Getting Into You

At the end of the semi-autobiographical play Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang, [SPOILER ALERT] Hwang admits that the character he's been playing opposite, the main source of the drama of the play, is fictional: "Marcus, is a fictional character, created by me...because I'm a writer, and in the end, everything's always about me."

[END SPOILER ALERT]

I think Hwang had a point when he says "I'm a writer, and in the end, everything's always about me." (Sorry for the repeat, but I wanted the key piece to be on the other end of the spoiler alert so I could do the post without giving away the ending.) As writers, it is always about us. Because, in much the same way every aspect of a dream is a representative of the dreamer's psyche, the aspects of the story are representatives of the writer's psyche.

Let's face it, these characters are fictional. They might be based on real people. They might be inspired by true events. But the long and short of it, these are all a bunch of people we made up. (Hint: if you didn't make these people up, there might be problems in your future, even if it's just the friend who gets very mad that you killed them in the end.) And, because we made them up, they are little bits of us, and they do what we say (usually) and they say what we want (usually).

I'm not saying that everything that happens in a book in necessarily true of the author or the author's life, but that idea came from somewhere inside the author. It made it onto the page because the author had an idea and ran with it. Thus, some of that author did make it onto the page.

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams.

So, yes, in a way, it is all about us. Bits of us, anyway.

What do you think?