’s really fucking cool. I’d be bragging about it. So then a few years after my father died, I ended up reading the book, I picked up a copy of it and read it. And I figured out why dad didn’t brag about this. And there were two reasons. And the first reason is that this main character, who was very clearly based on him is gay. And like, Dad was a really nice guy. But you know, he was a boomer, he was of that generation, not super 100% comfortable with gay stuff. And knowing that like, this author, who’s I should say, a male author, a gay male author, who was friends with his girlfriend, and then wife basically wrote like, a novel length gay fanfic about him, like, that’s a little much, you know, like, knowing that your girlfriend’s friend wrote a wrote and published gay fanfic about you was kind of weird. It’s a little uncomfortable. And the second reason is that there’s a section in this book where the main character, he’s going hitchhiking, he gets picked up by an older man, and kind of like, groomed or molested, or I don’t really know what the right word to use, in this instance, is. And this character is freaked out, because he’s, like, 12, or 13. But he’s also slightly into it, because he’s having a sexual awakening. And I’m like, Yeah, okay. Again, I can understand why dad did not brag about being featured in this novel. So I was kind of like blown away, after finishing this book that like he wrote this whole thing and got it published. And this is just something that was kind of known within my family that this book exists and is about this specific thing. So like, I’m not mad about this, I don’t want to start a beef with the writer. The book is old, it’s out of print. And it sounds like an interview. The writer is embarrassed about it. Now, he was a lot younger when he wrote it. It was his first novel. And usually your first novel kind of sucks anyway. But all I can think is like, you know, if my partner’s friend wrote a novel about me getting like, molested while hitchhiking, I’d feel pretty fucked up about it, you know? So that’s kind of why this topic kind of came up, and why I wanted to talk about it because I’m like, I don’t know what to do with this. You know, I read the book, after my father passed away. So I didn’t know the content of it. And I don’t know if I’d feel comfortable even asking him about it like, so. Tell me more about your friendship with this writer.
Ryan Estrada
Yeah, I mean, I wonder if, if this was something where, you know, you mentioned it’s an early book, he’s a little barest about it. It might have just been like he really he was writing a story about this character completely. It had nothing to do with your father. But then he kind of realized this character is kind of flat, it doesn’t have a personality. And because he’s, you know, still learning to write was just like, well, I’ll put aspects But from life and put too much of your father into this character after the fact or I don’t know if maybe he started with your father and then decided, well, I need to change it up and go from there or maybe Maybe your father like made a man the party once and he wanted to, like, who knows? Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
like I don’t I don’t know. And I’m not in contact with this writer so I don’t I haven’t asked him and I I’m so curious, like part of me wants to reach out to him and be like, so podcast. So did you have a crush on my dad? Did you write a novel length gay fanfic about my father and now you’ve won this and that literary prize and have met Meryl Streep? What the fuck it’s just so so strange. And I don’t know what to do with this or what to say about it or family’s not like scarred or mad or anything. We’re all like, yeah, that’s
Ryan Estrada
why I’m the guest on his podcast. Sounds like someone else needs to be on this podcast hashtag that would come. I know. I’m too. Yeah, feel free to feel free to rerecord Crillon with him.
R.S. Benedict
What were you thinking? I don’t know. I think he’s, he’s probably too big a deal to go on this. But
Ryan Estrada
you will make what I find funny is the things we’re talking about like that. This is definitely not a new thing. One of the funniest things. There’s a little writer, some people might know I call them Chucky dicks. Because we’re close. Charles Dickens. I did a project for local radio station once where I adapted all of his unknown 22 sequels to A Christmas Carol, that he put out every year to bank on the popularity and make more money. And he just got really, really lazy with them. And they’re just some of them are so bad. But there was one point where he’s just like he like I can’t think of another idea for one of these. And one of them is called McBee junction. It’s a Christmas horror story set in train station. And he said the only reason he wrote it is because he went to bugby Junction Train Station. And there was a waitress who didn’t recognize him and told me to pay for his meal up front because he thought he was going to dine and dash. So he wrote this entire book so that he could have someone walk into a haunted train station, and a really rude waitress was there and complain about this waitress. And so like, even even the greats are doing this. You did it. He did another one called somebody’s luggage. Like I said, he did one of these every year. And eventually he’s like, I don’t have time for this. We started hiring ghost writers. And then the ghost writers, all of a sudden were like, hey, you know, you got to start crediting us. We’ve been doing this for like, 10 years now. And he got so mad, he fired them all, and hired new ghost writers to write a book about a guy who found an old suitcase full of writing, and he published them himself. And all the writers were just so happy that their work was read. And they weren’t whining about needing needing their name on it. So he just wrote here, everyone he got mad at he just started writing books about why they’re jerks. So it’s, you know, even Charles Dickens did it.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, arguably, I mean, Dante, in Paradiso, the guide through Heaven is Beatrice. And that was a woman that he knew in real life, and I guess had a big crush on apparently, he met her twice in his life and like, was just madly in love with her and wrote her into this amazing poem as this beautiful embodiment of God’s love and this guide through heaven. And in some ways, it’s it’s really, really sweet. But I kind of wonder if I don’t know, modern day person would be like, Dude, that’s a bit much. You met this girl twice. You gotta you gotta chill out, Dante.
Ryan Estrada
And I think a lot of this, like I said, comes down to is it your story to tell? And if there’s a situation that happened to you, you’re processing the thoughts. Even if you’re fictionalizing it, it’s okay to tell it in a way that uses the the things that happened to you and the people that were in that situation, but you got to think about what’s your moral stance on? Is this going to cause pain for anyone that or discomfort for anyone that is not worth it? Is there another way I should think about this? And if you’re telling someone else’s story, you know, just taking their story without permission, isn’t that you know, and like I said, there’s a difference between telling a historical story that’s out there and, and then something that you’ve been entrusted with, there’s a different you want to think about that different. There’s so many different ways to think about this, when you write it that I don’t think anyone is in the position to you know, except for the people involved to say, you as a writer cannot do this. But you as a writer should think about what am I comfortable with doing and, and sometimes that’s going to cause controversy. You know, we talked those stories you mentioned is going to cause some controversy and people are gonna have different opinions and part of the consequences of, you know, putting real stuff into your fake stuff. Aren’t You’re being banned, you’re being canceled, you’re being you know, you’re going, you know, breaking the law being sued the consequences are, you might hurt someone, you might people might get angry at you people unrelated might judge you. And that’s something that they have the right to do just as much as you have the right to use these things in your story. So think about them before you do is kind of my what my take away from all this?
R.S. Benedict
Do you ever feel like a little bit of a vulture in a weird way? Like occasionally when you’re? Do you ever find yourself studying another person and like tics and mannerisms and thinking I might use this, I might use that I might use this description and then go like, am I being creepy? Right now, looking at looking at someone nearby in a crowded restaurant and thinking like, oh, I can use in
Ryan Estrada
the way my brain works. Like I every moment every day, every experience I have I think about as a narrative and like, oh, well, you know, what would I How would I write this? And so I’m always thinking about that in situations I’m in and it you know, it’s worth thinking about it myself, it kind of works out in a way that like, I’m never afraid of or upset about any situation because of a situation works out. Great, that’s great. And if it turns out horribly, I’m like, I’m gonna have so much material from this. So with the other people that are involved in that I do kind of have to, you know, I never look at a person and say, What can I take from this person. And it’s always kind of like, the things that get stuck in my head. I’m not looking for these things. But if I end up like, I keep thinking about, like, the way this person acts in the situation, it’s something that happens after the fact after I realized that I can’t stop thinking about it. And it’s kind of like, like, when a song gets stuck in your head, like I, as a writer, I’ll be like, Man, the the way that guy reacts to situations like this is really it makes me wonder what’s going on in his head. And like that kind of wondering kind of sometimes the story comes from like, this is the solution I came up with why someone would do that. That may not necessarily be why this person would do it. But now I have a story that I have to think about. If I use that in a story, is that person gonna look at it and be like, is that me, but usually my, my mind has wandered so much that it’s completely unrecognizable at that point, it started from this point, but it went on from it. So I work hard to make sure I never feel like a vulture because anytime I’m I feel like I’m actually putting a person’s story into my work. I make sure that they’re involved in that work, either bring them on as a co author, or I interview them and get their permission, if I feel that I haven’t expanded upon it enough that it’s not. It’s my own story now.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, that makes sense. I’ve definitely, I don’t want people to
Ryan Estrada
like be afraid of hanging out with feel like they’re staring at them be like, Oh, look at the weight, your glasses are crooked. I’m gonna make character quicker glasses. Judging every single action they make and figuring out how to fit into a character.
R.S. Benedict
Do you ever realize you’ve put maybe too much of a person into a book or something like that realize, like, oh, wow, this is way more based on this person than I intended it to be. That’s not good.
Ryan Estrada
I don’t think I ever have just because my mind wanders so quickly. Like it just, I start with one thing. And then within 10 minutes, I’ve completely moved on to something else, like a lot of my work, there are things that are based more on reality. But a lot of my stories are a situation that I was in, that I found fascinating, but doesn’t have a narrative. There’s no beginning, middle and end, like the student ambassador series all comes from when I was doing an ambassador to Australia. And that was just like a kind of a tour group that they sent us on. And it was an amazing experience for me. But if I’m like, I applied for a thing, and I got it, and they took me there and we drove in a bus and they took me to see some cows. And then I saw some crocodiles. Like that’s not a story. Yeah. So I have to figure out like, you know, these are the people I met these situations I had telling that story is not interesting. So how can I turn that into an exciting narrative? And then it kind of evolved into you know, this kids and Ambassador traveler on solves like international mysteries and to like, ah, like, it’s what were you doing this as a kid, you know, getting to go meet the mayor in a small town in Australia, and he shows you a crocodile. That’s just as exciting as like, you know, solving an international mystery. So I take that, and you know, there’s aspects of people that I met on that trip, but I don’t think that any of them would read this and be like, Oh, this is me. Because I kind of try to take not the people in the situations but the feelings that I had, and the excitement that I felt and how can I express that through fiction? Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
yeah, I’ve definitely let’s see a sim semi autobiographical story, they wrote one called more BA and it’s about a bunch of people who are working in a restaurant in a resort which that was one of my jobs and one of the most hateful part of my jobs was preparing a chocolate fountain by the way, if you ever get a chance to eat from a chocolate fountain do not eat from a chocolate fountain. They’re a Petri dish. There’s there’s very there’s a lot of bacteria in them. It’s not good. It’s not good. Chocolate is not good. Don’t eat chocolate fountain for your own sake. And we also just really hated it because preparing it was really gross and gloopy and messy and it was hard to clean up and it was just kind of nursed it. And I ended up like using so many elements from co workers that I had and aspects of that job, which was extremely fun, like, okay, there are pieces of this guy in my in this waiter character, there are pieces of that guy in this bartender character.
Ryan Estrada
I just remembered one situation where I wrote a book called Broken telephone, where it’s kind of a crime story where each chapter follows the villain of the story before it because everyone’s a hero of their own story, right. And I’d read this article about this guy that he just like, posted a picture he took of himself on Flickr or something. And then years later, he found out that somehow that picture of him holding up his fist had become like a symbol of a revolution in another country. And like, he had no idea like it just, you know, someone just looked up man holding up fist, and then turned it into like a graffiti cut out. And it was all over the city and all over protest posters. And that fascinated me, and I made a character who had a similar situation where his a picture of his tattoo became a symbol of revolution. But then in my character, like, actually, it got, you know, got into his head, and he thought he was a hero. And he went there to like, help fight the thing. And they’re like, Dude, we don’t need you. Like, we’re doing fine. You’re, you’re a meme. You’re not a hero. And I, and so I made that in a story. And I like after I made it, I’m like, Oh, wait, did I not? Did I kind of steal that guy’s story? Did I turn him into a jerk that I make a whole story about how misguided and dumb he is, even though he didn’t do any of this. So I did, after the book had been written, like, and I hired someone to illustrate it. And I’m like, if he’s offended by this, too, I have to, like, redo this and but I emailed them and told them my base part of the story on him. And I was like, it was just inspired by a half reading of this article about you. It’s, it’s not you. And like, showed it to him. And like, he seemed cool with it. So like, I felt I was fine. But I’m like, I really should have either contacted him beforehand, or even I did change. It was a completely different context, a completely different picture. Completely different story. Different country, the fictional country, but I’m like, what, you know, no one will see that and be like, Oh, this about this guy. But I’m like, what if that guy wanted to write a book about his situation one day, would I be taking that away from him? So that’s something where I felt like I really should have done more to think about that before. Luckily, he seemed cool about it. Oh, that’s good.
R.S. Benedict
I mean, he’s already been turned into a symbol of revolution. What’s one more fictional thing that’s kind of dropped
Ryan Estrada
out? Now he’s a comic book butthole.
R.S. Benedict
The life is a rich tapestry, I guess. All right. Well, we’ve been talking for about an hour, so why don’t we wind it down? Before we go? Where can our listeners find your work? Well, if
Ryan Estrada
you go to Ryan estrada.com, you’ll find all my work. There are lots of free comics, you can read lots of comics inspired by real stuff. And the books I have coming out later this year. Again, check out Student Ambassador the Silver City, which is second book in the series. That’s another one situations where it was a story that I loved but didn’t have a narrative when I moved to my grandfather’s hometown is that could take us Mexico. So I made a to get him solving international mystery there. That comes out in May. And then on October, no rules tonight comes out, which is my next collaboration with my wife. And it’s stories about in Korea back in the 70s and 80s, there was a curfew where if you’re out after midnight, you go to jail. And the one exception to that rule, because the curfew was started by American soldiers. Christmas Eve, you could stay out all night. And it wasn’t really a holiday in Korea, that anyone really had any specific traditions for. So Christmas Eve became the one night where you could do anything you want. So it’s a it’s a book about that sounds really cool. Check all that out. Go to Ryan estrada.com. And yeah, that’s me.
R.S. Benedict
Well, thanks very much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. And thank you all for listening. If you like what you heard, head to patreon.com/write Good and subscribe. Until next time, keep writing good.
Matthew Keeley
This has been Rite Gud with R.S. Benedict. It was hosted by RS Benedict and produced by Matt Keeley for KS Media LLC. Theme Song by OK Glass. For comments and concerns. Please write to us at ritegud@kittysneezes.com That’s R-I-T-E-G-U-D at Kittysneezes.com If you’d like to support us, please visit our Patreon at patreon.com/ritegud this has been a Kittysneezes production.